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Will Elliot Anderson feature in next week's England squad? Expect him to shine this weekend.

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: Manchester City v Tottenham Hotspur

19.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Mix & Ultra
City start the weekend a point clear at top of the table but have played a game more than second placed Chelsea, who still have a 100% record. For this game, City’s regular match-going fans will have to make the still unfamiliar turning off in the opposite direction from Alan Turing Way to the Etihad instead of the Joie Stadium. City have only ever played three WSL matches at the club’s main stadium, and in all three matches the opponents were Manchester United. They are scheduled to play two more gamees here this season but this fixtures seems an odd choice to be given the star treatment. Last season this fixture was City’s lowest home attendance at just over 2,000 - well short of their average at the Joie. That said it was a 7-0 thumping, so maybe the lure of another dominating home performance will draw the crowds. What may have been the reason for the lower attendance was the fact it was an evening kick off - a turn-off for the more family oriented demograph of typical WSL crowds. The new TV deal announced last week will see a trebling of televised WSL games from next season, which will see more games pushed around Sky’s hectic football schedule. For the WSL’s growth to continue it will need to find a way to pull in an evening crowd. Tottenham’s win against West Ham last time out followed a run of three defeats. They have been putting in good performances but have shown a fragility in defence that has allowed games to run away from them. City’s daunting attack could well take advantage of this weakness but will be blunted partially by the continued absense of Vivianne Meidema. The Dutch striker has been out for a month and has had surgery on her left knee, a continuation of the problems she’s had since tearing her ACL almost two years ago. GS

Saturday

Championship: Cardiff City v Blackburn Rovers

12.30 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
At the start of October, Cardiff had just one point from seven games and were unsurprisingly bottom of the table. Blackburn meanwhile were just a point off the top. Fast forward a few weeks and Cardiff can now close the gap between the clubs to just one point. Don’t you just love the Championship? Blackburn’s problem seem to boil down to a lack of goals. That problem that won’t be helped by the absense of Tyrhys Dolan, the last man to score for the side five games ago. He misses the match having picked up his fifth yellow of the season in the midweek home defeat to Stoke. Cardiff’s fine unbeaten run of six games came to an end in midweek at Luton but they’re still on a run of four straight home wins and they’ve only conceded once in those games. All of which points to another home win and clean sheet. But remember: this is the Championship. As is usual now, Sky have a number of EFL games on over the weekend. My pick from the rest of the action would be the Steel City derby, which is on Sunday, kicking off at 12.30. GS

Bundesliga: RB Leipzig v Borussia Mönchengladbach

17.30 on Sky Sports Football
Being what it is, even with a tough set of opening fixtures, the new “Swiss model” Champions League allows clubs ample opportunity to progress in the competition; just ten points from your eight games should be enough to see you through. When the algorithm picked Atleti, Juventus and Liverpool first up for Leipzig, they must have thought “tricky start but even if we only get a point or two we can pick up the rest in the remaining five games”. Their midweek defeat to Celtic sees them reach the halfway mark of the group phase without a point, and with a trip to Inter up next that’s unlikely to change. For a competition criticised for its lack of jeopardy, Leipzig could find themselves eliminated on match day 6. The trip to the San Siro is three weeks away, more than enough time to lick their wounds and concentrate on what is rapidly becoming the main focus of the season: challenging Bayern for the Bundesliga title. The Bavarian side now have a three point lead at the top of the table after Leipzig’s first domestic defeat of the season away to Dortmund last weekend. Today’s opponents are a Gladbach side whose only points on the road so far this season have come at Bochum and Mainz, neither of which have registered a single home win. Surely Marco Rose’s side won’t mess this one up? GS

