Weekend Boxset: Between the window and the break

By Graham Sibley August 30, 2024

Weekend Boxset: Between the window and the break

In between the transfer deadline and the international break we’ve a packed weekend of football.

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

Bundesliga: Union Berlin v St Pauli

19.30 on Sky Sports Mix
The two cult clubs meet nice and early in the season. Both sets of fans will provide an authentic and passionate backdrop to a match between two teams that face tough challenges. Union left it to the last possible moment to avoid relegation last season. Their Champions League odyssey is now a distant memory as the club now focuses on consolidation in the top flight. They've even ditched the Paramount Plus shirt sponsor. New coach, Bo Svenson, did a terrific job at Mainz until he ran out of road and is a good appointment for a club that will be spending most of the season looking over its shoulder. His first Bundesliga match in charge was at his previous club where the team won a hard-fought point. The Boxset previewed St Pauli's Bundesliga opening day defeat, 2-0 against Heidenheim, last week and the Hamburg club were given a lesson on what needs to be done to compete at this level, the kind that can only be learned by playing actual Bundesliga games. The newly promoted side fought gamely but were second best in almost every part of the pitch. They have an opportunity to show what they’ve gleaned from their experience against a tough but beatable opponent. TD

Saturday

Championship: Burnley v Blackburn Rovers

12.30 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
As two of the twelve founding members of the Football League, the East Lancashire derby is steeped in proper football tradition. Blackburn missed out on the 2023 Championship play-offs on goal difference in Jon Dahl Tomasson’s first season in charge but any expected springboard that would give for the next season never materialised. Players like Adam Wharton and Ben Brereton Diaz left and were not suitably replaced. Frustrated, Tomasson left to become Sweden manager and was replaced by John Eustace, in his first job since being unjustly kicked out of Birmingham City to make way for Wayne Rooney (which, of course ended disastrously for the club). After comfortably winning their first two games of the season it looked as if Burnley were stick-on for a quick return to the top flight - firmly becoming one of those clubs having alternate seasons of bullying the Championship and then being Premier League whipping boys. Defeat to Sunderland, with just one shot on target, has shown that Scott Parker’s side may not be given a free ride to promotion, and makes this game a must-win. GS

Premier League: West Ham United v Manchester City

17.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
In the Premier League timeline these sides just met three games ago, at the Etihad on the final day of the 2023/24 season. It was a match City needed to win to secure another title, and they did, comfortably. The three games the Hammers have played this season have all been close; even last weekend’s 2-0 win at Palace was more about the home side failing to take chances than the visitor’s dominance. In the first Boxset of the new season, I praised West Ham’s summer business but so far fans haven’t seen much of their new signings. Lopetegui had only used Fullkrug, Wan-Bissaka and Summerville from the bench before giving them starts in the midweek EFL Cup win against Bournemouth. The exception is Max Kilman who already looks well worth the £40m invested in him, and has played every minute. City’s main signing of the summer, Savinho, has also slotted in perfectly and looks an exciting talent. City’s only other incoming business has been to re-sign Ilkay Gundogan on a free after 12 months at Barcelona. He completed his move back to City last Friday and came on for the last 20 minutes of City’s 4-1 romp against Ipswich the following day. GS

Serie A: Lazio v Milan

19.45 on TNT Sports 1
It’s ridiculously early for prognostication but I don’t think Juve are fucking around this season. If any team wants to stop them winning the Scudetto can’t afford to wait until September to get their season up and running. By that logic, Milan’s title challenge is already over; a solitary point against Torino on the opening day and last weekend they were beaten 2-1 by newly promoted Parma. The Rossoneri have shipped four goals already which will trouble coach Paulo Fonseca. Perhaps salvation will come in the form of new signing Emerson Royal who arrived a couple of weeks ago from Tottenham. Lazio have lower expectations and suffered a disruption to their pre-season when coach Igor Tudor, who had not been post less than three months, quit the club in protest after they let Daichi Kamada leave for Crystal Palace. The new coach is Marco Baroni who has watched his team beat Venezia 3-1 in their first match only to lose 2-1 at Udinese. Baroni is a veteran but with an unremarkable record at the top level. The Lazio fans, never a placid bunch at the best of times, are not happy and there have been a number of protests against the club’s president Claudio Lotito. However, all of that will be put to one side ahead of this game as the club pauses to mark the passing of former coach Sven-Göran Eriksson. The Swedish coach managed the Roman club to only their second Scudetto in 2000, plus a Coppa Italia, a UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup and Supercup. Surely their greatest ever head coach. TD

