The best action to follow this weekend
Saturday
??????? Today is action packed and particularly in England where there are seven Premier League games on the schedule. First up Arsenal, perhaps buoyed by their Carabao Cup win in midweek will be trying to break their league duck at Manchester City.
And Liverpool host Chelsea in a rivalry that has become pretty intense over the past few seasons. Elsewhere, early leaders West Ham United welcome fellow Londoners, Crystal Palace to the former Olympic Stadium.
?? There’s four games on the slate in La Liga today, and a couple of the main contenders do feature. Putting transfer speculation to one side, at least for 90 minutes, Real Madrid need to concentrate on a tough trip to Real Betis who despite drawing both their fixtures so far, do usually put up a fight against the big boys. Meanwhile, Betis’ city rivals Sevilla visit Elche in the other big game of the day.
?? In Serie A, Juventus play their first game of the post-Ronaldo era, at home to newly promoted side Empoli. What sort of team will Allegri put out now he doesn’t have to be build it around one player? And how will their fair having had to settle for a draw after letting slip a 2-0 lead at Udinese last week… and then have an injury time winner ruled out by VAR?
?? Bayern München, who as usual are going about their transfer business in an orderly manner play what will be the third game of their latest Bundesliga title defence, at home against Hertha.
? And just because we know everyone loves a derby, we thought we’d point you in the direction of the English Championship – where Wayne Rooney’s Derby County face near-neighbours Nottingham Forest AND Bristol City make the shot trip across the Severn Bridge from England to Wales in order to play Cardiff City.
Lastly, in MLS there’s the latest edition of El Tráfico to look forward to – LAFC vs. LA Galaxy.
Sunday
?? Tomorrow’s batch of La Liga matches begins with Barcelona at home to Getafe and ends with perhaps the most interesting game in the league this weekend. Reigning champions Atlético Madrid against last season’s Europa League winners, Villarreal.
??????? All being well, given recent COVID related issues amongst the home team squad, the Scottish Premiership gives us one of World football’s biggest, and most intense games – Rangers vs. Celtic.
Both teams successfully qualified for the Europa League group stages on Thursday night but we’ll have to see whether Rangers’ longer return trip, from Armenia compared to a short hop from the Netherlands for Celtic will have any bearing on the result. The defending champions are unbeaten in six against their Old Firm rivals.
?? Heading back to Italy, José Mourinho’s impressive looking Roma side play Salernitana, who were recently promoted back to Serie A for the first time in 23 years. And elsewhere, Milan face off against Cagliari.
??????? With the international break starting on Monday, we get all all three of the remaining games in this round of the Premier League taking place tomorrow. Burnley entertain Leeds United. Tottenham Hotspur, fresh from their progression in the Europa Conference League host Watford and later Manchester United play away at Wolves.
We’ll have to wait and see whether you know who gets a watching brief for that one.
?? And as we’ve just alluded to of the world’s biggest players – we better mention the other one as it is being reported that Lionel Messi is set to make his PSG debut at some point during their trip to Reims.
You might want to set your alerts for that one. ?
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