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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: Wrexham v Birmingham City

20.00 on Sky Sports Football & Ultra
The “Hollywood Derby” is becoming one of the EFL’s biggest events of the season. It is the moment for broadcasters, streamers, vloggers, online fandom, lifestyle content creators to synergise and build a killer multi-vertical narrative. Hours have probably been spent in Teams meetings strategising the content timeline from pre-match banter between Tom Brady and Robert McElhenney, to Ryan Reynolds’ GQ TikTok exclusives, to pseudo-thoughtful financial analysis in the FT. Both these clubs represent a new frontier of Football business, that being pure content engine. It is the business model of both clubs to make as much noise as possible. It’s all celebrity narrative laced with touching stories of what it means to the legacy fans and how special it is to see their club doing so well and how grateful they are to Ryan and Rob or Tom and the NFL billionaires that own Birmingham. This is the kind of guff that we’ve swallowed for decades and has ramped up exponentially since the advent of multimedia social platforms. At the centre of this is a football match. Both teams are still settling into the new season and, because football players have yet to be replaced by AI, there is every reason to believe that the match may not live up to the hype. But hey, online fans, you’ve gotta show up for the boring watch-alongs to make the title winners worthwhile, otherwise what’s the point? Birmingham have had an early set-back: Tom Brady may not be at the game due to prior commitments with Fox Sports. But then again that could be a ruse to lull Rob and Ryan into a false sense of security. Subscribe for more content like this and don’t forget to like this preview. TD

Saturday

Women’s Super League: Manchester City v Arsenal

12.00 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra and Sky Showcase
One recurring issue that arises from the make-up of the WSL is that just a couple of poor results can pretty much ruin your title chances. With only 22 games in a season and a clear divide in strength between the title hopefuls and the rest, no one can afford an off-day. It’s what has kept Chelsea as Champions for six seasons. This situation might change with the up-coming expansion of the league to 14 teams, the influx of improved TV money and more external investment, but as we’ve seen elsewhere there’s no guarantee these things prevent stratification of competition. Both side come into this one in a situation where another slip will see them realistically concentrating on European qualification rather than the title. Last weekend, Arsenal dropped points at home to Aston Villa in a match they had a lot of possession but struggled to control, eventually conceding an equaliser in injury time. Having drawn against Manchester United, they could find themselves seven points adrift of Chelsea at end of this weekend - the WSL equivalent of requiring snookers just five games in. City started the season with a narrow defeat to Chelsea but will fancy their chances of staying in the race with not having the distraction of Champions League football. Arsenal do have that added distraction and their defence of that title starts against Lyon next week. Bizarrely, the Champions League turns out to be a much more forgiving competition: Arsenal had a number of defeats on their way to that final. Side note: Saturday midday kick-off appears to be the premium TV slot for the WSL but has vocal opposition among people who would like to attend games. The ongoing success of the Lionesses continues to bring more people to game especially young girls. But this demograph is far more interested in playing than watching, and Saturday morning is the time they play. If the WSL wants to sell out the biggest games it will have to bear this in mind. GS

Premier League: Chelsea v Liverpool

17.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
Interesting times at both Stamford Bridge and Anfield. Having restocked their front line over the summer, most people expected Liverpool to continue to dominate this season’s competition. But if their loss to an in-form Crystal Palace could be shrugged off as one of those days, a loss to Galatasaray was most certainly not in the script. And while Liverpool aren’t in crisis mode, this is just the second time they’ve lost back-to-back matches under Arne Slot and can ill-afford to drop more points as they head into mid-season. As for Chelsea, where to begin? Every time the Blues look like turning a corner, a collapse isn’t far away. A win against a returning Jose Mourinho’s Benfica midweek was welcome after a run of losses that that were only punctuated by a League Cup victory against Lincoln. Enzo Maresca also has a centre half injury headache, which is not what a team facing Liverpool needs. That said, Chelsea being Chelsea you can never be quite sure what you’re going to get. While both sides need a win for different reasons, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the points shared in West London. GA

La Liga: Real Madrid v Villarreal

20.00 on Disney Plus
It’s been a rollercoaster week for Real Madrid. Last weekend they were on the end of a 5-2 humbling in the away Madrid derby and from that they bounced back with a comfortable 5-0 win against Kairat Almaty in the Champions League on Tuesday. But is the ride over, or could Los Blancos be on the end of another league defeat here? To save you the bother of looking for the precise location of Almaty, it’s about 300km in from Kazakhstan’s border with China. Yes, that China. By air, it’s a round trip of 13,000km from Madrid. Yes, this is Real Madrid and they certainly wouldn’t have travelled economy class but spending 24 hours of a week on planes is not fun - even with a bit of extra leg room. Chelsea made the same trip last season to play Astana in the Conference League but they took a reserve squad that didn’t have their regular starters (the only player to feature in their following league win against Brentford was Tosin). In stark contrast, Real took the whole crew along to Almaty: Mbappe scored a hat-trick (he now has 13 goals from just 9 games this season), Vini Jr started and Bellingham continued his recovery from injury coming on for the last 10. Will they be sufficiently rested to face a side that sits just one place below them in the table? Villarreal were also in Champions League action, rescuing a point at home to Juventus. It was a match that saw them go ahead in a first half they controlled, but then saw them go behind early in the second half. Summer signing Renato Veigo, who spent the second half of last season at Juventus on loan from Chelsea, was the unlikely provider of Villarreal’s equaliser in the final minute. GS

