Premier League Notebook Heading into Week 27
Fans of Premier League fantasy football may be cursing the presence of the Capital One Cup final on Sunday, but its influence might extend beyond simply affecting who 90 per cent of the population select as their captain instead of Eden Hazard this weekend.
Chelsea's game against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley means the Premier League clashes they were due to be involved in have both been rearranged, so Queens Park Rangers and Leicester City both have an unexpected week off.
QPR's game against Tottenham is now pencilled in for the following weekend (when other teams are involved in the FA Cup quarter-finals), whereas Leicester—still in the cup—have to wait until the end of April for their home game against Chelsea.
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The impact of all that will only reveal itself in time, but it should have ramifications at both the top and bottom of the table.
Should Manchester City win at Liverpool on Sunday, for example, they will move to within two points of the Blues at the top of the table—a slightly misleading gap that Jose Mourinho's side will not be able to fully address for almost two months. In the meantime, just one slip could see Chelsea knocked off the top.
Should City lose, however, then Chelsea will suddenly have a five-point lead and a game (one they would expect to win) in their back pocket, perhaps a tension-relieving psychological boost as they bid to finish off a league campaign they have led from start to finish. If they win at Wembley, Chelsea might well not look back.
City, the defending champions, have long been playing catch-up, and this weekend might be their final opportunity to really influence the direction of the title race. Win and turn the screw, or lose and see much of the tension slip away.
The fixture turmoil that comes with tournament success is to be expected at the top end of the table, but the influence it could also have at the bottom—where the financial imperatives are more drastic and the pressure is increasingly unrelenting—is unfortunate.
QPR are currently out of the relegation zone, albeit only on goal difference, but both Burnley (at home to Swansea City) and Aston Villa (away to a porous Newcastle United) have winnable games that could leave Chris Ramsey's side three points from safety. That will heighten the pressure on QPR's game with Spurs, something that may hinder them more than it helps.
Leicester, however, stand to lose out the worst. Say, for example, that all three teams above them end up winning their next games. Suddenly, the Foxes will be seven points from safety with a game in hand, but that game is against the champions-elect.
Yes, they will have had an extra week off to recharge and refocus ahead of the run-in, but their return to action comes away to Manchester City—a game they will hardly expect to get anything from.
The game against Chelsea, when it finally arrives, will also come right between two vital matches, away to Burnley and at home to Newcastle. That's a span of three games in seven days that will marginally diminish Leicester's chances of winning each of them. Nigel Pearson would probably have just preferred to get the game against the league-leaders out of the way now even if it meant taking another defeat, but those are the breaks when you are struggling.
Leicester have been poor this season, but this week is another example of when circumstances have not conspired to assist them.
Week 27 Fixtures
All games 3 p.m. GMT (10 a.m. ET) unless otherwise stated.
Saturday
West Ham United vs. Crystal Palace (12:45 p.m.)
Burnley vs. Swansea City
Manchester United vs. Sunderland
Newcastle United vs. Aston Villa
Stoke City vs. Hull City
West Bromwich Albion vs. Southampton
Sunday
Liverpool vs. Manchester City (12 p.m.)
Arsenal vs. Everton (2:05 p.m.)
Also: Chelsea vs. Tottenham Hotspur (Capital One Cup final, 4 p.m.)
1. What to Watch out for This Week
Giroud and Soldado Divided by Circumstances
Watching the European games in midweek, it was tempting to wonder if proceedings forced Arsene Wenger and Mauricio Pochettino to finally accept some unpalatable truths: neither Olivier Giroud nor Roberto Soldado are good enough to be relied upon going forward.
Both strikers were guilty of some heinous misses in their clubs' respective European ties, failures that led to Spurs' elimination in Soldado's case and left Arsenal on the verge of the same fate in Giroud's.
Soldado has long been the backup under Pochettino, especially since Harry Kane's rapid rise, but now the Argentinian might wonder if the ex-Valencia man is even fit for that particular role. In the modern game, you need a range of options to cope with the strains of the season, yet on Thursday, Soldado conspicuously failed to make a positive contribution.
That might mean he plays nothing more than cameo roles over the remainder of the season unless injuries throw him a lifeline. Giroud, on the other hand, might be more lucky. Arsenal do not appear to have another striker capable of filling that central role (is Danny Welbeck really the answer?), giving the Frenchman an opportunity to redeem himself. His reckoning might come in the summer, however, when Wenger could buy a new multimillion-pound striker to lead his attack.
Continental Hangover Effect
Led by the efforts of Giroud and Soldado, it was a particularly poor week for English football, with Everton the only team to progress to the next stage of the Europa League and Chelsea perhaps the only team likely to progress in the Champions League.
Considering those disappointments, it will be interesting to see how the teams react. Liverpool face Manchester City with both looking to rebound, although Liverpool's task is surely made harder by the fact they only returned to Merseyside in the early hours of Friday morning after playing 120 minutes of football and enduring a penalty shootout in Istanbul.
