Weekend Boxset: Last minute shopping

By Graham Sibley January 31, 2025

Weekend Boxset: Last minute shopping

With the men’s transfer window remaining open until Monday, there’s still time for some panic buys.

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: Blackburn Rovers v Preston North End

20.00 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
A tricky game for a Blackburn side looking to restart their promotion campaign having lost their way of late. A fantastic run of six straight wins in mid-November, gave way to a forgettable Christmas which they’ve still not recovered from. The former Premier League champions now sit seventh, outside of the play-off spots, and need a derby win to get things back on track. To be fair to Rovers, they’ve had some horrendous luck on the injury front; as those players start to return, they should be back to challenging the leading pack. Indeed, influential playmaker, Todd Cantwell, who missed the Bristol City loss, should make a return tonight. They’re also making plenty of noise in the transfer market with a rumoured approach for Patrick Bamford from (dirty) Leeds and Cesena forward, Augustus Kargbo. Making the short trip to Ewood Park is a Preston side enjoying a decent run of form. As often happens, the Christmas fixtures changed the fortunes of the Lilywhites, who have lost just once since JC’s birthday, including a third round FA Cup victory over Charlton. It’s a welcome return too as Preston look to make it three wins in a row at Ewood Park. They bring with them over 6,000 fans, who are under strict instructions to behave themselves after the club was fined £40,000 for “abusive, offensive and discriminatory chanting” last season. The club understandably give a good chunk of their match preview to fan behaviour, which is fair enough. No parent would want to explain the chant in question to their kids, and would probably opt to stay away rather than endure it. Three in a row for Preston? Probably. JB

Saturday

A-League: Central Coast Mariners v Newcastle Jets

08.35 on TNT Sports 1
New South Wales is not having a good season. Of the state’s five A-League teams, only MacArthur sit in the finals places. The rest are scrapping for the final spot, bar Newcastle who continue to do Newcastle things, floating around the bottom rungs of the ladder offering entertaining but precious little in the way of wins and points. The Jets haven’t won this fixture in over two years but this may be the year they finally end their F3 derby hoodoo. The Mariners have been Australia’s form team for the past two years, amassing back to back titles, but have been off the boil this season and currently sit 9th, albeit three points off the final post-season finals slot currently occupied by a very out of form Melbourne Victory. So while it’s improbable for Central Coast to make the top six and retain their title, it’s not impossible. And given the respective form of the two sides, you’d fancy the Mariners to take this one. Of course, as a local derby should be, the result can never be taken for granted. Unless that rival is Newcastle. Despite the genuine hatred between the two sides, this should be a comfortable home win. GA

Premier League: Nottingham Forest v Brighton & Hove Albion

12.30 on TNT Sports 1 & Ultimate
Both teams come into this fixture having had their unbeaten runs derailed by defeats last weekend. Forest’s 5-0 thrashing at the hands of Bournemouth was a surprise insofar as they had only dropped points once in their last nine matches. At the same time, it’s not a surprise because Bournemouth are on fire. Third-placed Forest are not in a false position but they are in an unfamiliar one. The club has not been this high in the Premier League since the early days of the Premier League under Frank Clark. Psychologically it's important to maintain momentum and not lose confidence if they are to stay the course and qualify for the Champions League next season. The man to watch is of course Chris Wood. Not just because, Bournemouth aside, he is bang in form but because he has scored more goals against Brighton (9) than any other current Premier League club. The Seagulls lost somewhat unexpectedly at home to Everton, 1-0. It was a game free of action with both teams barely troubling the xG statisticians. Brighton’s run of four draws were upgraded to two league wins against teams that they would expect to beat (Ipswich and Manchester United). If the fans are somewhat underwhelmed by their ninth place, then that is a reflection of the club’s achievements since getting promoted. There is a subplot to this game as the transfer window starts to close over the weekend as Brighton have rejected two hefty bids from Saudi Pro League club Al Nassr for Brighton’s Japanese international winger Kaoru Mitoma. Will coach Fabian Hürzeler be tempted to rest the player in case the Saudis make the Seagulls an offer they can’t refuse? TD

