Weekend Boxset: Waiting for Wear-Tyne

By Graham Sibley December 12, 2025

Weekend Boxset: Waiting for Wear-Tyne

Who will prevail in the weekend's big derby in the North East? Their first in the league in a decade.

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

Bundesliga: Union Berlin v RB Leipzig

19.30 on BBC iPlayer and Bundesliga YouTube
When I previewed Leipzig ahead of their first game of the season against Bayern Munich, I was pessimistic about their prospects. The loss of prominent first teamers in the summer plus the appointment of new coach Ole Werner made me wonder if the club were looking to downgrade their expectations. The subsequent 6-0 thrashing to Bayern seemed to confirm my pessimism but that has turned out to be completely misplaced. Since then, RB have lost only once in the league. Ole Werner’s team have almost certainly benefited from the absence of European games and sit in second place just above Dortmund but eight points behind Bayern who are unlikely to be caught. The big headline grabber is Yan Diamonde, a 19-year-old forward who signed from Leganes in the summer. The Cote D’Ivoire international has six goals and two assists and will be missed when he travels to Morocco for Afcon. However, the less celebrated player is Christoph Baumgartner who stepped into the fray after Xavi Simons left for Tottenham. The Austrian attacking midfielder has six goals and five assists. If he were playing in the Champions League, I would expect him to be mentioned in transfer dispatches. Baumgartner and his teammates will face a hostile crowd at the An der Alten Försterei but perhaps not such a hostile team. Union have lost their last three league and cup games and have not won at home in the Bundesliga since October. Coach Steffen Baumgart said he saw encouraging signs in the 3-1 loss to Wolfsburg which is the sort of thing a coach says when he is under pressure. It would take some bottle to place any cash on Union getting any change from this game. The home side will have to cope without the support of the ultras for the first 12 minutes of the match while the atmosphere boycott continues: across Germany fans are protesting against proposals for stricter security measures at Bundesliga stadiums. TD

Saturday

Championship: Norwich City v Southampton

12.30 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
Both clubs began the season with designs on promotion. Both hired exciting new coaches, both had terrible starts to the season and both consequently sacked their coaches. Will Still uprooted himself from Lens to Southampton with a reputation as a young coach with high expectations. But two league wins from thirteen league games, culminating in three straight defeats, forced the club to rethink their strategy. While doing so they promoted Tonda Eckert from the Under 21s to coach the senior team while the owners deliberated. At 32, Eckert is even younger than Still and he is also highly regarded. However, it was not thought likely that he would be given the job of head coach permanently. That was until he turned around the club’s prospects for the season with six wins out of seven. The Saints have climbed to ninth place and are one point away from the top six. Their opponents have not experienced the same new coach bounce after firing Liam Manning. His replacement, Phillipe Clement has been in post for five games which so far has yielded one win against QPR. You suspect that the former Rangers coach has a lot more to unpick than his opposite number. The underlying numbers look OK for the Canaries with their xG increasing to over one per game since Clement took charge. But the club sit second from bottom of the table and I suspect that the relatively long-suffering Nodge fans will find little comfort in the numbers. TD

Premier League: Burnley v Fulham

17.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
This meeting of the last two managers to get Fulham promoted to the Premier League finds them both looking for a change of fortune. Marco Silva's contract with Fulham expires at the end of the season. Last month the club offered him an extension but as yet he hasn't committed to staying on. One sticking point could be the inclusion of a high release clause which is thought to be why both Manchester United and Tottenham didn't follow up on their interest in him. That interest and a perceived lack of ambition from the club's owners in the summer transfer window may have already made Silva's mind up. In anticipation of him leaving, the club are rumoured to be lining up Liam Rosenior on the strength of his successes in charge of Strasbourg. In the meantime, Fulham are on a run of close defeats that have left them in danger of falling adrift from the packed mid-table and into a relegation scrap, but they look better than the sides currently hovering around the relegation line. Scott Parker's Burnley however are very much in the mix for the drop. Despite an improvement in performances, it's hard to see where their next three points will come with their only wins this season coming against both sides they came up with and Wolves. GS

La Liga: Getafe v Espanyol

20.00 on Disney Plus
A chance to look at the two surprise packages in Spain this season. Last season these sides finished just two points above the relegation line; an all too familiar region of the table for Getafe in recent times, while Espanyol will have been happy to have avoided a third relegation from the top flight in six seasons. This season, Espanyol are sat fifth, their hosts just three places below. Having started coaching 30 years ago at the age of 16, Espanyol head coach Manolo González managed a number of sides in the Tercera and Segunda B levels — Spain’s equivalent of non-league. A former bus driver, González joined Espanyol in 2023 as their youth team coach but, in the space of 12 months, the exit of two of the club’s head coaches in quick succession quickly elevated him into the top job to see out the rest of the season — which he did, securing Espanyol’s return to the top flight in the play-offs. Espanyol were recently taken over by the investors who own Burnley, so maybe there’s a chance that his next step might be to Turf Moor. In his first spell as Getafe head coach, José Bordalás took the Madrid club to their highest ever finish, just short of a Champions League place. His second spell, re-joining after it was his turn to manage Valencia for a season (until he was replaced by Gennaro Gattuso, with predictable consequences) has been less successful. With sides like Sevilla and Real Sociedad struggling form this season there is an opportunity open for one of these sides to play in Europe next season. GS

