Weekend Boxset: Back for 2024/25

By Graham Sibley August 16, 2024

Weekend Boxset: Back for 2024/25

The new season is here! Let's get some football on the telly.

Seven great matches to take you from Friday to Sunday. It’s the Sound of Football Weekend Boxset.

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All times are UK

Friday

Premier League: Manchester United v Fulham

20.00 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
Our season starts at Really Old Trafford, the first full season of the new Ineos part-ownership era. Despite Gareth Southgate becoming suddenly available at the end of the Euros, Erik ten Hag is still in post and has even had his one year contract extension triggered, theoretically keeping him at the club until 2026. United’s business this summer seems shrewder than it has in recent years, but the real test for the club will be getting the most out of their new talent. Raphael Varane has been replaced by much younger version Leny Yoro from Lille, and Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui come in from Bayern, at a shade over £100m for all three (marginal gains still cost a lot of money). Fulham’s summer business has seen them sign two 24 year olds who were among the hottest prospects as teenagers but who have had their progression derailed by injury. Emile Smith Rowe arrives from Arsenal for £34m and Ryan Sessegnon returns to the club that nutured him on a free, after serving a miserable five years at HMP Spurs. On last season’s form you’d have to say that Smith Rowe is a downgrade on Joao Palhinha (who finally secured his move to Bayern) which is reflected in the difference in fees, the balance of which more than paid for another 24 year old, defender Jorge Cuenca from Villareal. Alex Iwobi snatched a deep-into-injury-time winner in this fixture last season; the United panic button will be slammed again if they can repeat that tonight. GS

Saturday

Premier League: Ipswich Town v Liverpool

12.30 on TNT Sports 1 & Ultimate
Way back when I was a lad, Ipswich weren’t just top flight mainstays, they were title challengers. In the decade before he became England manager, Bobby Robson led the side to a top six finish in every season but one - that one exception being when they won the FA Cup. Maybe that’s why I find it astounding that it’s been 22 years since they were last in the top flight. Two promotions in two seasons has seen Kieran McKenna’s stock rise so high that over the summer he was linked with the vacant roles at Chelsea, Brighton and England, and was also strongly tipped to return to Old Trafford for the still not vacant role there. The last coach to take a side from League One to the Premier League in two seasons was Tranmere’s Nigel Adkins with Southampton in 2012, but hopefully McKenna can avoid being sacked in January. Does he have a side that can survive the Premier League? All of the eleven that started their final home game in League One are still at the club. The only major addition in the summer has been Liam Delap for £15m from City. Liverpool start their season under new head coach Arne Slot without having made a single signing. Fabio Carvalho, Thiago Alcantara and Joel Matip have all left to allow more space for their crop of homegrown talent to come through, but it’s unlikely August will end without a statement signing. Last time Liverpool played at Portman Road in the league they won 6-0 with Emile Heskey and Michael Owen both grabbing braces. A similar result could signal the start of a very long season for the Tractor Boys and 1.4% stakeholder and shirt sponsor, Ed Sheeran. GS

Premier League: West Ham United v Aston Villa

17.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
A recent addition to the narrative of a new season is the risible concept of “winning the transfer window”, a deliberately contentious accolade handed out by transfer obsessed media outlets and very online fans. The idea of “winning” such a thing is purely in the eye of the beholder but, were you to ask me, I’d make a claim that West Ham deserve the title this season. If they can get him back to the player he was at Palace, 26 year old Aaron Wan Bissaka is a steal at £15m from United. At 31, they’re unlikely to get a sell-on return for Niclas Füllkrug but at £27m from Dortmund they have a proven goal-scorer who should flourish with the service provided by Dutch winger Crysencio Summerville, arriving from Leeds for just £25m. Their biggest money move has been for Max Kilman for £40m. He played under Julen Lopetegui at Wolves, and the Hammers new head coach was obviously impressed enough with the former futsal player to bring him to London. After finishing in the Champions League places last campaign it’s questionable if Villa are in a stronger position at the start of this one. Amadou Onana comes in from Everton for £50m along with Champions League finalist Ian Maatsen to give more solidity but out go Moussa Diaby to the Saudi Pro-League and Douglas Luiz (and his partner Alisha Lehmann) to Juventus. There is business still to do but in the meantime Unai Emery is left seeing if he can get a tune out of Ross Barclay, a £5m siging from relegated Luton. Emery has done amazingly well to repair his reputation in England, could another Basque, former-Europa-League-winner-with-Sevilla, Julen Lopetegui do the same? GS

