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The Manchester derby dominates this weekend. But there's plenty of other entertainment on offer too.

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

Championship: Derby County v Portsmouth

20.00 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
Two clubs who were promoted from League One last term and, understandably, are both finding the adjustment to Championship football a real challenge. Derby sit seventeenth while tonight’s visitors stepped out of the relegation places with a midweek draw at home to Norwich. Indeed, it’s Pompey that go into this one with the wind behind them. After a god-awful start to the season where they failed to record a single win until the campaign was over two months old, they’ve managed to put together a run of four games unbeaten, so deserve to be out of the bottom three. Manager, John Mousinho, talked of “hard graft” and his players beginning to believe that “they belong at this level” - stirring stuff. Since Pompey started their run, tonight’s hosts have played two games more but have a mere three points to show for it. They go into the fixture just four points above the relegation places, but, to be fair, did arrest a three match losing streak with an away draw at high-flying Burnley. Having been accused of trying to keep the score down in their previous outing at Leeds, Paul Warne may have bought himself a little breathing space. There’s not been a winner in this fixture since 2015, so don’t expect a classic, but it will be hard-fought - away win. JB

Saturday

A-League: Western Sydney Wanderers v Brisbane Roar

08.30 on TNT Sports 4
Neither side will be overly happy with their start to the season. For Wanderers, this was meant to be the year they reclaimed their position towards the top of the table. In Alen Stajcic they had an experienced coach who seemed like a good fit for the club, and a balanced squad. What’s transpired is a very inconsistent team that leaks goals. There are grounds for optimism though. Last week’s win away at Melbourne City was the Wanderers first clean sheet of the season and first points taken from a side in the top six. And it would only take a couple more wins for Stajcic’s side to be right in the mix. This fixture represents their best opportunity to build momentum. Brisbane Roar haven’t been as much awful as they have just anaemic. They currently exist as a team without making any impact and sit rooted to the bottom of the table with just a solitary point. There have undoubtedly been worse teams in the history of the competition, but the Roar currently look like an AI copy of what a team should be. They go through the motions, they score goals, they concede a lot of goals, and things happen around them, but ultimately for nothing. Given Wanderers can be a little shot shy in front of goal, they should be relishing this one to get their goal difference up, along with confidence that they can actually challenge this season. GA

Championship: Preston North End v Leeds United

12.30 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
More than 20 years since he stepped down as chairman of Leeds United, Peter Ridsdale is still a figure of hate amongst many of the club’s supporters. In his time in charge, the club reached the semi-finals of first the Uefa Cup and then the Champions League. All the while though, the club was racking up huge debts against ongoing participation in European competition. By the time he stood down in 2003, the club had already lost a number of star names to service a £100m debt and by 2007 they were playing in League One after entering administration. Ridsdale joined Preston North End in 2011 having been at Barnsley, Cardiff and Plymouth in between. He was put on the board at the club in 2021 after completing an eight ban on being a company director. Paul Heckingbottom was one of many to have managed Leeds in the 16 seasons they spent outside the top flight after Ridsdale. He was in charge for just for four months in 2018 before being replaced by Marcelo Bielsa. Heckingbottom was named Preston manager in August after the previous holder, Ryan Lowe, walked out after the first game of the season. Since then Preston have made slow but steady progress to the middle of the table. If they are to get anything from this match it will have to be without the vaulable goal-contributions of Sam Greenwood, who is on loan from Leeds and therefore ineligible. GS

Premier League: Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa

17.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
This fixture has a delightfully retro feel to it, with two sides whose successes came in the early 80s now battling for European spots. Hell, they could even finish the weekend above Manchester City in the event the reigning champions lose to Ineos Marginal Gains FC on Sunday. Villa seem to be emerging for their mid-Autumn slump that’s a common symptom of midweek continental matches but, no disrespect to Brentford and Southampton, Forest will be a benchmark of where Unai Emery’s side actually reside. Win and they put down a marker to the teams above. Lose or draw and it feeds the perception that the gulf above is a little too big. While the same could be said for Forest, the view that the side are having A Very Good Season both mitigates the impact of losses (“this was going to happen at some point”) and downplays the wins (“they’re punching above their weight”). You feel this suits Forest fine, and they’ll keep plugging away in a system that plays to the strengths of star players Chris Wood and Callum Hudson-Odoi, both of whom are hitting heights only previously hinted of. This should be an excellent fixture to sit back on a cold winter night and with a whiskey in hand and soak in a very intriguing contest. GA

