Weekly English Premier League Preview

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Is the title Manchester City’s to lose?

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With the EPL in their new weird January where an FA Cup weekend is followed by a strange winter break where some teams are off this week and the others off next, there are still some huge games this weekend.

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The pick of the bunch is the FUBO Game of the Week between Newcastle hosting Manchester City

Going into the packed Christmas period Arsenal were leading the pack, but Liverpool and Aston Villa were on their heels.

Manchester City had to manage the World Club Championship and because of that have a game in hand.

Arsenal suffered the most, losing twice and drawing once, Villa had a loss and a draw.

They are by no means out of it, but assuming City win their game in hand, they’ll be two points back of Liverpool, Villa are three back, Arsenal five back.

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So, as we’ve seen so many years before, expect City to come running. Hard.

After Newcastle they have a favourable set of fixtures.

Yes, the Champions League will divide attention, but their next league matches are Burnley, Brentford, Everton, Chelsea, Bournemouth and Manchester United before going to Anfield on March 9. There’s too much quality in the Arsenal squad, too much resiliency in the Aston Villa squad to say that match between the Reds and Sky Blues is going to be a title decider, but it looks like the two clubs who’ve gone tooth and nail at the top in five of the last six seasons will be doing it again.

Keep in mind, Liverpool just got the news Trent Alexander-Arnold is out for a month with a knee ligament strain. That’s on top of centre back Joel Matip being lost for the season, top two left backs, Andy Robertson and Kostas Tsimikas both still out with injuries requiring surgery and Mo Salah and Wataru Endo being out for a month on international duty. That’s essentially half of Jurgen Klopp’s starters gone for all of January.

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Which brings up the curious case of Newcastle. After a dream season last year, they were booted out of Europe and sit in ninth-place, 11 points out of the last Champions League place for next season. They’re mediocrity defined with nine wins, nine losses and two draws on the season, but have one win and five losses in their last six games.

While St. James’ Park is still considered a tricky place to play because of their maniacal fan support, as intimidating as shirtless, bald, obese and tatted-up men can be in January, we all know the challenge City pose. Especially now they have Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland over most of their injury woes.

Newcastle have only beaten City once in their last 32 league games. They did knock them out of the Carabao Cup, a competition City do take seriously, but that was not a full-strength City club.

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While City manager Pep Guardiola obviously is heartened with two of his biggest stars returning, the bus has been driven by Phil Foden in their absence and if Newcastle hold any hope of getting something out of this match they’ll have to limit him. He’s played a part in seven goals, three assists and four goals, in his last 10 games and since the Christmas fixtures Foden has created the most chances of any player in the Premier League.

All signs point to this being a chase between City and Liverpool again.

2. Will Aston Villa really be able to hang in the Top Four? Villa have been excellent this season. In fact, while they are only three points off the lead in the league it’s a testament to how hard life is at the top end of the table as one loss and one draw over the Christmas period seemed to put a damper on their superb start to the season.

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They have a tricky fixture this weekend headed to Everton, who had been one of the league’s hottest teams before losing the last three. Goodison Park can be a difficult place to play, but not for Villa who have won their last three games there. In total Villa have won their last five against Everton.

If you want to know how good manager Unai Emery has been since joining Villa, in the 45 games that he’s been in charge they’ve amassed 91 points, making him the only manager in Premier League history to marshall a record of more than two points per game and not win a title.

So yes, the answer is they can absolutely hang with the big boys.

One anomaly to this Everton squad, manager Sean Dyche built his foundation at Burnley with stout defensive play and capitalizing on scoring from set pieces and not conceding from them. But onlly Sheffield United have conceded more goals from corners than Everton this season, the Toffees having given up six goals. Aston Villa are fourth in most corners won.

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3. Who will win the battle of the fringe, Manchester United or Tottenham?

Spurs sit fifth, one point out of the Champions League spots. United are in eighth, eight points back of Spurs. If they want to qualify for Europe next season, this is a must win.

United will have to beat those teams scrapping for the last place, Arsenal, Spurs, West Ham, Brighton. There’s just too many teams to climb over if you don’t take three points off them each time. The hole has been dug too deep.

Having had an up-and-down season, the fact Spurs remain only six points off the lead is a miracle. They’re having to manage without top goal threat Heung-Min Son who is lost for the next month to national duty at the Asian Cup, but they’re just agreed to bring striker Timo Werner in on loan from RB Leipzig. It may be too soon for a start, but at some point during this game you can expect to see Werner, who was one of Europe’s hottest properties before flopping at Chelsea after a big-money move.

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He’s not the first player to fall on his face at Chelsea, and having seen what happened to the likes of Mo Salah and Kevin De Bruyne who went on to astonishing success once they escaped West London, Spurs will be hoping Werner can do the same. One thing he’ll have to do is learn to stay onside, he was offside 38 times in 57 games with the Blues.

One of the more remarkable stats, none of the last 17 matches between these sides finished in a draw. United have won 14, Spurs four. The hot man for Spurs is Richarlison who has scored five times in his lat five games after scoring just five in his first 45.

United have a decent defensive record, and they’ll need to be on point as Spurs have scored at least one goal in their last 32 league matches. It’s scoring goals where United have struggled, they have just 22 in 20 league games, the third-worst in all of the Premier League.

FRIDAY: Burnley v. Luton.
SATURDAY: Chelsea v. Fulham; Newcastle v. Manchester City.
SUNDAY: Everton v. Aston Villa; Manchester United v. Tottenham.

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