MAN UTD vs LIVERPOOL
Sunday 6th April, 3:30pm
Man Utd @ 7/2
Liverpool @ 8/13
Draw @ 18/5
view odds
Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 Western The Hateful Eight offers a well-crafted, intoxicating combination action and suspense. But can any of cinema’s undisputed masters craft a celluloid confection to compete with the real, knotty, protracted collision that is currently taking place at the summit of the Premier League table?
With a fateful eight games left to go, the situation remains impeccably poised; and the final outcome is still incredibly difficult to predict.
The films of Tarantino owe a great debt to Spaghetti Western head honcho, Sergio Leone – the Italian director’s equally influential composer Ennio Morricone was even hired to compose the score for The Hateful Eight. And in one of Leone’s most famous films – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – a Mexican Stand-off occurs at the climax, where the three main characters fatefully point guns at each other in an iconic cinematic tableau.
Are we heading towards a superior, footballing incarnation of this scene? Can the sharp-shooting Premier League contenders hold their nerve and sustain the current level of tension until the very end; right up to the final game?
This week’s results suggest they can. Though if that eventuality transpires, I sincerely hope – unlike The Hateful Eight and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – that the last day of the season concludes with significantly less blood splatter…and far fewer dead bodies.
Arsenal enjoyed a comfortable home win over Luton Town on Wednesday night. And it was a victory achieved via the help of a few of their minor characters. Emile Smith Rowe, Thomas Partey and Reiss Nelson put smiles Gunners’ faces; and scowls on Fantasy Premier League mangers who were hoping to see Bukayo Saka rack up some points.
This rotation of players and the subsequent stress-free display posits the question: have Arsenal learned important lessons from their ‘Devon Loch-ing’ towards the end of last year’s campaign? The Gunners head down to Brighton on Saturday evening to hopefully provide some more evidence.
A stunning second-half display against Aston Villa showed that Manchester City’s trigger-fingers are far from tiring too. Guardiola, like Arteta, took the opportunity to rotate his squad; leaving his two best players on the bench. Or did he? It could be argued, certainly based on a good chunk of this season, that his two best players are Rodri and Phil Foden. Some might say, to paraphrase big City fan Liam Gallagher, that it’s not even close.
Manchester City commence Gameweek 32 by heading down to Crystal Palace for a 12:30pm kick-off on Saturday. Aside from Tottenham Hotspur (away), City’s remaining Premier League fixtures all look like comfortable wins. But will that be enough?
Because Liverpool remain top. And they don’t look much like losing either. Though they have, infamously, let things slip in the past.
This weekend’s biggest game sees Liverpool head back to Old Trafford for a 3:30pm kick-off on Sunday. A match that will pit a team who are finding new ways to lose, against a team finding new ways to score – the mere presence of Darwin Núñez now seems to be enough to force the ball into the net from unlikely areas.
A few weeks can feel like a long time in football, and Manchester United’s thrilling FA Cup win on March 17th already looks like it was an anomaly – for both teams – rather than a significant momentum sea change marker that some heralded it to be. Liverpool will again arrive as favourites to re-assert their dominance of the North West perch.
The pendulum of momentum has swung very quickly, and in many different directions, over the course of this season. Will we see another unexpected swing this weekend? Will anyone make it through the remaining fateful eight games without sustaining any serious damage?
For all your bets on the Premier League, visit our dedicated football betting page.
