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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: Bristol City v Derby County

20.00 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
There are still 17 match days left of the Championship season, so there’s plenty of opportunity for chaos between now and when we know who will be in the play-offs. These two sides currently book-end a pack of five clubs that are just a point or two behind Wrexham in sixth, but neither have done much (so far, at least) to convince they have it in them to make a run to the post-season knockout. Results for Derby have improved after a start to their league season that saw them win just one of their first ten. Season loanee from Southampton Ben Brereton Diaz is just finding his feet at the Rams providing two goals and two assists this month having netted just once in the first half of the season. Robins’ boss Gerhard Struber had a 12 month spell in the Championship in charge of Barnsley before being lured back to Red Bull to take charge of first New York then Salzburg (for who he had previously been on the coaching staff, and played for when they were still Austria Salzburg). Last year he was fired by FC Koln just two weeks before they secured promotion back to the top flight in Germany. If you’ve not watched TV coverage of a game played at Ashton Gate it does take a bit of getting used to. The camera gantry is very high up giving a vertiginous, almost overhead view of the action. Gamers of a certain vintage might think of it as the Sensible Soccer perspective. GS

Saturday

A-League: Perth Glory v Auckland

10.45 on TNT Sports 3
It’s a strange A-League this season. No side seems to want to lead the table and even Perth, 10th in the table, are just a couple of wins away from the finals spots. That could be read that this season has teams that are evenly matched, which makes for a more exciting league, or indicative of a lack of quality. Both are probably true and both will be on display here. Auckland are one of the best sides in the competition but have found their second season tougher going, with plenty of points dropped in matches they would have probably won last season. Perth, meanwhile, are better than their position would suggest but are recovering from a disastrous start to the season under now-dismissed coach David Zdrilic. New gaffer Adam Griffith has got the team ticking even if there’s plenty of structural work to do at the back. But Glory have a squad that can hurt any side in the league, as Melbourne City can attest. And with several of the biggest sides — City, Melbourne Victory, Western Sydney Wanderers — having indifferent seasons and Auckland top by virtue of other teams around them failing to take opportunities, Perth will know they’re still very much in contention for the top six. The bookies will, rightly, have Auckland as favourites but anybody who’s been watching the league this season knows it’s dangerous to write off Perth, or any other team, for that matter. Definitely not the slam-dunk the league table suggests. GA

Premier League: Chelsea v West Ham United

17.30 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
It has, under any definition, been a good week for Chelsea and Liam Rosenior. The midweek Champions League victory over Napoli to secure qualification for the knockouts was a seriously impressive result and the former Strasbourg manager has made a quietly confident start to life in the Stamford Bridge dugout. Since the League Cup loss to Arsenal, Rosenior’s team have started to click. That said, their defence and goalkeeper Robert Sanchez still look suspect when up against high quality strikers. And without wanting to sound too insulting to West Ham, that’s not really an area in which they excel. Nuno Espirto Santo has one hell of a job to keep the Hammers in the Premier League and while results have picked up in recent weeks, Chelsea are a very different proposition to an out-of-form Spurs, or even a surprise win over Sunderland. A win away to a team where Champions League qualification is expected would give West Ham one hell of a boost both psychologically and points wise. It’s hard to see this scenario playing out, but Rosenior is still early into his tenure and Nuno is finally making progress, so it’s not entirely out of the question. GA

Premier League: Liverpool v Newcastle United

20.00 on TNT Sports 1 & Ultimate
This summer, as a result of pressure from player unions against the extra burden imposed by the Club World Cup, FIFA introduce a ruling that players must have at least 72 hours rest between games. Having both played on Wednesday evening in the final round of fixtures in the league phase of the Champions League, that ruling means this match can’t be played in TNT’s usual lunchtime slot and has to be moved to the even more unpopular late evening position. On Wednesday, Liverpool enjoyed a very comfortable 6-0 home win against Qarabag. Newcastle meanwhile had a hard fought draw at PSG, a result that suited neither side. Either would have avoided the play-off round with a win but as it is, this is the first of nine games Newcastle have to play before the end of February; a run that includes the second leg of a League Cup semi-final and a trip to Azerbaijan to face Qarabag themselves. The reverse fixture at St James’ Park ended 2-3, back in August when Liverpool were in the habit of winning games with goals scored late into injury time rather than losing them. That fixture of course was caught up in the middle of the unseemly mess that was Alexander Isak’s transfer to Liverpool, which was completed just a few days later. Neither side have made any signings in this window so far, though fixture pressure may force the (dirty) Mags to make a move before Monday’s deadline. GS

