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: Manchester City vs. Manchester United
Sunday’s Manchester Derby doesn’t really need an introduction does it? We know it’s a massive game. But it also comes at a fairly crucial juncture for both sides of the city.
The Sky Blue side found their shooting boots in the week, Erling Haaland scoring five in the 6-2 FA Cup win over Luton Town, a result that came after City had only managed one goal per game in their last three Premier League outings.
Pep Guardiola’s defending champions remain unbeaten in 18 games, a run that goes back to the start of December, and a victory against their arch-rivals here could see them go top of the league, depending on Liverpool’s result – the Reds face Nottingham Forest 24 hours earlier. As it stands, City start the weekend one point down on Liverpool, and five goals worse off in terms of goal difference, something that could come into play as the title race intensifies.
For United, a positive result in the Derby would constitute their biggest win since news of the INEOS ownership change, and prove that last week’s home defeat to Fulham was just a blip. Results for Erik ten Hag’s side have improved in 2024, generally speaking, with that being their only defeat since the turn of the year. United have been grinding out results with the form of Rasmus Højlund helping them to pick up wins against the likes of Wolves, West Ham, and Luton in the league – although the Dane will miss this game through injury. His teammates did also find a way past Nottingham Forest, beating them 1-0 in the FA Cup during the week.
In terms of recent derbies, the form lies with City. They’ve won six of the last 10 fixtures between the two, with United winning three. The aggregate score during that time has been 20 to 11 in City’s favour.
🇪🇸 LaLiga: Athletic Club vs. Barcelona
This is one of the classic LaLiga fixtures, featuring two of the three sides that have never been relegated from Spain’s top flight (the other being Real Madrid). The city of Bilbao will probably still be partying by the time we reach kick-off in this game on Sunday night, so Barcelona can expect to encounter a fervent atmosphere – that’s because their club qualified for a 40th Copa del Rey final by completing a 4-0 aggregate victory over Atlético Madrid on Thursday night.
Only Barcelona have reached more finals than the Basque Club, but it was Athletic who stopped Barça adding to their own tally this season, by beating them when they met at the quarter-final stage back in January. Ex-Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde has made Athletic a very tough nut to crack this season – in fact, only Real Madrid have beaten them at their San Mamés fortress. They tend not to dominate teams – they had 40% of possession in the victory over Atlético, and marginally less in the quarter-final against Barcelona (39%) but they are highly effective on the break – they ran out 4-2 winners after extra time in that last meeting.
Since that defeat, though, Barcelona have lost just once in seven games, and they can boast an eight point advantage in the league table, with the Catalonians in third, and the Basques in fifth. In fact, with Girona’s momentum now starting to wain, it looks like Xavi’s side are the most likely candidates to finish as runners-up this season, with Madrid still another eight points better off above them in the standings.
Last weekend, Barcelona thrashed Getafe 4-0 and with the second leg of their Champions League tie with Napoli still over a week away, they will field as strong a starting line-up as injuries allow for this crunch game in the race for next year’s European places.
🇮🇹 Serie A: Napoli vs. Juventus
Moving to Italy, and sticking with Sunday’s biggest matches, there’s a meeting between outgoing champions Napoli, and Juventus, this seasons’ main challengers to runaway leaders Inter. Juve sit 12 points down on the Nerazzurri but with Inter not in action until Monday this game does, at least, give them a chance to cut that lead down to single figures!
Napoli are famously on to their third new coach of the season as their title defence lies in tatters. But results have been positive under Francesco Calzona so far, with the Slovakian national team boss now working two jobs at once! They drew with Barcelona in the Champions League, then drew with Cagliari, before going to Sassuolo in midweek, where the deadly partnership of Victor Osimhen and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia really came to the fore, scoring five of the goals between them in a 6-1 win. That result left them ninth in the table.
Juve’s form has dipped over the same period, with Maxi Allegri’s side seemingly slow to recover from defeat to rivals Inter at the start of February. They lost their next game, then drew with Verona, before finally getting back to winning ways last weekend. But only just. They needed a stoppage time winner from Daniele Rugani to beat Frosinone 3-2.
The form of Dušan Vlahović has been good, though, with the Serbian scoring nine in nine games so far in 2024.
