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Welcome to Spurs, Igor Tudor. Also, a new season of MLS begins, the last before everything changes.

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
This full-blooded Lancashire derby comes at a time of deep crisis for Rovers, and renewed optimism for North End. You won’t find many Blackburn fans unhappy to see Valérien Ismaël sacked as manager, after a run of eight games without a win, leaving the club in a relegation battle. However, after two weeks of trying and failing to recruit Gary Rowett, Leam Richardson, or Robbie Savage they arrived at a part-time solution. Michael O’Neill is the coach of Northern Ireland with World Cup play-offs to negotiate in March. He is also the new Rovers boss until the end of the season. The move is intriguing but unsettling for the fans. It is a measure of the club’s reputation that they have been unable to attract a suitable full-time coach. However, given the circumstances this is not a terrible move. O’Neill is a decent coach and maintains that his preparations for Northern Ireland’s clash with Italy are complete and there is little else for him to do now but watch games, so he may as well do some work in the meantime. He started off with an impressive 3-1 win at QPR with goals from Mathias Jorgensen and Ryoyo Morishita. The mood was dampened however, by defender Lewis Miller rupturing his achilles tendon. The Aussie international will miss the rest of the season and possibly the World Cup. However, the mood will be buoyant ahead of a Friday night clash against a North End side who need to make up some lost ground in the title race. Paul Heckingbottom’s side dropped out of the play-off places, albeit on goal difference, but are unbeaten in their last three. TD

Saturday

A-League: Melbourne City v Melbourne Victory

08.35 on TNT Sports 1
After the final, the hangover. Neither of last season’s two grand finalists have particularly impressed this season. Victory had a poor start and have found form in fits and starts. City, meanwhile, have drifted to outside the top six with a lot of uninspiring draws. While xG can be a bit of a furphy of a statistic, in this case it speaks volumes that City sit at the top of the xG charts and seventh in actual goals scored. The same could be said for Melbourne Victory’s main striker Nikolaos Vergos, a man who occasionally looks like he’s won a lucky draw competition to play in a professional team, but occasionally bags a few in a match. The Melbourne derby might not always have the intensity of its Sydney counterpart, but in the context of the finals, a win for either side could give them a vital psychological victory. Draw it is then. GA

Bundesliga: RB Leipzig v Borussia Dortmund

17.30 on Sky Sports Football
This match is part two of a four game arc that will define Borussia Dortmund’s season. The first instalment was on Tuesday with a convincing 2-0 win over Atalanta. Next week they must travel to Bergamo to finish the job and progress in the Champions League. Before that is a tough challenge against a talented if misfiring Leipzig team. Dortmund this season lack the vibes of prior campaigns under Nuri Sahin and Edin Terzic. Niko Kovac’s brand of football is more process driven and consequently BVB are less fun to watch. The upside is that they are scoring lots of goals, winning games and have almost certainly secured a return to the Champions league next season. Yay Kovacball! So far this season, only Leverkusen and Bayern Munich have beaten Borussia and they are 100 percent in the last four league games. A win in Leipzig sets up the possibility of making up ground on leaders Bayern when the two teams meet next weekend to round off the four-part saga. The home side have just two wins in six and have struggled to pick up points against teams they are supposed to beat, such as Mainz, St Pauli, and Wolfsburg. But history is on their side: Leipzig have beaten Dortmund in all five of their last encounters at the Zentralstadion. If Borussia can come away with three points, then we could be ready to talk about a title race. See you next week for Der Klassiker. TD

MLS: St Louis City v Charlotte

19.30 on Apple TV
If you’re waiting for the summer release of season four of Ted Lasso, Apple TV has actual football content for you to enjoy. Having ditched its failed Season Pass extra paywall, all MLS are games are now available free to Apple TV subscribers. In the short term, this is good news for fans but the long term future of the league looks uncertain. Apple’s original deal was worth $2.5 billion and set to last ten years. It’s now been cut short leaving the league with work to do in an already competitive rights market. This season — which, of course, book-ends a World Cup in North America — could be its most important since its start in the wake of the 1994 World Cup. The first step the league has taken to improve global appeal is to switch from being a summer league to having a calendar that aligns with Western Europe, from next year. That means this will be the last full season as a summer league while 2027 will see a shortened campaign before the league switches to an autumn/spring calendar for 2027/28. This season opener is between two recent additions to the league: St Louis City joined the league in 2023, Charlotte a year earlier. Former Aston Villa manager Dean Smith is head coach of Charlotte and last season led them to their highest finish of seventh overall, but they have yet to progress past the first round of the play-offs. Wilfried Zaha remains at the club, on loan from Galatasary until at least the World Cup break. St Louis made the play-offs in their first season but have yet to return. Their head coach is Yoann Damet who was previously Wilfried Nancy’s assistant at Columbus Crew until his boss made the ill-fated decision to take the Celtic job. GS

Bonus viewing: Cincinnati v Atlanta United follows this on Apple TV from 21.45. Coverage of the league’s opening weekend continues with eleven games kicking off after midnight.

