Declan Rice will have to be in Ballon d’Or form to prevent Liverpool from winning the title, while Newcastle are definitely beating Aston Villa 6-1.
The Premier League’s Big Weekend is unlikely match the batsh*t Big Midweek the European competitions just served up, but there’s a strong chance the last two relegation places get rubberstamped – and even a non-zero chance the title is settled.
And if that’s not enough – and this season it really isn’t – then at least there’s a proper six-pointer in the race for next season’s Champions League. Although we’ve looked at the numbers and Newcastle are definitely going to win 6-1 so don’t feel you absolutely have to watch it given we all now know the outcome.
Game to watch: Aston Villa v Newcastle
If we accept as we must that the only truly significant thing left to discover about this Premier League season is who ends up in what European competition at the end of it, then there can only be one choice for game to watch. At least without at this point being able to confidently predict an Arsenal defeat at Ipswich that would give Liverpool the chance to win the actual league on Easter Sunday.
No, that all seems very unlikely, so we must go with the game that definitely has plenty riding on it. And, in fairness, a game which it’s perfectly reasonable to assume should be a thoroughly good watch.
Newcastle have been absolutely flying for a good six weeks now, and this season that is absolutely enough to make you the third best team in the country. Which Newcastle undoubtedly currently are.
They’ve won five straight Premier League games, and in extremely pleasing fashion have done so, in order, 1-0, 2-1, 3-0, 4-1 and 5-0. That would appear to make a 6-1 victory at Villa Park this weekend a mathematical certainty.
It’s a result that would go a long way to securing Champions League football in what has already been a wildly memorable Newcastle season. But wait! Hold on there. Because we’re here to tell you that Newcastle probably won’t win 6-1 at Villa Park, because you know who else is quite good? Aston Villa.
Probably not as good as Newcastle, but they have just given PSG a rare old scare over two legs of their Champions League quarter-final, leaving that competition with heads held enormously high and understandably keen to have another crack of their own at it next year.
They’ve won nine of their last 10 games in all competitions, and have every reason to think their season can end with precisely the same overall achievements as Newcastle’s: Champions League football and a long-overdue trophy.
Villa play Palace in the semi-finals of the FA Cup next weekend, and thanks to Newcastle that’s a Palace side that’s been nicely tenderised.
Villa do have ground to cover to secure a top-five finish, currently sitting down in seventh. But they do appear to have shaken off your Bournemouths, Fulhams and Brightons and the current direction of travel from everyone involved means the current gaps to the teams directly above them – Chelsea (0pts), Man City (1pt) and Nottingham Forest (3pts) – need not necessarily hold any great fear.
And if they can defy both maths and Newcastle to make it 10 wins from 11 games this weekend then suddenly even the Magpies are only a couple of points away.
But even if you care not a jot for the European qualification picture, this one still seems worth tuning in for. We’ve already established that Newcastle are scoring many goals at this time, while Villa have scored three in six of their last nine games.
This is a game that actually matters, and one that appears to carry close to zero risk of being rubbish and boring. For what remains of this season, that is absolutely all we can ask.
Team to watch: Liverpool
Can potentially, if Arsenal have suffered the mother of all comedowns against Ipswich, win the Premier League this weekend. Probably they won’t, though. Probably that has to wait another week at least.
But there is absolutely no need for impatience now. Arsenal may be able to achieve the unthinkable in the Champions League by eliminating Real Madrid, but there is nothing they can do about the Premier League title now.
Whatever Arsenal may do, Liverpool need only six points to secure the title. And their next two games are against Leicester and then a Tottenham side who are a) rubbish, b) infamously averse to helping Arsenal out in matters of title races, and c) will at that time have absolutely all of their eyes, attention and focus on the first leg of their Europa League semi-final against Bodo/Glimt four days later.
Liverpool have got this in the bag, is what we’re saying here. So sit back and watch them do what they will inevitably do to a Leicester side also on the verge of confirming their long-inevitable destiny this season.
That’s got a far higher chance of being rubber-stamped this weekend, most likely before they even kick off against Liverpool given West Ham need only beat Southampton at home to settle it.
Even if that doesn’t happen, and even if Leicester do somehow beat Liverpool, they could still be sent packing by Wolves beating Manchester United.
Player to watch: Declan Rice
Ipswich’s relegation could also be confirmed this weekend, albeit not without them at least having the chance to respond should West Ham beat Southampton.
If that happens – and it probably will, let’s be realistic – Ipswich will need to win their game on Sunday to stay mathematically if not actually in with a chance of survival.
The bad news there is that they find themselves facing Arsenal, who are feeling pretty good about life right now. And nobody at Arsenal is feeling better about life than Declan Rice, a man who has unlocked the hitherto unknown ability to just whip home unstoppable free-kicks and demonstrated the less hidden, less surprising but still quite eye-catching talent for bossing the midfield at the Bernabeu.
Having played such a key role in eliminating Real Madrid from the Champions League, Rice is now a man who finds himself thrust from nowhere into very real Ballon d’Or contention given the absence of major international tournaments this summer and the very high likelihood that winning the Champions League thus becomes the key starting point for the big individual prize.
If Barcelona win the Champions League, the Ballon d’Or will go to Raphinha. If it’s PSG, it’s Ousmane Dembele.
If it’s Inter or Arsenal, though? Now that’s more interesting. Three more games at anything like the level of Rice’s last two Champions League efforts really could be enough. Unless and until Real Madrid win this Club World Cup thing and one of their players gets the big gong just to stop them having a big old cry about it again.
Football League game to watch: Oxford United v Leeds United
It’s a Big Easter Weekend this weekend, and that’s lovely but does mean the Football League is a problem, because they play on Good Friday and Easter Monday, neither of which really works for Big Weekend, which we like to think has more of a Saturday-Sunday vibe.
For some reason, we are not consulted on these matters. Baffling, we know.
But it is what it is, and we must make the best of it. Have we therefore chosen Oxford v Leeds because it is the latest game to be played on the Friday evening and thus the closest to the actual Big Weekend weekend?
We prefer not to speak.
European game to watch: St Etienne v Lyon
Look, there are bigger and better games to watch around Europe this weekend. But for sheer rubbernecking intrigue, absolutely nothing to compare to this Sunday evening slice of Ligue 1 action.
We wouldn’t normally be that interested in Seventeenth v Fourth in Ligue 1, but are utterly and grimly fascinated by the idea of discovering how, precisely, Lyon respond to having to play another game of football three days after what just happened to them at Old Trafford.
And if anything the fact they’re playing a team that is quite rubbish, one that sits on the brink of relegation having conceded more goals than anyone else in the division this season, only adds to the intrigue.
Were Lyon playing someone half-decent this weekend, we’d fully expect them to get thrashed as they stumble around the pitch still struck dumb by the absurdity of what’s just happened to them. But this specific opposition opens all manner of other possibilities. Lyon being unable to recover and handing St Etienne just a seventh league win of the season is still absolutely one of those possibilities, but so too is Lyon handing out a brutal punishment beating on the hapless and blameless Sainte.