Sunday

Premier League: Sunderland v Newcastle United

14.00 on Sky Sports Main Event & Ultra
According to the super intelligence on my phone, anxiety is an emotion characterised by apprehension, tension, or uneasiness that stems from the anticipation of danger, misfortune, or a future threat. This most unwelcome of emotions planted itself into my psyche earlier this week when the upcoming derby against the (dirty, or dorty, as they would say) Mags appeared on the horizon. I don’t much care for the word ‘hate’, but nothing really describes the feeling quite as well as the emotion that separates two cities who, if the truth be told, have far more in common than either cares to admit. That aside, and I’ll die on this particular hill, the Tyne/Wear contest is the most ferocious derby on these islands after the Old Firm. The rivalry isn’t as simple as mere geography, it goes back to sides chosen in the English civil war, and, despite the years that have passed, nobody seems willing to let it go. The last meeting was in the FA Cup in early 2024 and was something of a mismatch with the Lads, then a mid-table Championship side, encumbered by the terminally inept Michael Beale. The M*gs, bristling with talent paid for with Saudi blood money, made short work of a youthful and naive Sunderland side. That day Dan Ballard put the ball in his own net and gave away a needless penalty in the last minute to gift the barcodes their third goal. If anyone personifies the transformation that Sunderland have undergone in the near two years since, it’s Ballard. The Northern Ireland international has deservedly received recognition for his part in Sunderland’s Premier League campaign to date, but the truth is that something changed after that FA Cup defeat, not just for Ballard, but for the entire club. The imposter, Beale, was UB40 a few weeks later and the club spent months finding the right coach to take them forward: Régis Le Bris. The transformation since, both on and off the field, brings us to this moment where the Lads can go into the fixture with a real belief that they can get a result. Of course, it’ll be tough for the home side, and they may well be defeated, but N*wcastle will face a rejuvenated Sunderland and steeled Dan Ballard. JB

Premier League: Brentford v Leeds United

16.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
It’s a bit early and unnecessary to call this a relegation six pointer but maybe a two and a half pointer will do. Both sides are closer than they’d like to be to the bottom three. Leeds have shown that they should be capable of staying up and you’d expect Brentford to do the same, but you wouldn’t exactly say either side can take Premier League football for granted next season. Leeds have acquitted themselves well during what has been a pretty horrific run of fixtures. Granted, taking points off Liverpool and Chelsea isn’t as challenging as it could be, but for a team like Leeds it shows they have what it takes to mix it in the top flight. Brentford meanwhile blow hot and cold. The free scoring Igor Thiago means the Bees are always an attacking threat but the defence can be slightly leaky. But given Leeds also haven’t kept a clean sheet in 12 matches, this has the potential to be a lot of fun, as well as a decent indicator of both sides’ ability to pull away from the relegation zone. GA

Serie A: Bologna v Juventus

19.45 on TNT Sports 1 and DAZN
Right, where are we in the Serie A top-of-table merry-go-round? Unusually, we have the same team at the top for two rounds running, with AC Milan surviving an almighty scare at Torino to stay top, albeit level on points with Napoli, who saw off Juventus last week. That loss put a halt to the Old Lady’s mini-revival and almost certainly put paid to any hope Luciano Spalletti had of keeping his side in the title race. Five points adrift in a tight title race was tough but not impossible to overcome. Now eight points behind Milan and seventh in the table, it looks like Juve face a battle just to get into Europe next season. In truth, the loss to Napoli is probably a fair reflection of Juventus this season: an upper-mid table side who can beat lower ranked teams but struggle against sides of genuine quality. Which makes this match a fascinating marker for Bologna, who are very much in the hunt for Champions League football. As predicted in last week’s Box Set, their away trip to Lazio had the makings of a tricky fixture, and a 1-1 draw wasn’t a surprise result. But I Rossoblù have only lost once at home this season and only Inter have averaged more goals per game. Vincenzo Italiano’s love of a long ball is unlikely to win many plaudits, except from the ghost of Charles Reep, but Bologna are a very effective attacking unit. Such is the tight nature of Serie A, Bologna could probably get away with losing this one, given Roma and Como play each other this round, but then a loss would also bring Juve right back into the race for a Champions League spot. This is a fixture where Juventus really need to come away with at least a point. Now is the time we really see what Luciano Spalletti’s side are made of. GA

Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry, Jan and Gary