Arsenal v Spurs in bare bones derby as Nottingham Forest face actual title test
A full midweek programme of Barclays on the back of a magic-littered FA Cup weekend? Truly the fixture overlords spoil us with this fattening feast. A bare-bones NLD headlines a fun-filled fixture list.
Game to watch: Arsenal v Tottenham
The best and most consistently reliable source of Proper Local Derby entertainment the Barclays has to offer thanks to a rivalry that has thrived on permanently having at least one of its members swirling around in ridiculous chaos at all times.
After a couple of years of disappointing relative sanity, the good news for everyone is that Arsenal now appear to have joined Spurs in Nonsense Town. Or at least its trophy-dodging suburbs.
As we all know this is a game in which the formbook must by law go out of the window, and the great thing about that is itâs not immediately clear who that benefits in this one.
Spurs have managed just six regular-time wins in their last 18 matches in all competitions, yet those wins have come â often absurdly thumpingly â against Man City, Aston Villa, Man City again, Southampton, Man United and Liverpool. In that time theyâve failed to beat (over the standard distance at least) Roma, Fulham, Wolves, Tamworth and most embarrassingly of all a team from actual Scotland in among assorted mortifying defeats small and large.
Weâre fond of wondering whether Spurs have just done the most Spurs thing ever, but had they followed a Carabao victory over Liverpool with FA Cup defeat at non-league Tamworth as they so tantalisingly threatened to do, then the bar would have been set impossibly high. It would, though, also have meant they were certainties to go to the Emirates and win. They do after all, in what is surely the seasonâs least explicable statistic, somehow boast the best away defensive record in the Premier League.
Despite the very first tentative rumblings of Arteta Sack discourse, Arsenal are not really on Spursâ level at this time. They are still second in the league, which weâve checked and is definitely better than 12th.
They have, though, endured a week in which their Premier League hopes were dented by a 1-1 draw with Brighton, their Carabao hopes hanging by a thread after a 2-0 home-leg defeat to Newcastle and then suffered a fifth consecutive early FA Cup exit after failing to find a way past 10-man Manchester United for an hour before Kai Havertz took the most Kai Havertz of penalties in the shootout.
Chuck in the fact that both sides are currently so riddled with injuries and absence that there is the very real prospect of Kieran Tierney and Sergio Reguilon both featuring in a North London Derby in big 2025 and youâve got a game that appears almost impossible to predict with any great certainty beyond as close to a cast-iron guarantee of chuckles and f*ck-ups as Our League can ever provide.
Team to watch: Nottingham Forest
Now for far more sensible matters, like Nottingham Forestâs title charge. Yeah, thatâs right. The Nottingham Forest title charge under Nuno Espirito Santo, the one we definitely all predicted back in the summer, didnât we? Just felt right.
Unlike the two teams weâve just mentioned, Forest have built their most unlikely of seasons on becoming near impervious to nonsense. They are, and this is a novel idea weâre surprised more teams donât employ more often, simply very good on a very consistent basis by knowing their strengths while building around and playing to those said strengths.
When they did have a brief dalliance with nonsense in a four-game run that included conceding three goals each to Newcastle, Arsenal and Manchester City they so swiftly regained the run of themselves that itâs now seven wins from seven in all competitions since that time, with three goals conceded altogether.
And now we find out just how far they can take it all. More than that, perhaps, how far they believe they can take it all. Is there a genuine belief at Forest that they really can go Full Leicester? They are still the only team to have inflicted a league defeat on Liverpool this season and if they can repeat that Anfield shock at the City Ground against a side that has shown the first real signs of vulnerability in recent disappointments against Man United and Spurs then suddenly all things are possible: it would position Forest three points behind the leaders and with all the momentum in the world.
READ: Mbeumo to join Williams at Arsenal, Man City to sign three in perfect January window for title race
Manager to watch: David Moyes
âNever go backâ is clearly not a maxim David Moyes feels compelled to follow.
The 11-and-a-half years since he left Everton, after 11 years in charge, have contained two spells at West Ham. The good news for Everton fans is that Moyes defied the conventional wisdom there; his second spell was far more successful than his first.
