10 things to look out for this weekend

Posted Saturday, September 13, 2014 by theguardian.com

From the benefits of international football, to a raft of big name debuts – the key events to look forward to as the league returns

There are three potential big name debuts this weekend, while Mario Balotelli
must live up to the hype and Alan Pardew must save his job

1) Internationals can heal players too

These being the first fixtures following an international break it is traditional for fans and managers to nurse a sense of grievance about suddenly-injured players. Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey, Chelsea’s Diego Costa, Manchester City’s Stevan Jovetic and Liverpool’s Daniel Sturridge all returned from representing their countries nursing various tweaks. “We feel it was an injury which could have been prevented,” fumed Brendan Rodgers of Sturridge. “I think clubs work differently at times to international teams.” Meanwhile there are others who may not be injured but whose return was so delayed that their involvement this weekend must be in doubt – the two scorers in Senegal’s 2-0 victory in Botswana on Wednesday night, Stoke’s Mame Diouf and Southampton’s Sadio Mané, were due to return to their clubs only on Friday afternoon. So it is worth noting that the opposite can on occasion be the case: Cheick Tioté has not played for his club this season but is in contention for the visit to Southampton having proved and improved his fitness during the Ivory Coast’s two internationals, a 2-1 victory over Sierra Leone and a 4-1 defeat to Cameroon.

2) International left-overs and left-outs

While the players returning from international duty may or may not be tired by their exertions and the travel, and cheered or disappointed by how they got on with their countries, what about those left behind? Do the players who spent the international break training with fellow overlooked professionals go into the next match extra pumped up to prove their worth? Who are the best uncapped players in the Premier League? Curtis Davies? Mark Noble? Nathan Dyer? Sylvain Distin would have been an obvious answer to that until a ropey start to this season raised fears that the 36-year-old may finally be starting to fade (and is not being helped by the similarly out-of-sorts Phil Jagielka) – though that perception gives the Frenchman even more reason to want to deliver a top performance this weekend. However, Roberto Martínez may decide that now is the right time to reintroduce the new England international John Stones to the Everton’s starting line-up.

3) Early bird gets to hammer Arsenal?

Last season Arsenal conceded more than three goals on just three occasions: a 6-3 defeat to Manchester City in December; a 5-1 defeat to Liverpool in February; and a 6-0 reverse against Chelsea in March. As it happens, these are also the last three 12.45pm kick-offs they have played, with another coming on Saturday. Memories of those matches might make breakfast a little harder to swallow for the Gunners and their fans, though none of those games were played at the Emirates (where Aston Villa, on the opening day of the season, were the only side to win). They will justifiably expect to perform much more creditably in this match than any of those, while City will similarly hope to improve significantly on their limp 3-0 defeat to these opponents in the Community Shield.

Arsène Wenger spoke unusually cryptically on Thursday about the arrival of Danny Welbeck, insisting the player would not have joined Arsenal had he not been in Rome to referee a charity game – “I will tell you that story one day, but that is the truth” – and adding that one reason for optimism for the player’s future is “that some players who arrived here at the age of 23 made huge careers here, so I hope we can contribute and help him”.

Of the players who have flourished during Wenger’s managership, the only ones who spring to mind and were 23 when they arrived are Lauren, Thomas Vermaelen, Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn, though Thierry Henry at 22 and Marc Overmars at 24 years three months weren’t far off. Who else might he have been referring to?

4) Can WBA risk rusty Lescott?

West Brom cannot afford to be playing catch-up for long. The season effectively ends early for them in the sense that they will want to have virtually secured survival after 33 matches so that they do not go into their last five (against Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle, Chelsea and Arsenal) needing more than one win. Following a summer of multiple departures and arrivals, Alan Irvine is under pressure to mould a new team fast so will doubtless want to field his first-choice players together quickly: should he, then, start Joleon Lescott against Everton this weekend? The 32-year-old has not played a first-team match since March and was pestered by knee and calf trouble over the summer, but he played 90 minutes in a reserve team match this week and is available to face his former club on Saturday. Given how disoriented West Brom’s defence looked against Swansea in their last match, Irvine must be strongly tempted to deploy Lescott. But an in-form Steven Naismith is an ideal player to exploit any rustiness in a defence.

5) Bench calling again for dark Mata

A match full of intrigue – from a first glimpse of United’s new signings to Rio Ferdinand’s belated opportunity to “give everyone a wave and say ‘thank you’” and Harry Redknapp’s search for a first league win as a manager over United (ironic, in many ways, given that he made his name with an FA Cup win over them, albeit at Dean Court, while at Bournemouth in 1984). In fact, possibly the only person not looking forward to Sunday’s televised match is Juan Mata. The Spaniard, precisely 230 days after his then club-record £37.1m move from Chelsea, is widely assumed to be the likely victim of his club’s wild swirl of belated transfer activity, the speed with which he has fallen out of favour at least meaning that he won’t have forgotten the bench-sitting skills he was busily honing at Stamford Bridge a year ago. Still in search of their first win under Luis van Gaal, it is widely assumed that any team too good for Mata will also be too good for QPR, but should the home side once again falter it may be time to hurriedly redraw club budgets that were revealed this week to “assume third place”.