Sunday

Premier League: Nottingham Forest v Crystal Palace

14.00 on Sky Sports Plus
Ordinarily, this match would be seen as a potential relegation six-pointer. But off the field events have created some needle between the two clubs and their fans. It was Forest who complained and subsequently claimed Palace’s Europa League spot in August after the Eagles fell afoul of UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules. In response the Palace fans displayed that disparaging banner depicting Forest owner Marinakis during the 1-1 draw between these two sides at Selhurst. On Monday Forest put in a £35 million bid for wantaway Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta. This is short of Palace’s valuation and the timing you could be forgiven for thinking that Forest are playing mind games. It’s possible that Mateta may leave Palace by Sunday and, at the time of writing, a fee had been agreed with Wolves for Jorgen Strand Larsen who would be a direct replacement. Aston Villa’s Evann Guessand is also set to move to Selhurst on loan. Palace manager Oliver Glasner was pleased with his team’s performance in their 3-1 defeat to Chelsea and indeed the team were much improved in the first half. Forest’s relegation concerns are greater than the visitors. At present Sean Dyche’s team are five points away from West Ham whereas Palace are as close to the Hammers as they are Liverpool. Palace also have the advantage of no mid-week game as the Conference League season has yet to restart. Forest played Ferencváros in the Europa League on Thursday and ran out 4-0 winners. If Chelsea beat West Ham on Saturday then Forest could look upon this game against an out of form opposition to put some real distance from the bottom three. TD

Premier League: Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City

16.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
Back in August, in Thomas Frank’s honeymoon period, Tottenham beat City at the Etihad 2-0. Not a bad start to his time at the helm, but things couldn’t be more different now. Frank’s Tottenham side sit in a lowly fourteenth with tonight’s hosts in second just four points behind leaders Arsenal. To be fair to Frank, he’s not the first highly rated coach to have wrongly assumed he could succeed in putting out the Tottenham skip fire. League form has been nothing short of dismal, with just two wins in the league since October. Talk of tensions amongst the players, and fans booing the team off on several occasions, keep Tottenham in first place as the most entertaining off-field club in the Premier League. Indeed, the only thing keeping Frank in post is his bizarrely consistent and, to be honest, impressive, Champions League form which saw Tottenham finish the (massive) league phase in fourth place ahead of Barcelona, Chelsea and tonight’s guests, City. Conversely, City, despite a brace of disappointing results against Bodø/Glimt and Manchester United, now sit second, just four points behind leaders Arsenal. A win at home to Galatasaray in midweek saw Pep’s side join tonight’s host in avoiding the play-off round in the Champions League. They’ve also added real quality to the side in recent weeks with instant hit Antoine Semenyo being joined by Marc Guéhi from Bournemouth and Palace respectively. One footed Viking man-bear, Erling Haaland, got back amongst the goals on Wednesday, having sat out of most of the pedestrian home win against Wolves. Can Frank replicate the recent achievements of Bodø/Glimt and Manchester United? Well, in a word, no. Away win. JB

FIFA Women’s Champions Cup Final: Arsenal v Corinthians

18.00 on Sky Sports Football, Main Event & Ultra
The value of super cups is always questionable; do they really count as trophies? In women’s football, up until now, they’ve only existed domestically. But with £1.7m in prize money on offer — more than what Arsenal earned for winning the Champions League — this is certainly worth taking seriously. While there have been invitational international club tournaments, this represents the first officially sanctioned international super cup in women’s club football. Sponsored by a company run by multi-club owner Michelle Kang, the Champions Cup is the precursor for a 19-team Women’s Club World Cup, which was planned for this year but has now been put off until at least 2028 (but with so far only Qatar coming forward as potential hosts expect it be delayed even longer). Arsenal had a straightforward route to the final, beating African champions AS FAR 6-0 at Brentford on Wednesday evening. Corinthians have been Brazilian champions for the past seven seasons and have won the last three Copa Libertadores. They caused a minor upset by beating the Concacaf champions Gotham FC of the NWSL 1-0 in their semi-final with a resilient defensive display (also helped a little by the New York side being a month behind their opponents in pre-season preparations). Expect a healthy number of London’s Brazilian diaspora to be in full voice for a party atmosphere at the Emirates. GS


Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry, Jan and Gary