Sunday

Scottish Premiership: Celtic v Rangers

12.30 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
When Rangers won their eighteenth league title in 1930 they moved ahead of their local rivals and have been ahead ever since. This season, Celtic can draw level on 55 titles - or should that say will draw level, given the apparent gulf between the Glasgow sides right now. The numbers are stark: Brendan Rodgers has won 14 of his 18 Old Firm derbies, losing just once (the last derby of his first spell in charge). Playing the first two months of the season at Hampden while Ibrox is under renovation was never going to give the best start for Rangers, who had an unspectacular pre-season, and have returning talk of a US takeover rumbling on in the background. But a disappointing opening day 0-0 away to Hearts has been followed by comfortable wins against St Johnstone and Ross County. Celtic are 100% from three games and have yet to see their new goalkeeper, Kaspar Schmeichel, concede. He comes in to replace the retiring Joe Hart, even though he’s five months older than the former England player. GS

Premier League: Manchester United v Liverpool

16.00 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
It’s hard to imagine such thing as a good defeat, but timing can make some losses feel worse than others. Losing the match in between the close of the transfer window and the start of the international break can knock the stuffing out of anyone’s early season optimism, especially if it’s one of your biggest games of the season. The last meeting of Arne Slot and Erik ten Hag was De Klassieker of March 2022. In a volatile atmosphere in Amsterdam, a dangerous mix of banners and pyro caused a fire to break out behind one of the goals just minutes before kick off. Brought quickly under control, the game went ahead and finished 3-2 to ten Hag’s Ajax with Antony scoring the winner before getting himself sent off with a second yellow in injury time for time-wasting. Tight decisions and the rub of the green played a huge part in United’s defeat to Brighton last weekend. Summer signing Joshua Zirksee has impressed, scoring a debut winner against Fulham in the season opener, but was central to a comical disallowed goal in the Brighton match: a goal-bound shot hitting his offside knee halfway over the line. Life for Liverpool under Arne Slot has been comfortable so far but this game will present much more of a challenge than Brentford or newly promoted Ipswich. It’s the sort of game you can easily see reverting into one neither side can afford to lose. GS

La Liga: Real Madrid v Real Betis

20.30 on LaLigaTV & Premier Sports 1
By their own (very) high standards, Real’s start to the current campaign hasn’t set the world alight. Finally adding Kylian Mbappe to their already stellar line up should have made the world’s most invincible side, well, more invincible - if that’s even a thing? What is a thing is the arrival onto the scene of Brazilian wonder kid, Endrick, who replacing Mbappe in the 86th minute with his side already two up in their fixture against Valladolid, scored a beauty within just a few minutes. His arrival comes at a time when Los Blancos are without both Camavinga and Jobe Bellingham’s older brother, whose troublesome calf will keep him out until at least the middle of next month. They also have something of a headache in that Mbappe, arriving to such fanfare, appears to be relying on firing every shot directly at the opposition keeper as a match winning strategy. Jokes aside, even this early in the season, the patience of both el Madridistas and Carlo Ancelotti can only stretch so far. The visitors tonight are Manuel Pellegrini’s Real Betis, who make the trip up from Seville with only a couple of points to show from a possible six so far. That said, their second leg victory over Ukrainian side, Kryvbas, midweek, means they qualify for the new “league phase” of the Conference League. Still early days, of course, but you’d expect a home win here, wouldn’t you? JB

Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry and Jan