Premier League: Plenty of pre-Christmas treats to enjoy in exciting weekend

London, Dec 20 (IANS) Most of the drama in the Premier League will have to wait until Sunday, with Liverpool visiting Tottenham, second-placed Chelsea testing the waters at Everton with new owners, and Manchester United having a difficult game at home to an in-form Bournemouth. There is plenty of drama in the weekend’s opening game, however, when Manchester City visit Aston Villa still reeling at the way they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in last weekend’s Manchester derby.

That defeat extended City’s crisis and had coach Pep Guardiola publicly questioned whether he had the ability to turn things around after five defeats in their last seven league games, along with recent Champions League losses against Juventus and Sporting Lisbon.

Aston Villa have been slightly irregular in recent weeks, but players such as Ollie Watkins and Leon Bailey can cause chaos in City’s increasingly nervy defense, reports Xinhua.

Arsenal visit Crystal Palace with the home side finally coming into the form most people expected it to show after the end of last season. Oliver Glasner’s side is unbeaten in five league games, while Arsenal has drawn its last two.

The game comes just five days after Arsenal won 3-2 at home to Palace in the EFL Cup, along both teams made important changes to their starting 11s.

A win and a draw look to have eased the pressure on West Ham coach Julen Lopetegui, although the Basque suffered a personal tragedy this week when his father passed away.

West Ham will hope to take advantage of the recent hiccup in form that has seen Brighton draw two and lose two of its last four games to slip to ninth in the table, although there is a chance Danny Welbeck could be back after his recent ankle injury. Ipswich stunned Wolverhampton last week and now look for their first home win of the season against Newcastle United, who has striker Alexander Isak back to his best form.

Saturday’s other game sees Brentford at home to fourth-placed Nottingham Forest in what promises to be a battle of strikers as Forest’s Chris Wood goes up against Brentford duo of Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo, who have helped give their team the best home record in the league.

There promises to be wild entertainment on Sunday when Tottenham entertain league leader Liverpool, after a week that has seen the home side win 5-0 away to Southampton and follow that up with Thursday’s 4-3 EFL Cup win at home to Manchester United, where some goalkeeping howlers from Fraser Forster threatened to throw away a 3-0 lead.

Liverpool go into this game after consecutive draws and Andy Robertson is suspended, but there is no way this game is going to end 0-0.

Chelsea have closed the gap on Liverpool to just two points, and the team with the best away record in the league now visit Goodison Park, where Everton fans are celebrating that the sale of the club to the Friedkin Group has finally been completed.

With Everton expected to dip into the transfer market in January, several players will view the game as a casting they need to pass to save their careers at the club, and Sean Dyche’s side won’t give Chelsea much room to exploit behind its defense.

Manchester United coach Ruben Amorim claimed his side played the better football against Tottenham on Thursday, and despite the controversy over leaving Marcus Rashford out of the squad – and Rashford’s response – there are some signs of progress at Old Trafford. Bournemouth will provide a litmus test of that progress on Sunday when Andoni Iraola’s in-form side return to the ground where it ran rampant just over a year ago with a 3-0 win that cemented Iraola’s status in the dugout.

Bottom side Southampton have Simon Rusk in temporary charge after Russell Martin was sacked after their thrashing at home to Tottenham, and Rusk’s task is to plug the second leakiest defense in the division ahead of its visit to Fulham. Wolverhampton’s 40 goals conceded this season is the worst record and it has Vitor Pereira as the new man in charge for a vital trip to play fellow strugglers Leicester City.

The 17th-placed Leicester have a five-point cushion over Wolves and despite a chastening 4-0 defeat to Newcastle last week, a win for Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side would give it an interesting lead over a direct rival in the battle to avoid the drop.

–IANS

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