Premier League: Wolverhampton Wanderers v Aston Villa

17.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
In the absence of West Brom and Birmingham City this will more than suffice as a derby game for both clubs. Villa make the short trip to Molineux having succeeded in securing a top eight finish in the Champions League and join the elite that avoid a play-off. This will no doubt delight the club’s generous backers who have pumped millions into building a squad for coach Unai Emery. However, they'll be concerned that the Villans may not return to that competition next season. There are enough games left for a top four finish but the club are undergoing a few transfer related issues that may influence the course of the rest of the season. Jhon Duran has only started four games this season but has scored seven goals. The Columbian is on his way to Saudi for a medical at the aforementioned Al Nassr. Emi Buendia has made less of an impact but is also on his way out, to Bayer Leverkusen. Yesterday Evening The Athletic were reporting that Villa will be trying to bring in Joao Felix and Marco Asensio from Chelsea and PSG respectively. Arsenal are also attempting to disrupt Unai’s dressing room harmony with bids for England International Ollie Watkins. Wolves have different problems. Vítor Pereira’s arrival as coach was welcome because he is well respected and plays good football. He also loves the Premier League. But he’s discovering the nature of the challenge and after a little bounce, his team are back in the bottom three. TD

Sunday

Women’s Super League: Manchester City v Arsenal

12.00 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra and Sky Showcase
After Arsenal’s defeat to Chelsea last weekend, it’s fair to say that the champions’ lead in the table looks unassailable. These sides sit a point behind United and must now turn their attention to securing a top three position for qualification to next season’s Champions League (UWCL). UEFA are introducing a new competition from next season but the Europa Cup will not offer any extra qualifying places for WSL teams, with English sides only taking part if they mess up their UWCL play-offs. This could be the first of a number of fixtures between the two sides who play again as soon as Thursday in the semi-finals of the League Cup; the following day they have a one-in-three chance of being drawn against each other in March’s UWCL quarter finals. Two players who will not be involved in any of those games are Austrian full-back Laura Wienroither and Lioness Chloe Kelly who agreed to a loan-swap deal between the clubs just before the transfer window closed on Thursday. Wienroither has struggled to find a regular place in the Arsenal side since recovering from her ACL injury. Kelly has been unsettled at City all season and with concerns over whether a lack of match time would reduce her chances of being in this summer’s Euro squad, she issued a last ditch come-get-me plea on her Instagram on the morning of deadline day. It clearly had the desired effect. While it is understood that her preference was to remain in Manchester, a move to United would not have suited City, but the Arsenal offer provides them with much-needed strengthening in defence. The 27-year-old scorer of England’s iconic Euro 2022 title-winning goal will see out the remainder of her City contract with the club she last played for in 2017. GS

Premier League: Brentford v Tottenham Hotspur

14.00 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
Some teams have an aura of invincibility. And then there’s Tottenham. A team that somehow contrives new ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This should have been a season where Spurs could crack the top four again. Outside of Liverpool, the Champions League spots are up for grabs. And yet Ange Postecoglou sits with a ludicrously, criminally thin squad that lurches from one crisis to the next, while the Aussie’s gruff demeanour gets gruffer with each loss. Postecoglou’s system requires a lot of adaptability from his defenders, which is a problem when all your defenders are injured. For all the issues at White Hart Lane - and there are many - the players at least seem to be behind the Australian for now. A win in the Europa League will have done wonders for a team badly out of confidence and Brentford haven’t been in brilliant form of late, with early season points keeping them comfortably mid-table. By rights, Spurs should fancy this one but when Big Ange doesn’t even know who’ll turn up semi-fit on match day, who knows what you’ll get in this London not-really-a-derby. GA

Serie A: Milan v Inter

17.00 on TNT Sports 3 and OneFootball
On Wednesday night, Simone Inzaghi’s Inter side cruised into the last 16 of the Champions League, with a comfortable 3-0 over Monaco. The win saw them finish fourth in the mega table having conceded just one goal in their eight games. In contrast, Milan lost 2-1 in Zagreb to Fabio Cannavaro’s Dinamo. That result that saw them drop out of the top eight and into a play-off against Feyenoord. Both results were indicative of the season these sides have been having - Inter efficient, Milan unpredictable - but while the Serie A table shows a sixteen point gap between them it’s Inter who go into this derby with something to prove. Across all competitions this season Inter have lost three matches, two of which were against their city rivals: a 2-1 defeat in their “home” Serie A fixture in September, and 3-2 in the Supercoppa final held in Riyadh at the start of the New Year. That Suppercoppa win was perhaps the more surprising result, coming within a week of Milan’s new head coach Sergio Conceicao taking over from his former Porto team-mate Paolo Fonseca. Kyle Walker could make his Serie A debut for the Rossoneri, joining on loan from City, but at the time of writing he is the only in-bound winter signing for either side. GS

Alternative viewing: If you’d prefer to watch a game steeped far more in narrative rather than actual football, you could always watch Arsenal v Manchester City on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra from 16.30. Michael Oliver will not be officiating.

Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry, Jan and Gary