Afternoon. We’ve got
loads of 3pm games
We also have what might be a spicy match at the London Stadium, where West Ham take on Sheffield United. The Blades hate the Hammers because they believe Carlos Tevez, who relegated them in 2007 after scoring the winning goal against Manchester United at Old Trafford, should not have been eligible to play for them. Jacob Steinberg goes into greater detail about the bad blood in this fine piece of writing here:
After a fine start to the season, West Ham aren’t playing well and are in danger of going into freefall having not won a game for over a month. The Blades, meanwhile, are going to bounce into the capital full of beans after beating Arsenal on Monday.
Bournemouth travel to rock-bottom and winless Watford in the last of the 3pm Premier League games. I fancy them to end that run against the Cherries. Watford were great against Spurs last weekend and deserved to take three points away from north London. Bournemouth haven’t won since 20 September, when they won 3-1 at Southampton, a result that looks modest after Leicester’s evisceration of the Saints. And that’s your lot for the English top flight.
I’ll keep a close eye on goings on across the Football League and anything of interest in Europe, too. With Leeds currently in action at Sheffield Wednesday, Championship high-flyers West Brom will hope to beat mid-table Charlton to pull clear at the top.
And if you’re wondering who could have a worse weekend than Southampton, what about Southend? Sol Campbell officially takes charge of the League One club today in their home match against joint-top Ipswich having watched them lose 7-1 at home to Doncaster on Tuesday.
In the Scottish Premiership (which already looks like a two-horse race), Rangers and Celtic both play tomorrow, having been in Europa League action on Thursday. If you want to check today’s fixtures across Europe in all the leading leagues, use this handy link.
And I’m a firm believer that the yellow ball above is rubbish. A winter football should be an orange Adidas Tango or nothing else. Also, they shouldn’t be allowed to use a winter ball until after the clocks go back. Thoughts?