Sunday

Championship: Ipswich Town v Norwich City

12.00 on ITV1, STV, ITVX and Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra

Sorry to bring the farming reference into the first sentence of this preview but there sure is plenty of beef in this derby and rare beef at that. The East Anglian derby also affectionately known as the Old Farm derby has not been a regular feature. The two met in the Championship the season before last when Ipswich were on their run from League One to the Premier League in successive seasons, but before that, this hasn’t been a regular fixture since before the pandemic. So, there is likely to be a lot of pent-up emotions ready to be expelled at a packed Portman Road. I mention the helping of beef. Well there’s an additional side helping of beef in the form of striker Marcelino Nunez; a Norwich player for three seasons who started his fourth this season in yellow only to swap his shirt for blue and moved to Ipswich at the end of August, making him the first player to make that journey since Andy Marshall in 2001. The Chilean has not found the net yet in his first three games and Town boss Kieran McKenna will be hoping he gets off the mark against the old rivals. Like the other clubs relegated from the last season, Ipswich have not had it their own way so far this season and I suspect that the deal was that relegation was OK assuming the Tractor Boys can roll back into the Premier League next season. There is of course plenty of time and an early season derby will settle the nerves on the terraces and in the boardroom. Norwich, meanwhile, have gone from being a yo-yo club to being just yo club, having not been promoted back into the Premier league since 2022. Their manager is Liam Manning who joined in the summer from Bristol City. Manning is a Norwich native and was a youth player at both City and Ipswich. He became a fixture on the Suffolk and Norfolk non-league scene as a player for many years before becoming a coach. Few managers will have a better appreciation of this fixture and its meaning. It should be a corker. TD

Premier League: Everton v Crystal Palace

14.00 on Sky Sports Premier League
As a fan, it feels weird and other-worldly to see and hear so many good things being spoken about Crystal Palace. Up until very recently the Eagles were at best a somewhat drab mid-table club consigned, on a normal week, to one of the last games on MotD. But the club’s recent silverware and record-breaking 19 (nineteen) match unbeaten run culminating with their last-gasp winner against Liverpool on Saturday has pushed Palace into third in the Premier League and into the spotlight. How long will it last? Well, it would be a stretch to say that the Eagles are set for a Leicester 2016 season. However, there is no doubt that Crystal Palace are enjoying a high yield moment and should grasp the opportunity for further glory. After the 2-0 Conference League win against Dynamo Kyiv comes Everton, a team that Palace last beat in March 2020 in the FA Cup; 4-0 at Goodison. Since then, Palace have taken just one point against the Merseyside club. However, if the players have the legs after their trip to Poland, this is a good moment to break that run. While David Moyes’ team are unbeaten at the Hilly Dick, they have won just once. Draws against a poor Villa and West Ham sides are far from convincing. But that new stadium smell is still filling the nostrils of the fans which will make for a difficult atmosphere for the visitors. In some respects, a win at Everton would be as big a deal as the win against Liverpool for the Eagles. TD

Serie A: Juventus v Milan

19.45 on TNT Sports 1 and DAZN
No apologies for featuring AC Milan for a second successive week in the Boxset. The top of Serie A is tight, the defining fixtures are coming thick and fast and I Rossoneri are top of the pile after an impressive win over Napoli. Juve, meanwhile, are licking their wounds after conceding a late equaliser to Villarreal in the Champions League and losing another defender in the form of Juan Cabal. Milan have no such worries having had midweek to rest and while it’s too tight and too early in the season to tip them for the Scudetto, Massimiliano Allegri’s side are looking like genuine contenders and a win in Turin would go a long way to state their credentials. Juve, meanwhile, are going through a minor wobble. They’re not exactly struggling but four draws in four matches tells its own story. As well as the draw in Spain, the Old Lady have also thrown away a lead against Verona, and conceded seven goals over two matches against Dortmund and Inter as well. Igor Tudor desperately needs a win to re-kick start their season but Milan are in ominous form. Given Juve’s penchant for late goals and late collapses, this could be surprisingly entertaining. GA


Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry and Gary