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Sunday is derby day with huge games in North London, Sheffield and Milan.

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: Preston North End v Blackburn Rovers

20.00 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
The Championship this season is as chaotic and unpredictable as ever, Preston are fourth in the table and within touching distance of a faltering Middlesbrough in second place, but also have a chasing pack of six teams within three points of them. The lead up to the recent international break was dominated by four managers leaving their post in the space of ten days: three sackings along with Rob Edwards leaving Middlesbrough to take charge of Wolves. Paul Heckingbottom could be forgiven for feeling like the managerial equivalent of the grim reaper as two of those sackings fell within days of playing his Preston side. Will Still was fired from his job at Southampton after a 2-0 defeat, while Alan Sheehan survived less than a week at Swansea after losing at Deepdale. Should Blackburn head coach Valerian Ismael be concerned? Well maybe not as concerned as he was at the end of October when his side were in the relegation zone. Three wins on the spin has made things a lot healthier, although that run ended in defeat at home Derby just before the break (Derby who are themselves on a hot streak after a slow start). Preston also saw a three game winning run end, this time in a 1-1 draw at home to sixth place Millwall. Both the goals in that game came from errors forced by a high press. Expect more of the same here. GS

Saturday

A-League: Sydney v Melbourne Victory

08.35 on TNT Sports 4
This weekend, most of the eyes of Australia will be on a certain stadium in Perth. A shame, as this fixture promises to be quite explosive, especially as it’s being played at the tight Leichhardt Oval rather than the more cavernous Moore Park. Sydney FC’s usual home is undergoing repairs to the drainage, which has required a temporary relocation to the city’s Inner West. The limited capacity has led to a fantastic atmosphere for both the Sky Blues’ recent fixtures against Central Coast and Macarthur and should be packed for the Big Blue against one of their biggest rivals. Sydney’s confidence is up as well. After a stinker of a start against Adelaide, the side has started to find their groove, easing the pressure on coach Ufuk Talay and taking the Sky Blues to second in the table. Paul Okon-Engstler has provided much-needed solidity in the middle of the park and Al-Hassan Toure is starting to find his groove in the wide forward position. Victory, meanwhile, are playing exactly like a team that’s lost its spine over the off-season. Their limp defeat in last week’s Melbourne derby means their only win has been against bottom-of-table Perth Glory. Arthur Diles worked wonders to take Victory to the Grand Final last season but there’s a sense that this is a team still finding its way with new signings still to settle. The A-League being the A-League, there’s still a high probability that Victory will be in the finals mix at the end of the season. A win at Leichhardt would be the perfect result to get their season up and running, but even a point would be an impressive result for the away side. GA

Premier League: Burnley v Chelsea

12.30 on TNT Sports 1 & Ultimate
Burnley welcome Chelsea to Turf Moor looking for a fresh start after the international break. Their last match was a six-pointer at West Ham where they conceded three goals. The final score of 3-2 flattered the away side leaving manager Scott Parker to bemoan his team’s lack of quality. Burnley just don’t look like a team that can hold it together over 90 minutes. Wins against Leeds, Wolves and Sunderland suggest that there is hope but they are not strong enough at the back to defend their way to survival in the league and are not set up to find the net. The Clarets have conceded 22 goals, which is more than any other team and their xGA is a massive 23.4. That’s the worst in the Premier League by a mile. Burnley’s xG is 8.2, the lowest in the league. Parker urgently needs to adjust the balance to allow the likes of Jadon Anthony and Zian Flemming a licence to score. By contrast, Chelsea have the highest xG in the league. The visitors have quite a few players returning from international duty so my start slowly. They also have a midweek Champions League game against Barcelona to plan so coach Enzo Maresca may rotate. Burnley may look to go on the front foot and maybe grab an early goal in the game’s opening stanza before caving and conceding three in the second half. TD

Premier League: Newcastle United v Manchester City

17.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
At the Stadium of Light they’re installing enormous new screens — they really are. Huge they may be, but, as one of my compatriots recently pointed out, they’re still not big enough to show the sizable gap between Sunderland and the (dirty) Mags in the current Premier League table. Are things really that bad for Eddie Howe and that lot up the road? Well, things don’t look too promising in the League; they sit in fourteenth place with just twelve points to show for their efforts. Recent losses on the road to Brighton, West Ham and Brentford were disappointing, but so too was their failure to beat an out of form Villa on opening day and a newly promoted Leeds a couple of weeks later. Wins have come against Wolves, Forest and Fulham, which isn’t exactly inspiring. However, what is pretty impressive is that they’re currently in the quarter-finals of the League Cup, of which they are the current holders, as well as sitting a healthy sixth in the (massive) Champions League table on the same points as PSG, Real Madrid and Liverpool. No wonder, then, that reports coming out of the club state that there are no alarm bells ringing and the owners have full trust in the exec team they put in place. This isn’t too much of a surprise given their track record since acquiring the club back in 2021. Contrary to expectation, they’ve been pragmatic and considered and lacking any of the knee-jerkery that has come to characterise other clubs owned by equally distasteful owners. Will they beat City today? Well, they’ll certainly give them a game, albeit hampered somewhat by Dan Burn’s suspension and Nick Pope’s concussion. What I’m most concerned about, however, is the ‘mind the gap’ gag I kicked this preview off with coming back to bite me on the Arsenal come derby-day. JB