🇫🇷 Ligue 1: Monaco vs. PSG
On Friday night, in what will probably be the last league game that Kylian Mbappé plays against his former club before his long awaited departure, PSG travel to the principality to face Monaco.
ASM have put together an interesting squad this season and earlier in the campaign they looked best placed to challenge PSG’s dominance at the top of French football. Sadly for them, though, a 5-2 defeat in Paris rather put paid to that back in November. That led to an indifferent period of form that they appear to only just be coming out of – losing to Toulouse recently, but also beating Nice and Lens, two of the other sides vying for a Champions League place. Now, they find themselves third, two points behind Brest, and 13 below PSG.
The Champions haven’t lost since Matchday 4 in the Champions League group stage back in November. They’ve won 14 of their subsequent 19 competitive games since then and look well placed to progress to the Champions League quarter-finals, if they can defend their 2-0 lead from the first leg of their Round of 16 tie with Real Sociedad, when they go to Spain on Tuesday.
Mbappé has, as usual, been scoring for fun and boasts a record of 21 in 21 league games so far this season. He did fail to find the net last weekend though, with Gonçalo Ramos rescuing a 1-1 draw in injury time, against Rennes. And earlier today, we took a look at the form of Bradley Barcola, perhaps the next PSG starlet who can carry on from Mbappé next season. You can find that piece by clicking – here.
🇩🇪 Bundesliga: FC Köln vs. Bayer Leverkusen
In Germany, Bayer Leverkusen sit eight points clear of perennial champions Bayern and look set to finally end their reign in the Bundesliga. But this weekend, one of their local Rhine rivals will be hoping to derail that title charge.
Xabi Alonso’s side visit FC Köln, with the Billy Goats probably looking to this Derby for something to distract them from their current plight. The Cologne club sit 16th, marooned in the relegation play-off spot, eight points adrift of Bochum in 15th. They’ve won just three games this season and are the divisions’ lowest scorers with 16 goals to their name, or just 0.7 goals per game.
In contrast, Leverkusen are scoring at a rate of 2.6 goals per game and coincidentally, conceding at a rate of 0.7 goals per game. Their form is record breaking, famously, with the club now unbeaten in 33 domestic matches. They beat the national record with last weekend’s 2-1 win over Mainz.
Obviously, on paper, this doesn’t look like being the game that ends that run but with local bragging rights at stake, you never know! And FC Köln have won two of the last five meetings between the two. Stranger things have happened in football.
Plus two further suggestions, from the title races elsewhere in Europe…
🇳🇱 Eredivisie: PSV vs. Feyenoord
In this week’s bonus section, we’ve got a couple of massive games for you. We’ll start with Sunday’s clash between the top two in the Netherlands. PSV are on a similar run to Leverkusen in neighbouring Germany, unbeaten in 23 league games, and sitting pretty, 10 points clear of their nearest rivals – Feyenoord, the defending champions.
With 11 games to go, and both matches against Ajax been and gone, this fixture is probably the toughest PSV have left, meaning a win here should give them the confidence to go on and claim their first title since 2018 – the last of a hat-trick of title wins in the last decade. Feyenoord, obviously, will be out to stop them, and they come in to the weekend on form, having beaten Groningen to qualify for the KNVB Cup final on Thursday night.
🇵🇹 Liga Portugal: FC Porto vs. Benfica
Portuguese league leaders Benfica are in the middle of what could be a crucial week for their season. On Thursday, they lost the first leg of a Taça de Portugal semi-final at city rivals Sporting. Now, this weekend, they face FC Porto in O Classico, Portugal’s biggest national rivalry. And then, they have the first leg of their Europa League knockout clash with Rangers to contend with next Thursday evening.
Having finished first or second in each of the previous seven seasons, Porto find themselves a relatively distant third this time around. Having run Benfica so close to the title last season (Benfica prevailed by two points), Porto now sit nine points down on their rivals, and seven down on second placed Sporting, who also boast a game in hand.
Benfica, then, can’t afford to slip up here, with Sporting breathing down their necks. But that midweek defeat was their first since the opening round of the campaign, domestically speaking, and they’ve already beaten Porto 1-0 in the league, and 2-0 in the Super Cup this season.
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Images from IMAGO