DFL Super Cup: Bayer Leverkusen v Stuttgart

19.30 on Sky Sports FootballBilled as the German football season official curtain raiser, the DFL Super Cup is more of an opportunity to add value to the Bundesliga’s commercial and broadcast partners by giving them an added fixture between the previous season’s winners of the Bundesliga and DFB Pokal (or league runner-up in the event of a team winning the double). It is also bit of a jolly for their executives. Fans are welcome too but may rather have watched their teams in the first round of the DFB Pokal which kicks off, for everyone else, this weekend. Cynicism aside, this match is not without appeal or novelty in that it is the first Super Cup to feature neither Bayern Munich nor Borussia Dortmund since Werder Bremen beat Bayer Leverkusen on penalties in 1993. Stuttgart’s only appearance was in 1992 where they beat Hannover. Both teams’ presence reminds us of how refreshing it was to see different teams dominate, last season. Bayer Leverkusen finally shook off the “Neverkusen” tag with a double-winning invincible season and Stuttgart shocked everyone by finishing second in the table after having narrowly avoided relegation the season prior. Leverkusen are expected to compete again with an enhanced squad under coach Xabi-Alonso. But Stuttgart coach Sebastian Hoeness faces a challenge if he wants to emulate last season’s achievements. Top scorer Serhou Guiressy and defensive lynchpin Waldemar Anton have been sold to Borussia Dortmund. Left back Hiroki Ito who made twenty-nine appearances for VfB last season has also moved on to Bayern Munich. Proof if any were needed that you must be well-heeled to make a habit of appearing in Super Cups. TD

Sunday

Championship: Sunderland v Sheffield Wednesday

12.00 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
It’s fair to say that, following last term's calamitous handling of the head coach position, things feel a little more positive on Wearside. Régis “Reggie” Le Bris was appointed in the close season having endured a mixed spell in Ligue 1 with Lorient where he followed up an impressive 10th place finish with a relegation. Among those in the know, a fire sale of most of his key players didn’t help his cause. He arrives on Wearside as a key part of Kyril Louis-Dreyfus’s plan to transform Sunderland into a side challenging for top honours... in Ligue 1. An impressive opening day win at Cardiff set the standard for the coming campaign and, if they’re to meet the (very) high expectations of the Mackem hordes, the Lads will have to overcome sides like Wednesday. The Yorkshire club endured a torrid time last season with a large black cloud hanging over their very existence in the form of financial armageddon. Despite this, Danny Röhl’s appointment in the autumn slowly turned things around on the pitch, which culminated in a 2-0 win at the Stadium of Light, guaranteeing their Championship status in their final game. A 4-0 dismantling of Wayne Rooney’s Plymouth on the opening day of this season was followed up with an encouraging 2-1 win at Hull in the League Cup, which sets us up nicely for what should be a highly competitive encounter. 2-1 Sunderland. JB

Premier League: Chelsea v Manchester City

16.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
Given the amount of scrutiny they’re under, you’d imagine City might be inclined to shy away from any deals that could be considered “shady”. But no. The champions’ only summer signing so far has been Savinho (the footballer formerly known as Sávio) in a £30.8m deal with [checks notes] French third division side Troyes. Well, it says Troyes on the paperwork but he never played a game for them, having spent the last two seasons at Girona (both clubs are part of the City Group). The fact that his contract was with a club that appears to be in “managed decline” rather than with a side he helped into the Champions League means that City can circumvent rules put in place by UEFA to control the movement of players within multi-club groups. City just gotta City. And what does signing another winger mean for Jack Grealish, a player whose already limited opportunities at City last season saw him spend the summer selling mayonnaise instead of playing for England at the Euros. One player who did go to Germany after leaving City was Cole Palmer, who shone for Chelsea last season, especially in the two wonderfully chaotic games these sides played against each other. Of course when you sign as many players as Chelsea do, the law of averages says you’ll find a good player eventually. Chelsea are doubling down on this strategy, buying up even more squad players while trying desperately to offload their homegrown talent to keep the PSR wolves from the door. This has seen another England player Conor Gallagher have to spend the best part of a week in a Madrid hotel room while trying and failing to secure a move to Atléti. New Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca may have honed his coaching skills at the side of Pep, but the two clubs are worlds apart when it comes to how they do business. GS

La Liga: Real Mallorca v Real Madrid

20.30 on ITV4, ITVX, LaLigaTV and Premier Sports 1
Real Madrid start the new season as title favourites but may need a few weeks to shake off any after-effects from Euro 24 or the Copa America. In total, seventeen Real players, including new signing Kylian Mbappe, were summering in Germany and the US. Of course, three of those have left the club; Joselu is off to Qatar, Nacho the captain, has left for Saudi and Toni Kross has hung up his boots. Joselu was a stopgap signing in lieu of Mbappe, but Kroos will leave a hole in any side, even Real Madrid, so we will see how Don Carlo plugs it. I wonder if Jobe Bellingham’s Older Brother’s future is back in central midfield. J-Bob starts the season finally unburdened by the shoulder strapping that was his companion throughout the Euros. He provided the assist for Mbappe’s debut goal in the 2-0 UEFA Super Cup win over Atalanta on Wednesday and seemed comfortable in a slightly more withdrawn role. We were denied the opportunity to get an early glimpse of Endrick, the 18-year-old Brazilian international who joined from Palmeiras in the summer. Their opponents are not fancied to do more than mid-table this season. However, I am familiar with a couple of their new signings from the Bundesliga: Takuma Osano played a more than useful role in Bochum’s successful relegation battle, last season. Full back Mateu Morey was highly rated when he arrived at Borussia Dortmund in 2020, but the Spaniard suffered a terrible injury and has barely played since the end of the 20/21 season. Hopefully, a spell in the Balearics is what he needs to rehabilitate his career. Los Bermellones may be a dark horse for Europe this season. TD

Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry and Jan