Sunday

Premier League: Brighton & Hove Albion v Crystal Palace

14.00 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
It speaks of the rapid rise of Fabian Hurzeler that he has yet to come up against a side managed by Oliver Glasner. Brighton’s 31-year-old head coach had only eighteen months experience when he took over in the summer, and all that in Germany’s second tier. Any doubts over the appointment of the man who won promotion for St Pauli last season quickly evaporated after he gave his new club their best start to a Premier League season after 12 games. Life is good when your side is winning games but without a win in his last three games, now is the time for the young German to show his value to the club. Despite their relative places in the table, it’s Palace who go into this game in the better form. Sat just on the relegation dotted line in the table, Palace are unbeaten in four games, a run of results that includes draws against City and Villa - having led twice in both games. Glasner’s patience is paying off and the goals are begining to come as the side gets used to life without Michael Olise. They may still be on the look out for attacking options when the transfer window opens but we won’t see the return to the club of Wilf Zaha. The club legend is currently in the middle of disastrous loan spell at Lyon but having played 16 minutes in Galatasaray’s opening day defeat to Besitkas, FIFA regulations forbid the 32-year-old from playing for a third club this season. GS

Premier League: Manchester City v Manchester United

16.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
Erik ten Hag had been in charge of United for just eight games when he went to the Etihad for his first Manchester derby. The result was a crushing 6-3 defeat, one of the many defining results of his tenure. Rubén Amorim has his first experience of this derby having had two fewer games than the Dutchman. But he faces a fragile, vulnerable City side in an unfamiliar run of form. The last ten games for Pep’s side has seen them lose seven times, the latest a 2-0 Champions League defeat to Juventus which leaves their further participation in the balance. Over the last six rounds of Premier League games, only Southampton have a higher xGA. The draw against Palace last weekend again exposed City’s frailties and the red card for Rico Lewis, the club’s first in over a year, was indicative of their frustrations. What this means for this tie is anyone’s guess, which makes it one of the most intriguing derbies in a long while. City have big problems in defence, United are struggling to create chances. Neither manager will want this tie to be dragged into chaos, but it may well end up going that way. It has the potential to be a classic. GS

Bundesliga: RB Leipzig v Eintracht Frankfurt

18.30 on Sky Sports Football
These sides met as recently as Wednesday of last week in the DFB Pokal. Leipzig were comfortable 3-0 winners and progress to February’s quarter finals. The domestic knockout competition has been good for Leipzig over recent seasons; they won in 2022 and again in 2023 in a final against Eintracht. If they are to get anything from this season it’s looking increasingly like it will be in that competition. That cup win ended a woeful run that saw Marco Rose’s side lose five of their six November games having previously been unbeaten in the Bundesliga. Their form in the Champions League has been woeful with elimination confirmed on Tuesday night with a sixth straight defeat, this time at home to Aston Villa. Being knocked out of the new “Swiss-model” league with still two games to play is impressive for a format that has been criticised for its lack of jeopardy. Erik ten Hag and Graham Potter are reported to be the names at the top of the list to replace Leipzig-born Rose should the club decide they need a new direction when the season breaks next week. But with Jurgen Klopp starting his new role with the RB group of clubs in January, there will no doubt be speculation that he could step in, even if just for an interim period. Frankfurt are now the closest challengers to Bayern but slipped up against Augsburg last weekend having to come from behind to salvage a home point against the bottom-half side. The Pokal result ended a run of seven straight wins in all competitions but with midweek defeat to Lyon in the Europa League, Dino Toppmöller’s side are in a mini-slump. GS


Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Jan and Gary