Ten talking points from the weekend football
Ten things to look out for in this weekend's football
Can Manchester United make a statement, why is the FA Cup being undermined, and will the Championship be closer to a conclusion by Sunday evening?
Nick Ames and Paul Doyle
Fri 17 Apr 2015 03.30 EDT Last modified on Mon 31 Dec 2018 05.47 EST
Has the FA Cup been sidelined, is Burnley's work rate enough, has Louis Van Gaal cracked it, and will Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink steer Burton up? Photograph: Rex/Getty/AFP
1) Manchester United can set down an early marker for next season
Chelsea have not quite faltered of late, but you can take or leave most of their recent performances and it is tempting to wonder just how much more interesting the rest of the season would be if the teams directly beneath them had put their houses in order sooner. Saturday's match with Manchester United at Stamford Bridge should help us reach a conclusion and might provide a dress rehearsal for encounters of more consequence next season. If the talk around Old Trafford has been of pennies dropping in the last month, victory for Louis van Gaal's team might point towards a clattering release of gold ingots. Nobody disputed their superiority during a tough run against Tottenham, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Manchester City; much more of the same would provide persuasive evidence of their revival and set an early marker for 2015-16. Is that all it would do? Probably – although if United do take the points then, with Chelsea visiting Arsenal next Sunday, there are bound to be excitable headlines about the revival of a meaningful title race. In reality it would be foolhardy to expect a change in the status quo, but it would do the league no harm to go into the summer with things having tightened at the top. Nick Ames
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2) With or without Clyne, can Southampton gatecrash the top four?
Ronald Koeman claimed he left Nathaniel Clyne on the bench last week because the right-back was tired and not because of the stalled contract talks and mounting transfer speculation surrounding an excellent player. So it will be interesting to see whether the 24-year-old starts on Saturday. The uncertainty around Clyne offers a reminder of the upheaval Southampton endured last summer and, of course, of the splendid job done since then. Indeed, the team coped fine without Clyne last week, with Maya Yoshida looking assured in central defence as Toby Alderweireld manned the right-back slot. Whoever Koeman selects at the Britannia, surely all right-thinking folks will be hoping for a Southampton win? Nothing against Stoke, who have also been admirable this season, it is just that it would be heartening to see Saints gatecrash the top four and take a Champions League spot. A win this weekend could help tee up a mouthwatering showdown with Manchester City on the final day of the season. Paul Doyle
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3) Tables turned as Pulis returns to Palace under pressure
Tony Pulis, you suspect, did not foresee this scenario. When he walked away from Crystal Palace at the start of the season it was basically because he did not think the club had the players to improve on last season's finish or, indeed, that they might sink back into relegation bother. And under Neil Warnock, Palace seemed on course to vindicate that view. But Alan Pardew has altered minds and performances since riding to the rescue in January and Palace are now in a comfortable position and confident form. Instead Pulis returns to Selhurst Park with his new team in trouble. West Brom have lost their last three matches and conceded 10 goals in the process, leaving Pulis with important questions to resolve. In particular, he needs to get his full-back selections right – if he sticks with Chris Brunt on the left and Craig Dawson on the right, then we can look forward to more thrilling capers from Yannick Bolasie. PD
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4) Burnley will have to step things up yet again at Everton
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Arsène Wenger admitted to being surprised by the application shown by Burnley during Arsenal's narrow win at Turf Moor last Saturday, and he is far from the first manager to have admired the diligence with which Sean Dyche's team applies itself. Perhaps he was slightly generous in this instance – a rare first-half drop in their usual high-octane level contributed to Burnley's defeat and the concern now is that even their very best might not be good enough. Hard work comes first for Dyche, an attitude that has left teams like Manchester City and Chelsea with their noses bloodied, but a record of one win in 12 games does not paint a promising picture and there are signs that their relegation rivals are finding hope in what had seemed to be lost causes. Leicester have won two in a row and, although QPR's defeat to Chelsea was cruel, their performance continued the form shown in impressive away results at West Brom and Aston Villa. These two sides have raised their games but do Burnley have anything extra in the tank? Perhaps they do if Danny Ings can end his seven-game goal drought, but the Clarets have stretched every sinew this season and you wonder whether they have enough in reserve to save them now. NA
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5) Do Leicester have a happy ending for their story?
A home fixture against a mid-table side who are deprived of their first-choice forwards? That is as good a hand as a team is likely to be dealt in the run-in to a Premier League season, and Leicester will feel they must take full advantage on Saturday if they are to increase belief in the most sensational escape since Gretel lured an old woman into an oven and burnt her alive. Yes, who wouldn't love to see such a fairytale end to the Premier League this season, more or less? PD
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6) Arsenal against Reading should not be a matter of choice
It will matter little to the 30,000 Reading fans who will wear blue and white T-shirts to their shot at history this Saturday teatime, and nor might the Arsenal supporters flocking to Wembley be too concerned. But their FA Cup semi-final kicks off just 10 minutes before Chelsea's game against Manchester United, which will of course be televised live on Sky and is of theoretical consequence to the title race. Arsène Wenger says that it "shouldn't happen" and that "you would not want [such a game] to conflict with other competitions", and it is difficult to disagree that the FA Cup has been dealt another blow that is not of its own making. There used to be something special about semi-final weekend; it is not really the case now and the casual fan with access to Sky is more than likely to be checking in on the score from Wembley during breaks in play at Stamford Bridge. Maybe the situation has not been helped by the fact that it should not be much of a contest on paper, with Reading enduring an inauspicious campaign in the Championship and Arsenal looking their most sleek for some years. Would extra measures to protect the fixture have been taken if Arsenal's opponents had been another team from the top half of the Premier League? We will never know, but those who – hopefully – tune in will remember Wigan's performance at this stage last season and be reminded that the FA Cup has never been put quietly in its box. NA
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7) Would a win at Wembley finally earn Sherwood some praise?
