In this weekend preview we summarise the best five games to follow on your match feed. And make a couple of suggestions for matches that you may otherwise miss.
🏴 Premier League: Arsenal vs. Manchester City
To be fair, there are a few interesting clashes in the Premier League over the weekend but you’ll have to wait until the closing game of the round for the true headliner (for a league specific preview, click here).
Current leaders Manchester City travel to third placed Arsenal for the first competitive meeting between last season’s main protagonists in the title race. City could be overtaken (by Spurs or Liverpool) come kick-off but it’s likely that any winner in this game will then go in to the October international break sat top of the pile. Which would be motivation enough even without the remnants of that battle for the crown in 2022/23.
City won all six of their opening games this season but have since hit a sticky patch – losing to Newcastle in the Carabao Cup and at Wolves in the league, before Wednesday’s stabilising win, away to Leipzig in the Champions League. That run has coincided with the absence of the suspended Rodri who will also be missing for the trip to North London. For their part, the Gunners remain unbeaten in the league and following on from last month’s home draw against Tottenham, they’ve won consecutive away games at Brentford and Bournemouth without conceding a goal. In fact, only City have conceded less so far this season (five goals to Arsenal’s six). But coach Mikel Arteta will be looking for a response following Arsenal’s disappointing 2-1 defeat at French club Lens in their midweek Champions League fixture.
Technically, the two sides have faced one another already this season, in the August season opener – the Community Shield. That was a game that ended 1-1 with Arsenal then holding their nerve to win the resulting shoot-out by four goals to one.
🇮🇹 Serie A: Juventus vs. Torino
Saturday’s Derby della Mole, or Turin Derby, is this weekend’s headline game in Serie A. On paper, yes, this is one of the most one sided rivalries in European football but that’s not the point – there’s always a chance, however slim, that this time it’ll be different!
Since FotMob has been running (circa 2010 onwards), Torino have only beaten Juventus once, way back in 2015. There have been 18 meetings between the two sides since then with Juve winning 14 of those.
So, on paper, pretty much everything favours the Old Lady. And that would include the early season form from the new campaign. Juve currently sit fourth, four points below leaders Inter, and with four wins from their seven games. In contrast, Torino are 10th with two wins and three draws. It would seem that goal scoring is their issue – only Monza and the bottom four have scored less than their six goals, and it’s only those same four sides who have a lower xG than them (5.5), so they haven’t been creating chances either.
But in football there’s always hope!
🇪🇸 LaLiga: Real Madrid vs. Osasuna
Real Madrid return to league action on Saturday afternoon following Tuesday’s action-packed 3-2 win at Italian champions Napoli in the Champions League. Jude Bellingham continued his great start to life as a Madridista in that game, scoring his eighth goal since his summer move and assisting another, further enhancing his claim to being the best signing of the last transfer window.
And boss Carlo Ancelotti will be hoping that form continues as they face Osasuna, a side who’ve proven hard to beat in the Spanish capital, in recent seasons. The side from Pamplona have come away from the Bernabéu with draws in each of the last two years and they also pushed Madrid all the way when they last met, in the final of last season’s Copa del Rey. Madrid went on to lift the trophy that day, after a 2-1 victory, but that result didn’t stop Ancelotti from stating in the pre-match press conference that Madrid will have to be at their best to get the three points.
Should Madrid do so, however, they’ll extend their lead to four at the top of LaLiga, with nearest rivals Barcelona not in action until Sunday evening, when they travel to Granada. For their part, Osasuna sit in mid-table having ended a four game winless run with a win at Alavés last time out.
🇩🇪 Bundesliga: Stuttgart vs. Wolfsburg
A lot of the attention awarded to German football so far this season has, quite rightly, gone to Xabi Alonso and what he’s doing at Bayer Leverkusen, but don’t sleep on Stuttgart! Because there’s another team in form, and by virtue of playing on Saturday, it’s them who could top the table by the time Leverkusen (and yes, also Bayern) take to the field on Sunday.
