Every week we preview three fascinating things to look out for in the big Premier League games, with further analysis from Betfair’s Football…Only Bettor podcast. This week, we’re also taking a special look at the Carabao Cup final between Man City and Tottenham.
Oh and our Alex Keble has landed three Trebles in a row…
Frustrating Everton in season-defining moment
Everton have failed to win any of their last five Premier League matches, falling away at the worst possible moment. All of a sudden they face a collapse that could see them sat outside the top ten within a fortnight – and yet if they had just beaten Burnley in March, they would be three points off fourth with a game in hand. This is a fickle business, and the race for Champions League football could hardly be tighter.
Their trip to the Emirates on Friday is a season-defining moment. Lose, and this is officially a slump, with Arsenal, Leeds and Aston Villa all hopeful of catching Carlo Ancelotti’s side before the season is over. Win and they are right back in the race.
The result is impossible to predict. Arsenal and Everton are equally weird, capable of bursts of electric attacking football and hopeless defending, but with confidence low in both camps and attackers like James Rodriguez and Alexandre Lacazette in form, there should be plenty of goalmouth action.
West Ham’s crunch match has new symbolic meaning
At the time of writing only three of the top 11 teams in the Premier League has won their most recent fixture. An exhausting campaign like no other appears to have prevented anyone from pulling clear in the various races for European football, but that is bound to change as we enter the final furlong and it is the most refreshed – physically and mentally – who will probably string those wins together.
Chelsea, then, are perhaps best placed to pull clear, making their six-pointer at West Ham United on Saturday the stand-out game of the round. Defeat for David Moyes will effectively leave them four points behind (such is Chelsea’s superior goal difference) with five games left to play, which at the top end of the table usually signals the end of a challenge.
Chelsea’s 0-0 draw with Brighton, overshadowed by the developing Super League story, saw the reconsolidation of Thomas Tuchel’s rigid structure and carefully sculpted possession football. They continue to lack a cutting edge, however, which hands West Ham the chance to sit in a typically-conservative shape, refusing to engage too high as they shimmy across to block Chelsea from getting into the final third. One quick counter-attack, one set-piece goal, could be enough for West Ham to pull three points clear.
The match has particular significance for the wider game following this week’s aborted Super League proposals. Some will argue that West Ham qualifying for the Champions League would score a victory for football and show up the ‘Big Six’, exposing their hubris and humiliating the privileged owners who believe they have a divine right to sit at the top table.
But this is a time for solidarity among fans. Events over the last 72 hours ought to sharpen our minds; ought to make us see once and for all that tribalism between supporters helps create the circumstances for unchecked greed in boardrooms; ought to show that Chelsea Football Club is not its owners, but rather an historic institution that belongs to supporters who did not ask for the hyper-capitalism of the modern game and, by and large, do not want it.
Nevertheless perhaps the only way to remove these owners is to hit them where it hurts, which means seeing their business suffer as a consequence of their attempt to destroy our game, whether that’s fines, bans, points deductions, or simply cheering on their rivals.
Would a West Ham win on Saturday be a victory for football? Honestly, this is all a grey area. How we choose to answer that question gets to the heart of what a football club really represents – and how we disentangle fans and players from their billionaire owners.
From Betfair’s Football…Only Bettor podcast: “West Ham have conceded 10 goals in their last four matches which is alarming for a team chasing Champions League football. They have six defeats in nine against the top six so often fall short against the big teams.”
Back double chance West Ham/draw at 1/1
Ryan Mason’s Wembley visit is the peak of this absurd season
One thing’s for sure, we will never forget the 2020/21 season. From empty stadiums to ridiculous score-lines to the Super League fall-out and beyond, very little has made sense. An absurdist fever dream of a campaign has tumbled out in the middle of a global crisis, and no club encapsulates the madness quite like Tottenham Hotspur.
From top of the table in November to a spring collapse, from Super League announcement and retraction to the manager change in between, their campaign feels decades old. It speaks to the dizzying nonsense of it all that 29-year-old Ryan Mason is about to lead Spurs out in a cup final at Wembley. Where on earth did that come from?
Whatever happens under interim manager Mason, he is bound to be more popular than Jose Mourinho having already promised to be ‘brave and aggressive, to play like Tottenham Hotspur’ – presumably a reference to the Mauricio Pochettino era. And he won his first game 2-1.
In the weeks to come, Spurs have serious questions to answer about their ownership and Daniel Levy’s place at the club, with the Tottenham chairman now cast as the villain following the Super League scandal. The change in opinion towards Levy will only lead to further damning scrutiny of his decision to sack Pochettino and hire Mourinho (incidentally, having fired the very man who took Tottenham to top-four level, perhaps we should not be surprised Levy was so quick to betray English football despite everything it has given Tottenham).
But for now, Sunday is a day for Spurs fans to enjoy. The toxic Mourinho has gone, and that should provide a major spring in the step of their players. A final that looked certain to go Manchester City’s way now looks a whole lot more competitive, not least because, as 2020/21 has shown us, anything can happen in football: “a crazy, crazy sport” as Mason said on Tuesday.
From Betfair’s Football…Only Bettor podcast: “I think Spurs have less of a chance of winning the Carabao Cup final than they did under Mourinho who, for all his faults, knows how to prepare a team for the big occasion, has won this competition with two other clubs and got the better of Pep Guardiola a few times.”
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