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It's the start of a new season and a new era for the WSL.

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

Women’s Super League: Chelsea v Aston Villa

19.00 on BBC Two & iPlayer
It’s the start of a new season of the WSL. And it’s not just any season, it’s the first under the management of the newly formed Women’s Professional Leagues Ltd (WPLL). Previously known as NewCo, the WPLL is run by Nikki Doucet with an all female exec team, and is owned by the 23 clubs of the WSL and Women’s Championship. The FA retains an undisclosed “special share” in the ownership, as it does with the Premier League. The men’s top flight will also have a seat on board for the duration of a £20m interest-free loan they’ve provided the new body. It’s unlikely fans will notice any immediate differences in the running of things but long-term the WPLL should be better placed than the FA to take advantage of opportunities to support and promote the women’s games. Hopefully it will also lead to more joined-up thinking when it comes to fixture timing, avoiding clashes between men’s and women’s teams of the same club. One immediate change is the move of non-televised games from the FAPlayer to the WSL Youtube channel, which should make access to games easier and make coverage more interactive for fans. It’s been a summer of change for these clubs too. Having led Chelsea to the last five WSL titles, Emma Hayes has left to manage the US women’s national team team and already has success, winning Olympic gold in Paris. Part of Hayes’ backroom team for that win was Carla Ward, who stepped down as Villa manager at the end of last season. Both Ward and Hayes expressed desires to have more time for their young children; one issue among many the WPLL will need to help clubs address if they are to increase the number of women head coaches (only four of the twelve WSL clubs start this season with a woman as head coach). Villa’s new manager is Robert De Pauw who was previously at Bayer Leverkusen. Incoming Chelsea head coach, Sonia Bompastor, certainly has the pedigree to pick up where Emma Hayes left off. She has won the French title in each of the three seasons she was in charge of Lyon and, unlike Hayes, has won the Champions League (she also won it twice as a player too). GS

Saturday

Championship: Sunderland v Middlesbrough

12.30 on Sky Sports Football & Ultra
For fans and neutrals alike, there is something of a glut of major footballing encounters this weekend: City take on Arsenal in the Premier League, there’s the Derby della Madonnina and of course, the grandest of them all, the Tees/Wear derby. So prominent is this fixture that Sky have, of course, chosen to broadcast it at the same time as West Ham/Chelsea over on TNT, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be dominating the viewing figures. Before the game, poets drawn from each town face off, pitching their prose to the masses who throw flowers in the team colours to the bard deemed the most captivating. Then there’s the traditional running of the pit ponies through the streets where, in a shuddering climax, the poor beast is ritually slaughtered on the steps of the Stadium of Light. Finally, the supporters trade friendly jibes as they stamp on the traditional cuisine of their rivals: the Parmo and the Pink Slice. There’s nothing like it in world football. It is, to any thinking person, the derby of derbies. Today’s hosts will be looking to get back to winning ways after gifting Wayne Rooney his first win as Plymouth coach last weekend. This brought to an end Sunderland’s best start in a generation. Lackadaisical defending and a rare shocker from the usually solid Anthony Patterson are both areas that head coach, Reggie Le Bris, will have to address if the Lads are to get back to winning ways. For our fiercest rivals, a mere thirty miles down the A19, points dropped at home to Pompey and Preston have cost them and may well become significant come the end of the season. With both sides expected to be vying for promotion this term, expect a highly competitive concounter. Last season’s corresponding fixture saw the Boro run out 4-0 victors, after Sunderland collapsed following the dismissal of Dan Neil on the stroke of half time. Watch out for Romaine Mundle, who has been outstanding as a replacement for Jack Clarke who left Wearside for Ipswich earlier this season. Boro will be looking to new striker, Tommy Conway, who is already among the goals following his summer move from Bristol City. Home win. JB

Premier League: Crystal Palace v Manchester United

17.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
At the fag end of last season, with both of Manchester United's eyes firmly fixed on the FA Cup final, Crystal Palace registered an historic 4-0 thrashing of the Red Devils at Selhurst Park. After nearly a full season of Hodgeball the Eagles were rejuvenated under Oliver Glasner and were one of the best teams in the league, admittedly at a time when almost everyone else was getting the sunbeds out. A few months later and the two teams meet again in South London but the picture looks a little different, for the Eagles at least. Despite losing Michael Olise to Bayern Munich, Palace had a good transfer window. However, Glasner's team have yet to live up to an uncharacteristic sense of pre-season optimism at the club. They've just two points so far and they were cutting it fine for the second of those two; a last minute penalty from Jean Phillip Mateta scraped a draw against newly promoted Leicester. Partial redemption has come in the form of progress in the EFL Cup. A second round win at Loftus Road against a decent QPR was notable for the occasion of Eddie Nketiah scoring his first goal for the club. The former Arsenal forward has played his first two games as a number 10 and looks promising in that position. Perhaps he'll find fertile ground between the lines against a Manchester United team that likes to give up a goal. United look set for another hot and cold season. Probably good enough to beat the Southamptons and Barnsleys of this world only to be de-bagged by the Liverpools of this world. It remains to be seen how they fare against the Palaces. TD

Alternative viewing: Antonio Conte faces his old club, with both teams looking to challenge for the title this season. Napoli v Juventus kicks off at 17.00 and is on TNT Sports 3 and OneFootball, though in the UK you won’t be able to watch the opening 15 minutes because of the Saturday 3 embargo. Yes, daft, I know.