Arsenal, meanwhile, might face something of a backlash from fans as they return to the Emirates Stadium to face Everton. The Toffees cruised against Young Boys, but they have only won two of their seven games following European matches this term—a key reason for their disappointing domestic season.
Pressure on Sherwood Already?
Aston Villa may have been unlucky in their defeat to Stoke City last time out, but concerns are already swirling around new manager Tim Sherwood. You have to hope he is better on the training ground than he is in front of the press, as a bizarre midweek press conference raised real questions about his preparedness for the job.
Much of the following barely makes sense. Via Sky Sports, Sherwood said:
"We've had five days training. Of course it's going to take time. I've managed for one game and scored one goal—good ratio.
We've got as much time as we can. Whatever time is left we have to get the job done.
They're obviously very disappointed [after the Stoke defeat]. I hope they share the same disappointment as I had although they showed the disappointment to the fans.
We need to go out and do it for ourselves now and if we can get as many points as possible then we're going to fail trying, that's for sure.
"
Currently on 22 points, a conservative estimate would be to say that Villa probably need 12 more from their final 12 games to stay up. They have five games against sides in the top eight left, and two against their nearest relegation rivals, QPR and Burnley. All things considered, they could really do with getting at least a point against Newcastle on Saturday.
N'Doye the Wild Card for Tigers?
Top strikers never go out of fashion, and in Dame N'Doye, it looks like Hull City might finally have stumbled across one who can save their season.
After the market misfires that were bringing Hatem Ben Arfa and, to a lesser extent, Gaston Ramirez to the club, Steve Bruce seems to have finally found a finisher capable of producing the goals that will keep the club in the division.
Bruce praised his new striker, via Hull City's Twitter account:
N'Doye has two in two games for the club and will be looking to keep that streak going against Stoke City. Such prolific finishing might not continue in the long term, but even if it only continues for a few more weeks, that could well prove to be the difference between Hull and the teams around them.
2. Video of the Week
3. Player to Watch
Harry Kane
We briefly move away from Premier League action for the biggest game of the weekend, which sees Tottenham face Chelsea at Wembley to contest the first silverware of the year.
The Blues are narrow favourites, although it was Spurs who won the last meeting between the two sides in a 5-3 thriller at White Hart Lane.
On that occasion, Harry Kane was the star of the show, just as he has been on many occasions this season. It was the first time many members of the Blues defence had come up against the 21-year-old, and they struggled horribly with the task.
The question, however, is whether Kane can repeat such a performance again—on an even bigger stage—or whether Chelsea's experienced players will have worked out how to play him after gaining a bit of insight the first time around.
Kane has created a huge stir with his goalscoring this campaign, but some remain unsure whether he can sustain such form forever. We almost assume that his current run of form is an aberration rather than the start of a great Tottenham career.
His performance on Sunday could give us some real clues about his long-term potential. If he plays well again, scores again and helps Spurs to victory again, then perhaps it is time for all to get really excited.
If Chelsea keep him quiet, however, and he fluffs his lines in the biggest game of his career to date, then perhaps Kane's long-term level will not be as high as we are all currently hoping.
4. Game of the Weekend
Liverpool vs. Manchester City
Knocked out of the Europa League on Thursday, Liverpool's potential routes back into the Champions League next season have suddenly been reduced to one: finishing in the top four in the Premier League. Tottenham face the same task after their own defeat at the hands of Fiorentina. Unfortunately, the way the table currently looks, it seems only one of the two will be successful.
Liverpool currently have the momentum in their favour, having moved within two points of the all-important fourth spot thanks to some impressive form since the turn of the year. But that only means the pressure will increase with every passing match.
The Reds really need to beat Manchester City to keep moving forward—defeat could see them drop five points off the pace again—but Manuel Pellegrini's side will not make it easy for them.
City will want to respond after a disappointing midweek performance against Barcelona, while more pressingly, they need to win and apply some real pressure to Chelsea at the top of the table. Defeat could be similarly influential for City, as they could suddenly be nearer to third than first.
Pellegrini's side have also had an extra two days to prepare for this meeting, with Liverpool scrambling to recover following Thursday's efforts in Besiktas.
It should be an intriguing game, testing the mental and physical resolve of both sides—along with the tactical attributes of the two managers.
"That extra period of 48 hours that City have could be crucial, certainly physically, especially as we will have very little preparation time," Rodgers said, per David Lynch of the Manchester Evening News before the Besiktas game.
"It’ll just be about recovery," he added. "We can’t train on the pitch at Anfield, we can’t make it any worse than it is, so we’re having to train during the day.
"But that’s the way it’s been dealt and we’ll deal with it the best we can. The players have had lots of challenges to overcome this season, and we are ready to keep performing and doing the best we can."