Premier League: Liverpool v Aston Villa

20.00 on TNT Sports 1 & Ultimate
Everything about this fixture screams Liverpool victory. Villa have suffered the classic European hangover in their Champions League foray and are prone to a wobble or two a match, or in the case of Tyrone Mings, pure brain fade. Fortunately for the Villains, plenty of other sides around them are also suffering for a splash of mid-season wobbles, which keeps the Midlanders very much in the hunt for a top four spot. But, really, does anybody expect to get much change out of Arne Slot’s beautifully well-oiled Reds, who look capable of scoring from anywhere and by anyone. Only Arsenal and Forest have taken points off the league leaders, and the latter looks like less of an aberration than it did at the time. There’s an embarrassment of riches in Liverpool’s attacking options coupled with a very stingy defence. It’ll no doubt be a very watchable match, but it’s hard to see anything other than the Slot Machine winning again. GA

Sunday

Premier League: Nottingham Forest v Newcastle United

14.00 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
The Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) have affected these clubs in different ways. Last season, deemed to have spent beyond their set limits, Forest were deducted four points, enough to place them in serious jeopardy of relegation. In a bid to avoid a simliar fate, Newcastle were forced to sell players in the summer to balance the PSR books. Elliot Anderson, born in Whitley Bay, a product of the famous Wallsend Boys Club and whose grandfather played for Newcastle in the sixties, was sold to Forest. As he had come through the club’s youth system, the money they received for the player (reportedly £35m) was pure profit, in PSR terms. There are arguments both for and against the PSR system in this case. On one hand it seems wrong that it’s more advantageous to get rid of home grown players rather than selling imported talent. On the other hand, the rules appear to discourage clubs from hoarding young talent in their reserves, giving players (like Cole Palmer last season) the opportunity to show what they can do week in and week out. Anderson has seized his opportunity and has played a vital role in his new side’s rise up the table to third place, and could even be named in the England squad to be announced next week. And he’s not the only former player who could cause Newcastle problems today: the Premier League’s Player of the Month for October Chris Wood has eight goals for the season so far, twice as many as he got in his eighteen months on Tyneside. GS

Premier League: Chelsea v Arsenal

16.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
Normally I’d start this preview by saying something about how well Chelsea did in the Conference League this week, putting 8 (EIGHT) past Armenian side FC Noah (insert your own floodgates gag). But of course that was Midweek Chelsea, a side completely different from the side that plays in the Premier League (though it still includes the fourth and fifth most expensive players ever). Arsenal’s week has seen them continue their run of uninspiring form. A 1-0 defeat to Newcastle last weekend was followed by an identical result and almost identical performance against Inter in the Champions League. What the Newcastle and Inter games prove is that, without Martin Odergaard, Arsenal seem unable to break down well-organised low-blocks. Thankfully for them, that shouldn’t be as much of an issue against Chelsea, especially if they’re sticking with the somewhat erratic Robert Sánchez in goal. The club’s Norwegian captain came off the bench in injury time against Inter so is getting closer to a full return, though is unlikely to play the full 90 or even start this one. This should be an entertaining match, though probably less so if you support either club. GS

La Liga: Real Sociedad v Barcelona

20.00 on ITV4, ITVX, Premier Player and LaLigaTV
Only a few weeks ago I previewed El Clásico where, at the back of my mind, I had a feeling that with home advantage, Real would have equalled Barça’s forty-three game unbeaten La Liga record. Like a member of the British broadcast media predicting the outcome of the US election, I completely misjudged the momentum behind the Blaugrana juggernaut, or the orange one in their case. How many sides go to the Bernabéu and put four past the hosts in one half of football? Hansi Flick perhaps wasn’t the obvious choice to take the helm at a club weathering a storm both on and off the pitch. Their struggles to register new signings in order to stay within La Liga’s financial limits as well as mortgaging off their TV rights are well documented. However, Flick isn’t part of the “Més que un club” set, and perhaps that has given him a freedom which has created something quite extraordinary. Find your way to the Barça official website and you’ll see the headline “Highest scoring season… ever!” which then gives the reader every possible stat as to why that’s the case while taking the opportunity to have a pop at Real Madrid at the same time. A midweek 5-2 victory at Red Star put them sixth in the (massive) Champions League table while domestically they’re already nine-points clear having scored fifty-five goals in all competitions. They have lost a couple, mind - so they can be beaten. Although, that’s not going to happen tonight. Prediction: hammering. JB


Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Jan and Gary