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5 things to look out for this weekend

By on December 19, 2014

The table on Christmas Day
Why people stick it in their minds that somehow the Premier League table on Christmas Day is a mini-title race until itself is perhaps as mind-boggling as the fact that, if it were, West Ham United could finish in a “mini” Champions League position.  Only one more win, conveniently against bottom of the table Leicester City, would put them in the top four going into the Boxing Day fixtures.  In a season where mid-table clubs have seamlessly mixed with the traditional top seven – Liverpool by contrast could find themselves in the bottom half of the table by the twenty-fifth if they fall to Arsenal this weekend.  Meanwhile Southampton, if they can rediscover their form against Everton this weekend and nab the three points, would find themselves in the Christmas Day top five.

Are Schurrle and Ramires content on the bench?
Chelsea’s squad has been almost impossibly static this season – four of their starting eleven have not once changed throughout the entire Premier League campaign so far, in John Terry, Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic, and Eden Hazard. His substitutes only have seventeen starts between them with sixteen game-weeks gone by. But no matter how comfortable Jose Mourinho is with that side, and how much he has seemed to value those eleven players (Thibaut Courtois, Cahill, Terry, Ivanovic, Cesar Azpilicueta, Nemanja Matic, Cesc Fabregas, Hazard, Willian, Oscar, and Diego Costa), he is not brash. Of all the Premier League clubs, which have to manage to play twice in three days due to the Boxing Day football tradition, Chelsea have the worst of it, playing the Monday game this weekend. Mourinho cannot possibly effectively play the same side without changes on Monday, Friday, and then Sunday – three games in six days. He is going to have to finally play more of his substitutes.

With his match on Sunday being against Southampton and on Friday West Ham, both giant beaters so far this season and teams he will not want to take chances against, the best option for him will surely be to rest his starters when they play Stoke City this weekend. We could see youngsters Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Nathan Ake make their first appearances this season, and more importantly, see how badly Chelsea’s bench actually does want to perform out there. Surely, if Andre Schurrle and Ramires are chomping at the bit to play more, they could make easy pickings of Stoke. It isn’t about as much about how Mourinho will be willing to trust his bench, as he must do so, but how much encouragement they will give him to do so more often.

Will Leicester’s survival hopes slip away?
If their aforementioned Christmas deal is true, then Leicester’s bid to stay up is already over. Nigel Pearson, the hero in October, is now enduring tough times as his side sit five points below the drop at the very bottom of the table. And as they face West Ham, currently in fourth, this weekend, it may be their last chance before they face both Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool by New Years Day to keep from being knocked further behind the relegation cutoff. In fact, the Foxes have not one once since September, that very day they infamously beat Manchester United.

Will Tyne-Wear Derby tensions escalate on the pitch?
Alan Pardew, for everything he has done to get Newcastle United back up from the bottom of the table over the past few months and into the top half of the table, still must have some demons haunting him. He has lost his past three Tyne-Wear Derbies, Newcastle-Sunderland, and this time, he would become the fourth manager in Newcastle’s history to lose a fourth straight with a loss. Thus, the match has already drawn more tensions than ever before, with a record number of police officers reportedly set to be at St. James Park on Sunday.  Should tensions escalate to the pitch, it would make some mouthwatering football entertainment.

Liverpool’s striking woes come at the worst time
Liverpool, if they want to be in the top half of the table by Christmas, will need to be clinical against Arsenal. No side has shut the Gunners out since October, a run spanning thirteen matches in all competitions, and moreover, they keep the ball. So Liverpool have a double dilemma – they will have to hope to keep Arsenal out and at the same time bury the few chances they should get, a skill which they have been struggling to do, without one in form forward. Not the injured Daniel Sturridge, Rickie Lambert, Fabio Borini or Raheem Sterling, who isn’t even a natural forward, have been able to consistently find the back of the net so far this season and of course Mario Balotelli has earned himself a ban for posting inappropriate content on social media. Didn’t it seem inevitable that right when they need him Balotelli gets himself banned? As we have talked about earlier in the year, further misbehavior would prove Balotelli’s downfall.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.