Stuttgart have won five of their six games, the last four on the bounce, and they can boast the league’s top striker – Serhou Guirassy, who already has 10 goals to his name! In fact, Saturday’s meeting with Wolfsburg gives us a chance to see two strikers who are currently scoring at a rate of more than one a game, with Danish international Jonus Wind having scored seven in six for Wolfsburg.
The Wolves sit seventh in what is, as you’d expect at this point, a tightly compacted table having lost only twice. And they’ve actually conceded less goals than Stuttgart, it’s just that beyond Wind, they’ve not found a consistent route to goal. They’ve scored just nine altogether, to Stuttgart’s 19.
🇫🇷 Ligue 1: Lens vs. Lille
The Derby Days are coming thick and fast in the French top flight at the moment and following on from the likes of Le Classique – PSG vs. Marseille, Monaco vs. Nice, and Rennes vs. Nantes in recent weeks, it’s the turn of Northern rivals Lens and Lille to meet on Sunday.
The Derby de Nord usually guarantees a great atmosphere and if you saw any of Lens’ home win over Arsenal in the Champions League during the week, you’ll know exactly what you in for, should you sit down to watch this encounter. Lille also made headlines midweek, but for the wrong reasons, as they rested a few players, and consequently drew 0-0 at KÍ Klaksvík. The side from the Faroe Islands are making their debut appearance in the group stage of a European competition, namely, the Europa Conference League, and that was therefore their first ever point.
Back in Ligue 1, Lille have had the slightly better start to the new season, and sit seventh on 11 points from seven games. But they have been inconsistent, failing to put together any kind of unbeaten run thus far. For Lens, the hangover of running PSG close in the title race last season appears difficult to shake off – they’ve mustered just two wins and seven points from their seven games. But in contrast, they’ve drawn at Sevilla and beaten Arsenal in the Champions League, with those two league wins coming in between, so confidence may be returning for the boys in ‘blood and gold.’
Plus two hidden gems from a little deeper in your match feed…
🇧🇷 Brasileirão: Fluminense vs. Botafogo
For this week’s bonus games, we thought we’d bring some focus to a couple of ongoing title races around the world. And in Brazil, that means we need to talk about Botafogo, who, for a club founded 119 years ago, are gunning for what would be their first ever national league championship.
After a fantastic first half of the season, the Rio based club have faltered in recent weeks – something that saw a once very healthy lead in the table cut from the high teens to the seven point advantage they now hold on nearest rivals Red Bull Bragantino. A draw in their last game ended a run of three straight defeats and they’d only lost twice in the 21 games prior to that.
There is still a long way to go until the closing round at the start of December but we’re certainly reaching a critical point in the campaign.
On Sunday, Botafogo face city rivals Fluminense at the iconic Maracanã. The Tricolor sit sixth themselves, and will be keen to stay in contention for a top four finish and an automatic spot in next year’s Copa Libertadores. Speaking of which, Fernando Diniz’s side made history during the week, qualifying for this season’s Libertadores final after a late comeback saw them defeat fellow Brazilian’s Internacional in the second leg of the semi-finals. Flu are one of just a few of the country’s most famous clubs never to win South America’s biggest prize.
🇸🇪 Allsvenskan: Kalmar vs. Malmö
The end of the season is much closer in Sweden, where the Allsvenskan title looks to be a straight fight between Malmö and Elfsborg, with defending champions Häcken waiting in the wings for any serious slip-ups.
Malmö won the league in 2020, and 2021, but slipped to seventh last season, a rare low point in their recent history. They’ve responded to that well and with five games to go, they currently hold a one point advantage on Elfsborg, with Häcken four points further back in third.
This weekend, the games involving the top two are being played simultaneously on Sunday afternoon, with Malmö going to mid-table Kalmar. The last four games between these sides have all ended in 1-0 score lines – three in the favour of the leaders, one for Kalmar.
Keep your eye on this title race – if things remain as tight as they are now, we could have a final day decider on our hands as Malmö host Elfsborg on 12 November.
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Cover Image from IMAGO