Sunday

Women’s FA Cup fifth round: Chelsea v Manchester United

13.30 on TNT Sports 1 and Discovery Plus
These two must be sick of each other in cup competitions. Not only do they meet again in the League Cup final next month, this is the third meeting between the sides in four seasons in this competition, with Chelsea leading the count at two victories to one. And with both sides off the pace in the WSL, this competition gives them a realistic shot at two pieces of silverware this season. By meeting in the fifth round, and given their respective cup pedigree, a win here would create a higher probability of reaching the final. Chelsea’s job will be made harder without Millie Bright, and the knowledge that two recent losses against Arsenal and Manchester City has shown quality opponents how to beat what has previously been the WSL’s dominant team. United meanwhile will be high in confidence off the back of a victory over Atlético Madrid. This was never a banker for Chelsea and it would be no surprise if Sonia Bompastor’s team make an early exit this year. GA

Premier League: Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal

16.30 on Sky Sports Premier League, Main Event & Ultra
There are two things that have remained consistent since the turn of the year: it’s rained every day somewhere in Britain and Tottenham Hotspur have not won a single game in the Premier League. Only one of those things is enjoyed by the majority of the country; I’ll let you guess which. Sadly for Thomas Frank, there was no silver lining to the particular cloud that had been hanging over the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for much of the season. In retrospect, the Dane was never going to navigate a storm that had been raging for many years. He was just the latest in a long line of proven coaches who have failed to turn around a club seemingly rotten from top to bottom. Next up is the former head coach of a procession of European clubs including Juventus, Marseille and Udinese, Igor Tudor. As a player, Tudor was known for his no-nonsense but highly capable style of play which he brought with him into coaching. Sadly, in our modern game, this often translates to “useful when in a relegation scrap” which has meant he’s never been at one club for very long, and why he’s now in North London for the remainder of the season. In a strong field, Tottenham must be one of his biggest challenges: a club with delusions of grandeur, a hierarchy in transition, disgruntled fans and an eye-watering injury list. Add to that a North London derby against the league leaders and you’ve got a nightmare first week in a new gig. Speaking of bad weeks, this one hasn’t been great for Arsenal. Having eased past third-tier Wigan in the FA Cup, the Gunners went to Wolves to extend their lead at the top of the table. With about half-an-hour to go and 2-0 up, that was exactly how it looked, but Wolves had other ideas. Hugo Bueno pulled one back just after the hour mark, setting up what may end up being a turning point in the season when Tom Edozie equalised in injury time. All of this leaves me wondering which coach is actually under pressure today. Is it a free hit for Tudor or a must-win for Mikel Arteta? JB

Serie A: Roma v Cremonese

19.45 on TNT Sports 1 and DAZN
Things are starting to look clearer at the top of Serie A after a week that saw the top six sides play each other. The outcome was good news for Inter who stretched their lead to seven points by beating Juventus. AC Milan and Como could only draw in their rescheduled match, which for a long time was to be played in Perth. Roma’s point at Napoli was enough to see them climb above Juve into fourth spot. With Juve and Como facing each other and a tough trip to Atalanta for Napoli, this home fixture against one of the league’s strugglers should allow Roma to consolidate their place in the top four. Cremonese got off to a good start to the season winning their two opening fixtures on their return to the top flight, but a winless run of 12 games has slowly pulled them back towards the relegation zone. 39 year old Jamie Vardy has yet to give any hints of imminent retirement and has five goals for the side from Cremona. Having joined in the summer, his contract expires at the end of the season but there are already rumours he will be offered an extension, should they stay up. One player likely to come off the bench for Cremonese is young defender Romano Florian Mussolini. Yes, he is Benito Mussolini’s great grandson. He’s also the great-nephew of iconic film actress Sophia Loren (more famous these days as a side-eye meme). His mother is Forza Italia MEP Alessandra Mussolini. Given his family history, certain sections of opposition ultras have been known to cheer him on, but even the right-leaning Boys Roma faction are unlikely to give him a warm welcome as he is on loan from Lazio (yes, you’re shocked, I know). GS

Whatever you watch, have a great weekend.

Graham, Terry, Jan and Gary