It’s time to shove some games in before the Champions League and Europa League return. The Merseyside Derby is the headliner, but there’s some other decent stuff here as well.
Premier League, Week 23 preview and fixtures: All Merseyside Derby everything
Yes, Tottenham Hotspur-Manchester City isn’t bad, but it’s a definite undercard match to Liverpool-Everton.
Clive Brunskill
Manchester United vs. Cardiff City
Tuesday, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET
Cardiff City's season could soon be rescued by a pair of reinforcements from Manchester United, as Fabio and Wilfried Zaha are set to join Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's team shortly. They obviously won't be available for this game. Juan Mata, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie all trained on Monday. Cardiff are screwed.
Norwich City vs. Newcastle United
Tuesday, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET
Newcastle fans are enraged about their club selling one of their best players again, but is there a better time to sell Yohan Cabaye? He's going to leave for a bigger club eventually, so you might as well sell him while you're neither in contention for top four or in a relegation battle. He'll probably be missed in this game, though. Even though Norwich are pretty dull and always beatable, they're decent at packing the midfield.
Southampton vs. Arsenal
Tuesday, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET
Rickie Lambert is injured and Pablo Osvaldo is suspended by his own club for punching a teammate in the face, so lol. Good luck, Southampton!
Swansea City vs. Fulham
Tuesday, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET
Technically a relegation six-pointer. How did you end up here, Swansea? You’re supposed to be better than this. The good news for them is that Fulham, despite currently sitting above the drop zones, are one of the worst Premier League teams of the post-Derby County era.
Tuesday, 8 p.m. GMT/3 p.m. ET
Do we really have to? Can we not?
Tuesday, 8 p.m. GMT/3 p.m. ET
The clear marquee matchup of the round could be made interesting by how the two teams adapt to their injury problems. Everton probably won't have Ross Barkley, and even if he does play, he certainly won't be fit to go 90 minutes. Liverpool are without all of Lucas, Glen Johnson, Daniel Agger, Mamadou Sakho and Jose Enrique, so Steven Gerrard will probably be their most defensive midfielder, in front of a weak back line. Expect chaos.
Wednesday, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET
Christian Benteke recently broke his scoreless streak, so perhaps this game has the capacity to be interesting. Don't count on it, though.
Chelsea vs. West Ham
Wednesday, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET
This should be pretty comfortable for the Blues.
Sunderland vs. Stoke City
Wednesday, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET
Oh god, my eyes.
Wednesday, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET
The second biggest fixture of the midweek slate. It looks like a decent match on paper, but Spurs have actually been worse at White Hart Lane than they've been on the road by a pretty significant margin. There's also no concrete word yet about whether or not the likes of Jan Vertonghen and Sandro will be fit to start this match.
Expect something less embarrassing than the 6-0 drubbing Spurs took at the Emirates earlier in the season, but City are still certainly significant favorites here.
See More:
