Arsenal against man city after ollie watkins and ange take the middle step

A fleshed Super Sunday clash is taking the middle stage this weekend, while Arsenal’s tentacles also reach out to another big game on Wolves and Ange Postecoglou is preparing for his last last chance on Spurs.

Game to Watch: Arsenal Against Man City
We are greedy kind here, and if we are brutally honest, the last few super -Sun days have not really been able to snuff. We have shouted about a decent big game between decent big animals pretty much since the FA Cup weekend, but there can be no further complaints now. This is a doozy.

The form of the city has been significantly improved from its nadir by the end of 2024, but they sometimes remain wildly convincing and still prone to nonsense that should really be below them. Even after emerging from the deepest depths of their despair, they have still managed to be spilled a 2-0 lead in Brentford and then another even more spectacular on PSG.

And they Had to come from a goal down to beat Club Brugge and book a Champions League-Play-off space. They don’t win it this year; Clive has spoken.

No such worries for Arsenal, where guns have really taken quite quietly into the last 16.

The fact that European serenity has been unlike a league season that looks from the outside seems completely exhausting to everyone involved. It’s not that it’s going bad – far from it – just that it doesn’t go as it should.

Here is a philosophical conundrum: Would Arsenal be quite so hot under the collar and tense, if once again it was City’s coat tails that they sought to adhere to instead of Liverpools? We wonder if this is part of the reason why they have gone a little peculiar. There is a frustration there, a feeling that an opportunity is missing to take advantage of the city that stumbles out of the title race completely.

Arsenal’s league season is one that seems to constantly exist on a precipitate. They always feel that they are a single game from crisis, from sliding away from a title race they feel in their bones should have been theirs to control, not Liverpools.

Still, if there is one thing to settle arsenal into that kind of fever, a fever state, it is a game against an undeniably resurrected, but still quite striking Daft Man City.

Plays to see: Ollie Watkins
Strange a few days for Ollie Watkins. Played a key role in the progress of Aston Villa for a Champions League last-16-place only hours after Arsenal gave the chunky bid for him, Yet he played the key role in a way that kind of showed why this may not be such a good idea for arsenal, really.

Watkins for £ 60m feels like just the deal, as Arsenal should have done last January, not this one. Especially since he is now 29. At least if they had signed him this time last year, he would have been 28 until he was 29 years old.

It seems incredible churlish, as we have all called on Arsenal to sign an attacker in January, since long before January even began to turn and go no, not that. But it seems to be a strange desperate step from Arsenal, which must have known that it was unlikely to work anyway.

Villa has absolutely none of it and was understandably a bit of a drug about the time of Arsenal’s bid for the day for such a big game for villa. Jhon Duran’s move to Saudi for Daft Money largely confirms what we already suspect: Watkins will not go anywhere.

But what we do now have to see is how exactly his head is on. It all happened so quickly on Wednesday that it was probably a blur. Even trying to draw a connection between all speculation and the very funny penalty feels a bit cramped.

However, he has had a few days to think about it now. Villa will very understandably not sell their starsticks just before the transfer window closes but that does not mean The leader of a boy’s Arsenal -Fan has not been turned.

Villa could manage without all the noise, honestly. A Midlands Derby on a wolves that has gone right by the boil again allows Watkins to show what he’s about.

KEEP TO LOOK AT: NOTTINGHAM FOREST
This Nottingham Forest season has shown many things. Jumping back from massive defeat has not really been one of them yet. Still, that’s what they have to do after last weekend’s alarming 5-0 humping at Bournemouth.

Now Bournemouth is very much in what modern football parlance requires, describing as ‘a good moment’, but you still shouldn’t really lose 5-0 there.

Forest now has town and Newcastle right on the tail And any hint of this stumbling that even threatens to breakdown will be turned on.

‘If they are not careful, they may only be fifth after this weekend’ is still an inherent ridiculous kind of line to find themselves using forest, but they have really created a wonderful opportunity for themselves this season. Shame to let it go now.

A game against Brighton is not necessarily what you would choose to get back on the field, considering how wildly unpredictable these crazy gulls can be. But at least for the least First-Mover’s advantage this weekend, with a Saturday lunchtime, giving them the chance to ease this gap over their Champions League rivals back to six points, at least at least.

Manager to see: Ange Postecoglou
Still there, isn’t he? Still clinging, and it is now clear that – rightly or wrong – Spurs will stay with him until either all trophy routes are exhausted or they are aware that they will actually be relieved if they do not Panic and gets Sean Dyche in an eight-game contract.

Postecoglou is lucky to still have a job there is no question about it. He is also lucky that an injury crisis at least in part of his own creation – it is a statistically unlikely number of twanged hamstrings, isn’t it? – Still used as mitigation rather than further proof against him.

But while it is clear that there is no real appetite in the power corridors of spurs for change, things become dangerously close to unsustainable. Postecoglou really need some 2025 Premier League Points Quite soon.

Spurs had at least one evening to lift the mood in the Europa League on Thursday. Three Academy Candidates aged 20 years or younger everyone scored their first Tottenham goal on a night ended with Dane Scarlett, as only the fifth youngest player on the field for Spurs was a reminder that there could really be a bright lilyWhite Future in the future.

For the more immediate future, Micky van de Ven, who returns for 45 minutes, is a huge boost; Sure that the opposition was limited, but it was immediately clear how much difference he makes for Spurs’ general pace. He and the ever-absent Cristian Romero are both front-foot defenders, and it fits the way Postecoglou wants his team to play far more than any of the make-do-alternatives Spurs have inserted in the couple’s absence.

Care must be taken to over-exert this pudding because Spurs were still quite often bad, even with their first-choice defensive setup-the last game Romero, Van De Friend and Guglielmo Vicario all played together was 1-0 defeat at former Winless Palace, For example – but their games are more vibrant and confident when van de friend is around.

The second reason for caution here is that Postecoglou is still talking about Spurs’ injury crisis, as if it certainly has an end. On Thursday night, Postecoglou talked again about how he gets his team back when the Europa League knockouts come around.

It feels like dangerous speech. Even here, the return of van de friend was canceled – in basic numbers, if not the ability – by an injury to Radu Dragusin.

Postecoglou can’t really afford to wish for the time until his players are all available, although it was a likely end point for this current rolling crisis.

Football League Game to Watch: Gillingham V Notts County
We are heading down to League Two here, with Saturday lunch time offers from the championship a boring mid-table batch.

For Notts County an early Saturday kick-off against a Gillingham team without victory in their last seven provides a great opportunity to strengthen their grip on one of the automatic promotion sites available below Runaway Leaders Walsall

European game to see: Milan V Inter
A Derby della Madonnina, where Kyle Walker is ready to make his Milan debut instead of the wounded Emerson Royal? It is a collection of words that have our attention.

Inter should logically be favorites for this one after losing only three of 32 games across different competitions this season. But two of these defeats came against Milan; One in the league and another earlier this month in the Italian Super Cup.