MAN CITY vs LIVERPOOL
Sunday 11th November, 4:30pm
Man City @ 14/5
Draw @ 16/5
Liverpool @ 16/5
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We are now a third of the way through the 2023/24 Premier League season and we have been inundated with incident – goals, fouls, rants, technological controversies, and more players being sent-off than ever before. But, curiously, we are yet to see our first managerial sacking.
There is also a rumbling sense of anticipation that, contrary to pre-season expectation, we might actually have a title race on our hands. Obviously we have been fooled before – and may well be again (and again) – but with just three points currently separating the top five there are genuine reasons to hopeful.
This nascent optimism could be dramatically fuelled or felled following the first fixture of the weekend. Manchester City v Liverpool is a 12:30pm kick-off on Saturday. Two of the division’s biggest cards are being placed onto the table early doors: it’s 1st v 2nd, it’s Guardiola v Klopp, it’s Haaland v Salah.
But despite this huge clash opening the festivities of Gameweek 13, there will be absolutely no feeling of ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’. Because, only a few minutes post the final whistle peep at The Etihad, another resplendent parade of elite footballing wares is set to be unfurled. Newcastle v Chelsea is a 3pm Saturday kick-off.
After everything that has happened to them so far this season – the action, the sentences scrawled, the column inches carefully crafted – and despite being the only club to beat Arsenal in the Premier League; Newcastle, somehow, sit 7th in the table. For all their efforts, they are actually below Manchester United.
While statisticians devise complex equations and fill whiteboards with frantic, wiry workings-out to try and understand exactly how this has happened, Eddie Howe will know that although this weekend’s opponents lie a similarly unexpected 10th, they most likely won’t be there for much longer.
Chelsea are coming to the end of a horrendous run of fixtures; and, while they have won only one of their last four outings, it is becoming clear that the skeleton of a very good team is calcifying at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea are also still in the hunt for an audacious, if previously unheralded, Premier League achievement. Following their chaotic 4-1 destruction of Tottenham Hotspur, and the dizzying 4-4 ding-dong against Manchester City, there is a question that ought to be asked: has any team ever completed a hat-trick of Match of the Season contenders?
In the early stages of the campaign, non-Blues fans were mostly tuning into their games for a bit of a laugh – for the chance to witness a gilded menagerie capitulate; fail to cohere against sides whose wage bill was smaller than the Chelsea dry-cleaning tab.
But now people are tuning-in to their games expecting thrills. And a big part of this transformation has been the sudden rise to prominence of one player.
He was the last to arrive when the summer transfer window closed – with many questioning the wisdom of the signing – but now he is one of the first names on the team-sheet. Confidently stepping-up to take a last-minute penalty to salvage a point against his former club in his last outing, at the age of 21; it is difficult not to be impressed by the fast-rising Wythenshawe forward.
‘Taking coals to Newcastle’ is an old phrase that implies a particular task is a waste of time – historically, the North East city had heaps of the stuff, and certainly didn’t need any more delivered. But there is no doubt that Chelsea will be taking their new Net King, Cole Palmer, up to Newcastle on Saturday – and The Toon will be wary.
With a chance to complete a trilogy of classics, Chelsea v Newcastle could well be unforgettable…
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