6) Liverpool new boys get chance to shine

Now we will see how well Brendan Rodgers spent in the summer. Daniel Sturridge’s injury and, of course, Luis Suárez’s departure mean that Liverpool take on Aston Villa without the top two scorers from last season’s Premier League. The pair struck 53 goals between them last term and Liverpool did not begin any matches with both missing (in fact, the last time they played a league game without either of those strikers was in December 2012, when they narrowly beat West Ham having been 2-1 down with 15 minutes to play). The prospect of doing so would have had Rodgers fretting like a swimmer who realises in the dressing room that he’s forgotten his trunks. Last season that would have meant hoping that no one notices his Y-fronts before he jumps into the pool but the summer spending spree has left Rodgers with far more options. With Rickie Lambert, Mario Balotelli and Lazar Markovic all having arrived, Adam Lallana primed to make his debut and Raheem Sterling and Philippe Coutinho still on hand, Liverpool now have an abundance of creativity and firepower. Aston Villa have only conceded one goal in the three league matches so far this season but Paul Lambert’s team will likely have to produce their best performance yet to prevent a deterioration in that record.

7) Time for Burnley to sink or swim

Having so far played the league’s top two sides in Chelsea (home, 1-3) and Swansea (away, 0-1) before eking out a goalless draw against Manchester United, it’s a case of the season starting here for a Burnley team sitting, in the words of their manager Sean Dyche, “on that knife-edge of success and abject failure”. Of greatest concern will be an attack that has yet to contribute a goal – their solitary strike so far coming from a midfielder – but their forward line will be boosted for the first time at Crystal Palace by the presence of George Boyd, their record-equalling deadline-day signing. Boyd is a lifelong Palace fan who might have joined them last January only to choose for family reasons a rival bidder in Nottingham Forest, who then pulled out of the deal at the 11th hour on the pretext of a failed eye test leaving the player stranded as the transfer window closed; Palace then chose not to pursue a possible loan deal and he instead joined Hull.

The match will also be Neil Warnock’s first at Selhurst Park since his return to Palace as manager. Burnley will probably keep a keen eye on him, following a notorious incident when the Clarets visited Warnock’s Sheffield United in 2001 and they discovered a spy hiding behind a fire door in order to eavesdrop on the pre-match team talk. The result was a 2-0 home win, the furious Burnley manager Stan Ternent assaulting United’s then assistant Kevin Blackwell – “I ran up, smacked him in the face and nutted him for good measure” – and much public bickering. Warnock later labelled Ternent a “deranged lunatic” and named a pet goldfish after him; Ternent insisted that Warnock was “the most disliked manager in the game”.

8) Can Pardew turn things around?

It says much about the managerial qualities of Ronald Koeman or, if you insist, of Alan Pardew that Southampton have looked a more cohesive and dangerous side than Newcastle so far this season. The club’s new signings seem to have been grafted cleverly on to a team that was said to have been dismembered by summer sales – and another exciting attacking player, Sadiou Mané, could make his debut this weekend. In contrast, Newcastle do not yet seem to have found a slick formula and, of course, have been hindered by the injury to Siem De Jong, on whom Pardew was counting heavily for goals. For the trip to St Mary’s Pardew may chose to deploy Rémy Cabella just behind Emmanuel Rivière and hope the undoubtedly talented schemer is able to provide more opportunities to his compatriot than he could against Manchester City on the opening day; or else the manager may elect to go with two up front and give Rolando Aarons his first start following the 18-year-old’s outstanding contribution off the bench against Crystal Palace. Last season’s visit to St Mary’s brought what was perhaps the most contemptible Newcastle performance of Pardew’s reign so it would be a timely piece of symbolism if this were the match where his team showed they are getting things together again.

9) High-flying Swans aim to soar at Chelsea

Given that their season started with a visit to Old Trafford, few at Swansea are likely to have expected to arrive at Chelsea for their fourth fixture jostling with the Blues for Premier League preeminence, and sharing with them the league’s only 100% records. But it is perhaps poetic that they do so, providing a perfect coda to a film documenting their ascent from haplessness to heroism, Jack To a King, which premieres in Leicester Square on Friday night. The film will surely be emotional viewing for long-time Swans fans, even more so if their side can haul themselves to the top of the league by the time it is first shown in a Welsh cinema. But Swansea have only won at Chelsea twice, once in 1925 and the other in the Capital One Cup (in 2013, albeit against a strong home side), and logic suggests that their only hope of a third this weekend would be if their hosts are unexpectedly destabilised by a Diego Costa injury that may anyway not be enough to keep him out.

10) Spurs need a convincing response

Mauricio Pochettino must have been reminded of the words of Roy Keane. The Argentinian’s new team began the season well, seemed to have embraced his high-intensity style and appeared ready to go toe-to-toe with an authentic title challenger – and then they allowed themselves to be clobbered 3-0 at home by Liverpool. There was a doziness about Spurs in that match (they would have been 2-0 down before they even woke up if Mario Balotelli had had his shooting boots on. Or his shooting head, if that’s a thing) that gave added weight to Keane’s claim that “Spurs will always let you down”. Pochettino will be looking for a convincing response at Sunderland this weekend and that means at least matching the competitiveness of Lee Cattermole’s team while retaining enough sangfroid to take any chances they create.