Now he is back at Goodison, and if his second crack at Everton is more successful than his first then he really will have done something special; he might even get a second go at Manchester United.
Itâs easy to be glib about Moyes, a manager who will never fully recover from being so utterly exposed in the rarefied air at United. But there is no shame in being not quite right for super-club management. And what he did in over a decade at Everton always looked impressive at the time and only increasingly so as the club lurched haphazardly one way then the other in his absence.
Moyesâ return must surely rank as the single most Knows The Club appointment in Barclays history. Itâs a phrase often used derisively, to suggest it is the only qualification a manager possesses. Itâs taken Frank Lampard a long way, for instance. But Moyes has more. He doesnât just know this club, he knows how to make it work. He understands Everton and its supporters deeply.
The immediate future finds Moyes in a relegation scrap, and itâs going to take a fair new (returning?) manager bounce to kick it off with victory in his first game against Aston Villa, a club it feels increasingly wrong that he never managed given heâs now had two spells at both Everton and West Ham, a pair with whom Villa remain weirdly, increasingly unfairly and yet unshakeably linked in our troubled mind.
Player to watch: Rico Lewis
While Pep Guardiola didnât entirely rule out the idea of Kyle Walker playing at Brentford despite his transfer request, it does seem likelier that this is a game that heralds the beginning in earnest of the Rico Lewis Era on the right-hand side of Cityâs defence.
Brentford has not generally been a straightforward place for visiting defenders this season, with no side having managed more Premier League goals on home turf than the Beesâ 27.
Those powers do appear to be slightly on the wane, however: after winning seven and drawing one of their first eight home games of the season, Brentford have suffered 2-0 and 3-1 defeats to Nottingham Forest and Arsenal respectively and then found themselves on the wrong end of Saturdayâs biggest FA Cup shock when beaten at home by Championship relegation-battlers Plymouth.
Brentford had scored 20 goals in their five Premier League home games before managing just one in two against Forest and Arsenal, and do face the very real prospect of their home form deteriorating further with Cityâs visit this week followed by Liverpoolâs at the weekend.
As for Lewis, all the indications are that the time is right for him to move forward as Cityâs first-choice right-back even without Kyle Walkerâs legs and head going. Itâs been a troubled season for City, but in the seven Premier League games in which Lewis has been in his preferred position, they now have five wins and a draw alongside a sole defeat at Aston Villa. Itâs a sight better than their overall record this season, one thatâs so bad that the usual expected post-Christmas surge is already sure to be only enough to secure a Champions League finish at best.
Football League game to watch: Plymouth v Oxford  Â
Teams on opposite sides of FA Cup magic at the weekend are straight back to the day job of relegation six-pointers here.
For Plymouth, 1-0 winners at Brentford in the cup, the tentative league improvement from a pair of post-Wayne Rooney draws under caretaker Kevin Nancekevill is now in the hands of new permanent manager Miron Muslic who watched their cup success from the stands.
Oxford, meanwhile, lost to Exeter in the cup and might rue the timing of this particular fixture given their own still-perilous position just eight points above the rock-bottom Pilgrims and five above the current safety line.
European game to watch: Bayern Munich v Hoffenheim
Bayernâs ongoing quest to right last seasonâs unacceptable third-place wrongs continues as they seek to consolidate their advantage over usurpers Bayer Leverkusen this time around against another of 2023/24âs surprise packages who have found things much harder this time around.
Hoffenheim finished seventh last season and secured Europa League football â they host Tottenham in a couple of weeks â but now sit just a point above the relegation play-off place and have already seen a small new-manager bounce under Christian Ilzer fizzle out to almost nothing.
You can watch Nottingham Forest take on Liverpool in a title clash without a Sky or TNT subscription.
The match will be shown on TNT Sports at 8pm but those who sign up to a free Amazon Prime account can watch it via Amazon by signing up for a Discovery+ add on.
The Amazon add on will also give you access to Manchester Cityâs trip to Brentford, Chelsea versus Bournemouth and West Ham against Fulham.
You can sign up hereâŠ