Sunday

Women’s Super League: Arsenal v Manchester City

12.30 on Sky Sports Mix, Main Event & Ultra and Sky Showcase
Last the season the title was City’s to win but they blew it on the penultimate match day with a home defeat to Arsenal. Even more heart-breaking for Gareth Taylor’s side was that they led the game up to the 89th minute, only for the bringer of chaos, Stina Blackstenius to score twice in the space of three minutes. For both sides, this game couldn’t come at worse time, squeezed as it is between the two legs of their Champions League group stage qualifiers. City had to travel to France without Jamaican striker Khadija Shaw as they hadn’t secured a visa for her. One can only assume that City’s compliance team must have been busy with other matters. As it turns out, they didn’t miss her, enjoying a 5-0 win over their hosts, Paris FC. Vivianne Miedema scored the opener, her first for her new club having left Arsenal on a free in the summer after seven seasons there. Arsenal’s trip to Sweden wasn't anywhere near as straightforward. Despite dominating possession for large parts of the game against Hacken they lost 1-0. GS

Bundesliga: Bayer Leverkusen v Wolfsburg

14.30 on Sky Sports Football
Terry is such a trad Bundesliga stan, that he can’t even bring himself to preview what he calls “the plastic derby”, so I’m stepping in. Both clubs avoid any restrictions from 50+1 (the rule that guarantees majority fan ownership of clubs in Germany) by historically being clubs for workers of the companies that own them - the Bayer pharmaceutical corporation and Volkswagen. The 50+1 rule was introduced in 1998, after a decade of rapidly escalating TV revenue made it impossible for clubs to continue to be non-profit organisations, as they had always been before. That period and the introduction of 50+1 neatly coincide with the rise of these clubs. While Leverkusen made it to the top flight at the end of the 1970s they didn’t challenge until they won the Uefa Cup in 1988 in what was only their second run in European competition. Wolfsburg have only been a Bundesliga side since 1996. That season saw Leverkusen finish runners-up the first of five times before finally winning the title unbeaten last season. For Leverkusen this match represents the third in a trilogy of games against the sides that either avoid or distort the 50+1 rule. Their long unbeaten run came to an end at home to Leipzig but Alonso’s side quickly put that defeat behind them with a comfortable win away to Hoffenheim. Any hope that Ralph Hassenhuttl may have had that the title holders might be tired after their Champions League game on Thursday would have probably faded even before they scored their fourth before half time against Feyenoord in Rotterdam. For his Wolfsburg side an improvement on the twelfth position they’ve finished in for three of the last four seasons would be seen as a success. They’re currently - you guessed it - twelfth. GS

Premier League: Manchester City v Arsenal

16.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
The backdrop for this meeting of last’s seasons top two is City’s hearing for the 115 charges (or 123 or 130 depending on who’s counting) the Premier League has brought against them. Nothing is likely to be made public (officially at least) until the new year and, as with previous, less drawn out hearings, that decision will be open to appeal. If this match is a showdown for this season’s title then it’s probably best to get it out of the way early. When the sides met at the Etihad at the end of March it failed to live up to its billing but the ground-out 0-0 certainly favoured the Gunners who had lost their previous eight visits. That clean sheet for Arsenal broke a run of 58 scoring home games for City, a run that was set back to zero again this week with another goalless draw, this time in the Champions League, when City did everything but score against Inter. It was 0-0 again for Arsenal in their Champions League opener away to Atalanta, for them however it was a point earned rather than two dropped. Arteta’s side would have lost the game against Gasperini’s energetic, well-drilled Europa League champions were it not for a remarkable double save from David Raya; stopping a penalty and the headed follow-up. Decide for yourself whether it was better than the similar double save he made against Villa a few weeks ago. Arsenal look very solid at the back right now but that may not be enough for them to snatch all the points. Pep’s side are far less likely to fall for a sucker-punch similar to that Arsenal pulled on a guileless Tottenham last weekend in the North London derby. 0-0 again? Probably. GS

Serie A: Inter v Milan

19.45 on TNT Sports 1 and OneFootball
One of the trademarks of Serie A is the low survival rate of head coaches. With Daniele De Rossi’s sacking at Roma this week, only five of the sides in the top flight have the same head coach they had at the end of last season. Milan’s Paulo Fonseca could be the next casualty. After this week’s home defeat to Liverpool in the Champions League and an unconvincing start to the domestic campaign, the fate of the newly installed replacement to Stefano Pioli appears to be in the hands of the club owner’s senior advisor Zlatan Ibrahimovic. When asked on Tuesday about the specifics of his role at the club he told the interviewer “I am the boss and I am in charge, all the others work for me”. Fonseca, who arrived from Lille in the summer, has just one win from his first five games in charge and it is rumoured that even an “away” win in the derby may not be enough to save him. While Inter have had a better start to the season it’s not been as simple as picking up from where they left off as runaway champions. Although unbeaten, Simeone Inzaghi’s side has dropped points away to Monza and Genoa, having trailed in both games. The formbook goes out the finestra in derbies but I can’t see beyond a win for the Nerazzurri here. GS


Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry and Jan