What to watch this weekend in the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga - September 26
Laurence Griffiths
(click to expand schedule)
Premier League
Saturday September 27
7:45 ET Liverpool vs. Everton
10:00 ET Chelsea vs. Aston Villa
10:00 ET Crystal Palace vs. Leicester City
10:00 ET Hull City vs. Manchester City
10:00 ET Manchester United vs. West Ham United
10:00 ET Southampton vs. Queens Park Rangers
10:00 ET Sunderland vs. Swansea City
12:30 ET Arsenal vs. Tottenham Hotspur
Sunday September 28
La Liga
Friday September 26
Saturday September 27
10:00 ET Villarreal vs. Real Madrid
12:00 ET Barcelona vs. Granada
14:00 ET Atlético Madrid vs. Sevilla
16:00 ET Athletic Club vs. Eibar
16:00 ET Levante vs. Rayo Vallecano
Sunday September 28
06:00 ET Getafe vs. Málaga
11:00 ET Deportivo La Coruña vs. Almería
13:00 ET Real Sociedad vs. Valencia
15:00 ET Córdoba vs. Espanyol
Bundesliga
Friday September 26
14:30 ET Mainz 05 vs. Hoffenheim
Saturday September 27
09:30 ET Freiburg vs. Bayer Leverkusen
09:30 ET Köln vs. Bayern Munich
09:30 ET Paderborn vs. Borussia Mönchengladbach
09:30 ET Schalke 04 vs. Borussia Dortmund
09:30 ET Stuttgart vs. Hannover 96
12:30 ET Wolfsburg vs. Werder Bremen
Sunday September 28
09:30 ET Augsburg vs. Hertha BSC
11:30 ET Hamburg SV vs. Eintracht Frankfurt
Serie A
Saturday September 27
12:00 ET Roma vs. Hellas Verona
14:45 ET Atalanta vs. Juventus
Sunday September 28
06:30 ET Sassuolo vs. Napoli
09:00 ET Cesena vs. AC Milan
09:00 ET Chievo vs. Empoli
09:00 ET Inter Milan vs. Cagliari
09:00 ET Torino vs. Fiorentina
14:45 ET Genoa vs. Sampdoria
3 To Watch
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Liverpool vs. Everton
Saturday is Derby Day in the Premier League, and where better to begin than Liverpool, as last season's runners-up welcome their neighbours from across Stanley Park. Naturally, we can expect all the usual stuff: some off-pitch needle, some on-pitch spite, everybody shaking their heads at half-and-half scarves. But we also have another chance to test one of the foundational axioms of English football. That when it comes to derbies, the formbook gets thrown out of the window.
The suspicion is always that this belief is less a genuine, measurable quality of teams playing against their nearest and dearest, and more something born from hype, excitement, and that one time that so-and-so got sent off and cost his team the game. Yet for once, both sides go into this fixture hoping that there's something in it, for both are, to put it bluntly, in a bit of a state, and both managers could seriously do with a win.
The problems are defensive, which is a polite way of saying that the problems are the almost total inability to defend. The red corner's attempts to improve on last season's shambles have, so far, looked like much the same mess but with different faces, and back to back losses against Aston Villa and West Ham have exposed a serious weakness when dealing with set pieces. This may be due to nothing more complicated than the arrival of new faces — Dejan, this is Javier; Javier, this is Alberto; Alberto, this is Dejan; everybody, this is Mamadou and Mrtn — and so may ease in time. But with Simon Mignolet getting smaller with every ill-advised dash from his line, the vulnerability looks likely to persist for a while yet.
On the blue side, meanwhile, the problems is less one of familiarity — Everton's first choice back four all played together last season — and more the fact that the well-established unit is creaking. Or, as we saw when Chelsea visited Goodison, crack open completely. With both Tim Howard and Sylvain Distin starting to look their age, Roberto Martinez's admirable commitment to attacking football, and to playing his fullbacks as auxiliary wingers, is leaving things hilariously open at the back. The manager professes not to be concerned by the 13 goals his side have conceded in the league so far, but then Martinez is arguably the world's most optimistic man.
While Liverpool will be unable to rely on their most potent striker — Daniel Sturridge may play some part but will not, according to Brendan Rodgers, be match fit — they still have Mario Balotelli and the wonderful Raheem Sterling to fall back on, while Everton are at full-strength up front. Expect Sterling to revel in the spaces behind Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman, while Romelu Lukaku devotes his time to making Dejan Lovren and Mignolet profoundly uncomfortable. Expect goals, goals, and more goals. And finally, be careful walking past any windows. Form books are heavy things.
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Schalke 04 vs. Borussia Dortmund
Eighth versus 13th in the Bundesliga is not exactly what we expected from the first Revierderby of the season. Between them, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke have managed just three wins from ten league matches, with some utterly embarrassing results along the way. BVB were blown away in opener at home to Leverkusen, while this weekend’s hosts have been careening from humiliation to humiliation thanks to a horrendous injury crisis.
For Schalke, perhaps, the tide is turning. A surprise 1-1 draw at Chelsea in the Champions League has been followed by four points from six in the Bundesliga, including a thumping 3-0 win against Werder Bremen (at the Weserstadion, no less), and although it’s too soon to say for sure whether they’re out of their tailspin, any points at all represents progress.
Dortmund, meanwhile, are still stuck in a rut. Similarly buoyed by Champions League success — they crushed Arsenal at home — Jurgen Klopp and friends followed that up with an away loss at Mainz and had to fight to get a point at home to Stuttgart in midweek. For a side of BVB’s calibre, their league form so far this season has been horrendous.
But form only counts for so much, and you’d have to expect both sides (despite being horrendously under-strength) to come out firing for what is, perhaps, the most important derby in German football. Which might be bad news for Schalke, because Dortmund firing in all cylinders is a terrifying, terrifying thing to behold.
Great fun is to be had for the neutrals, however.
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Arsenal vs. Tottenham Hotspur
In theory a heated grudge match, the North London Derby has somehow managed to transcend mere football in recent years. Like a favorite chair, worn out and moulded into the contours of its owner, this fixture manages to fit both clubs to a tee. On one hand, there’s Arsenal, capable of playing some of the slickest football on the planet and then imploding (for reasons not entirely clear) whenever the going gets tough. On the other, Tottenham Hotspur, their sadder, lower-budget equivalent.
Which is why over the past six years, the Emirates half of the derby has seen four blown leads (two were 2-0), 31 goals and some wildly entertaining football. Last season’s tie, alas, was ended with a minimum of fuss by Olivier Giroud, but this is a match that normally produces goals and plenty of drama.
The teams themselves are well worth watching too. The Gunners put in perhaps their best performance of the new season in demolishing Aston Villa — that’s second-place Aston Villa — 3-0 last weekend, although it remains to be seen whether they can replicate that display against a team that isn’t collectively in need of sitting on the toilet and having a good wail. And Spurs do things like crush Queens Park Rangers 4-0 and then lose to West Bromwich Albion at home.
Erik Lamela, Alexis Sánchez, Mesut Özil and Christian Eriksen on the same pitch sounds like a delight, and it’s even more fun when one considers that the defences that they’ll be taking on have had all the solidarity of a jellyfish in a woodchipper. That the centre forwards involved err on the side of profligacy will add a touch of black humour to the fray, and the sheer and unbridled hatred both sets of fans have for each other despite being the Brothers Underperforming of the capital means we’re going to get a nice, spicy atmosphere.
North London Derbies are great.