Bonus late night viewing: Last week it was announced that Apple had dumped their MLS season pass, meaning that if you have Apple TV you can watch the games without having to pay for an extra subscription. The MLS play-offs are at the conference semi-final stage (effectively the last eight) so if you’re awake at 02.30 on Sunday morning and don’t fancy watching the Ashes you can tune into Vancouver Whitecaps v LAFC. Keeping things North American, on TNT Sports 2, there’s also the NWSL Championship Final, Washington Spirit v Gotham which kicks off at 01.00. Sunday evening sees the slightly more acceptably timed 22.30 kick-off of the MLS East semi-final, Cincinnati v Inter Miami.

Sunday

Championship: Sheffield Wednesday v Sheffield United

12.00 on ITV1, STV, ITVX and Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
The 147th Steel City derby comes at a time of turmoil for both clubs. Of the two, Wednesday’s situation is genuinely perilous. The club is finally rid of its former owner Deyphon Chansiri whose negligence nearly ran the club into the ground. However, the cost has been administration, a 12-point deduction and almost certain relegation from the Championship. The administrators are talking up the club’s chances of a new buyer and the fans, having lifted their boycott, are back spending in the stadium. But until a new owner emerges the players, coaches and staff will struggle under considerable financial restrictions. The on-pitch situation is grim. Wednesday sit bottom of the table, and would be there even without the deduction. United’s problems are not as existential as Wednesday. However, their chaotic decline since that last minute play-off final defeat in May to Sunderland seems to have broken the collective brains at Bramall Lane. Manager Chris Wilder was immediately sacked only to be rehired after his replacement Ruben Selles presided over a disastrous start this season. The Blades improved slightly but have a solitary point from the last four. They were expected to challenge for promotion instead they’re in the bottom three. Who knows how the club will collectively manage the trauma if they lose the derby for the first time since 2012. TD

Premier League: Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur

16.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
While the table suggests that it’s other teams that have problems right now, both sides enter this North London derby in the midst of an injury crisis. A combined total of 20 (TWENTY) players are either out or have some measure of doubt attached to their availability for this fixture. Hoping to have some players back after the break, Arsenal had six players, all attackers, missing for the 2-2 draw at Sunderland. They have now been joined in the treatment room by Riccardo Calafiori and Gabriel Magalhães who picked up injuries playing for their national teams. Tottenham’s list of ten players unavailable for their 2-2 draw against Manchester United now also includes Pape Matar Sarr, injured playing for Senegal, and Randal Kolo Muani who picked up a facial injury against United; if he can play it will probably be with a mask. Arsenal’s newly acquired depth means they can choose from Piero Hincapié, Miles Lewis Skelly and Cristhian Mosquera to shore up their defence. For Tottenham, once again Thomas Frank will have to juggle his fit players or gamble on bringing players back earlier than planned. All of which adds another layer of unpredictability to this frequently chaotic fixture. Arsenal are riding high but Tottenham have the best away record in the league. The stage is set, as in past encounters, for a fringe player to become a folk hero. GS

Serie A: Inter v Milan

19.45 on TNT Sports 1 and DAZN
To say it’s tight at the top of Serie A is an understatement. Three points separate the top five, with Inter at the top and AC Milan in third. The Milan derby is always one of those matches that gets the pulses racing, but there’s a sense that this fixture could be a defining one in the race for the Scudetto. Inter have been on a tear since mid-September, losing just once to Napoli, although cynics may point to the fixture list being relatively kind of late to I Nerazzurri, an impressive win at Roma aside. Milan, meanwhile, have slowed down with the number of draws starting to tick up. But when it’s come to the other title contenders, Massimilano Allegri’s side have seen off Napoli, Roma and Bologna, as well as taking a point off Juventus in sixth, meaning I Rossoneri will provide one of the toughest tests this season for Christian Chivu’s table toppers. Milan’s defence is pretty miserly and the evergreen Luka Modric has been the catalyst for excellent seasons from both Rafa Leao and Christian Pulisic. Inter are a bit more free scoring than their cross-town rivals, which should make for an intriguing battle. If Inter can emerge victorious, they’ll lay down a marker to those around them. If Milan win, then the title race continues to be wide open. And a draw will benefit Roma, Napoli, and Bologna, who have a much kinder set of fixtures this weekend. There’s no clear favourite for the Serie A title currently, and that picture may be no clearer come the end of this round. GA


Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry, Jan and Gary