Tim Sherwood does not always help himself but his continued depiction as an oafish, tactically-lacking luddite is utterly tiresome unless you view your world in binary. The joke means less with each positive result Aston Villa achieve and you wonder if it would be too much to ask for Sherwood, who has won four of his seven games since taking over, to receive anything better than faint praise if his team prevail against Liverpool at Wembley. They must do so without the suspended Carlos Sánchez but last weekend's win at White Hart Lane suggested a resilience to go with their added sense of adventure and Sherwood will be preaching the positives here. His Villa side plays a more attack-minded, direct football than that of his predecessor Paul Lambert, hitting Gabriel Agbonlahor and the in-form Christian Benteke earlier and exposing defences that play too high a line. Liverpool are rightly favourites to reach the final but are unlikely to face the shrinking violets they beat 2-0 at Villa Park in January. If Sherwood does pull off a shock then we will certainly be hearing about it, but that might be preferable to drawing lax conclusions that ignore the body of evidence that he is a perfectly good coach. NA
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8) Blink and miss out in an enthralling Championship
Alex Neil's Norwich side must not lose against Middlesbrough. Photograph: ProSports/REX
This has been the least predictable Championship promotion race in memory and its remorseless intensity can be summed up by the fact that sixth-placed Ipswich, who have 74 points with three games to play, could quite conceivably miss out on the play-offs. The focus will be on two of the teams above them on Friday night, Norwich hosting Middlesbrough in a game that neither dare lose if they are not to be edged into the end-of-season lottery.
Alex Neil's impressive Canaries are second, by a single goal from Watford, and have won five in a row; Boro are a point behind but have lost four of their last five away games – including their last two, against Watford and the leaders Bournemouth. They have, in fact, picked up points in only one of their away fixtures against the current top six and not even the excellence of Patrick Bamford – seven goals in his last nine games – can really create a case for their being favourites here. But pressure can do strange things and Norwich will be aware that a draw would be little good to anyone. Watford should beat Birmingham at home on Saturday and it is hard to envisage Sheffield Wednesday coming away from Bournemouth with much. Then again, guess who won 4-2 at Dean Court exactly a year ago to the day, puncturing the Cherries' play-off aspirations? Somebody, somewhere, may still receive a nasty surprise over the next two weeks.
Wolves play Ipswich on Saturday lunchtime in the weekend's other shoot-out between promotion hopefuls. This time a draw would do fine for Mick McCarthy, with the past week having completely reversed a situation that had seen Wolves storm three points ahead of their ex-manager's club. Defeat would surely give Wolves too much to do; even a win for Ipswich might not shake off the presence of seventh-placed Brentford, who will be expected to defeat Bolton at home. Nobody in the top eight can drop their guard now, and perhaps the biggest shock of all would come if any of this was much clearer on the morning of 2 May, when the final round of fixtures is played. NA
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9) Hasselbaink and Burton near the finish line
Burton Albion could have won promotion from League Two on Wednesday with a win over relegation-threatened Carlisle and other results going their way. In the event, neither materialised and they were thankful for an equaliser in the ninth minute of injury time at the Pirelli Stadium – having missed a penalty in the third. It encapsulated both the jitteriness and the good fortune that title-chasing teams encounter at this time of year but their ascent still seems a formality and would be all but confirmed with a win at Morecambe. Albion have improved iteratively since promotion to the Football League in 2008-09, reaching the play-offs in the last two seasons and losing agonisingly to Fleetwood in the final at Wembley last year. They have done so in the manner of a lower-division Swansea, seeing managers such as Nigel Clough and Gary Rowett picked up by bigger clubs but subsequent recruitment being conducted in a manner that has maintained their upwards trajectory. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink took over upon Rowett's departure for Birmingham in November and has built an inexorable momentum with a team that has lost only three times under his tutelage. If he keeps this up then he will be destined for bigger things; for now, he will be hoping for a rather more straightforward 90 – or even 99 – minutes in Lancashire on Saturday. NA
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10) Barnet are on the brink of an emotional return
It would not have been outlandish to fear Barnet's terminal decline upon their relegation from the Football League in 2013. Their penultimate match in League Two was the last to be played at their cherished former home, Underhill, and with their new stadium in Canons Park – The Hive – having no roots in their local community they might have fallen into the pack of former league clubs treading water in an increasingly competitive Conference, before withering away. But Barnet, expertly managed by Martin Allen in what is remarkably his fourth spell in charge at the club, are on the way back and victory at Kidderminster – coupled with Bristol Rovers dropping points at Dover – would be enough to win them automatic promotion with a game to spare. Their star man is their striker John Akinde, who has scored 31 goals this season and has a point to prove in the league after a big early move to Bristol City from Ebbsfleet did not lead to success there or in subsequent stints with Crawley and Portsmouth. Like Barnet, he has had to gather himself further down. Player and club now have a big opportunity to build again and, although a stadium in their home borough still looks a long way off, promotion would give Barnet cause to be thankful that they stopped themselves before reaching terminal velocity on a potentially slippery slope. NA
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