That’s all from me today. Be sure to join Dominic Booth shortly for this afternoon’s Clockwatch. He’ll be keeping you updated with everything happening in the Premier League and across the EFL and Europe.
Team news: Championship fixtures
Stoke City v Leicester City
Stoke XI: Simkin, Wilmot, Phillips, Cresswell, Bocat, Pearson, Seko, Junho, Thomas, Cisse, Smit.
Leicester XI: Begović, Ricardo, Okoli, Nelson, Kristiansen, Skipp, Winks, Monga, Mukasa, Mavididi, Daka.
West Brom v Coventry City
West Brom XI: O’Leary, Gilchrist, Bielik, Taylor, Styles, Mowatt, Molumby, Wallace, Price, Jimoh-Aloba, Heggebo.
Coventry XI: Rushworth, Van Ewijk, Latibeaudiere, Thomas, Dasilva, Grimes, Onyeka, Rudoni, Sakamoto, Mason-Clark, Wright.
Swansea City v Bristol City
Swansea XI: Vigouroux, Fulton, Cabango, Widell, Vipotnik, Eom, Tymon, Burgess, Franco, Nunes, Galbraith.
Bristol XI: Vítek, Tanner, Eile, Atkinson, Borges, Randell, Knight, Earthy, Horvat, Burgzorg, Armstrong.
Hull City v QPR
Hull XI: Pandur, Coyle, Egan, McNair, Giles, Hadžiahmetović, Slater, Hirakawa, Gelhardt, Millar, McBurnie.
QPR XI: Walsh, Mbengue, Dunne, Edwards, Norrington-Davies, Hayden, Madsen, Saito, Vale, Kolli, Kone.
If you’ve got some time to spare before this afternoon’s games, be sure to give the latest episode of Football Weekly a watch.
A reunion could be on the cards if Thomas Frank does take over at Crystal Palace…
The Nottingham Forest defender Murillo has said the arrival of Vítor Pereira represents “the light at the end of the tunnel” and admitted the squad had problems with previous managers.
Pereira got off to a dream start at Forest with a 3-0 Europa League playoff first-leg victory at Fenerbahce on Thursday, in which Murillo opened the scoring. The Brazilian praised Pereira for creating “magic” despite having only three training sessions. Murillo said the Portuguese head coach, who has a contract until 2027, had transformed the spirit within an underperforming squad. The 57-year-old, who rescued Wolves last season, is Forest’s fourth head coach of the season.
“Four managers, four different ideas, it’s difficult,” Murillo said. “But I think Vítor is going to stay with us until the end of the season and he can give his idea to overcome the bad moment that we were going through. Now I think it is the light at the end of the tunnel.
“The gaffer passed to us this confidence. I think the winning spirit we had last season has come back. Everyone knows we have a good team, good attack, young players, we had a lot of things to improve and I think with Vítor we’re going to do a good job and go back towards the top of the table.”
Although there are no early kick-offs in the Premier League, there is a selection of lunchtime games across the EFL…
Championship:
Stoke City v Leicester City
West Brom v Coventry City
Swansea City v Bristol City
Hull City v QPR
League One:
Rotherham United v Doncaster Rovers
Wycombe Wanderers v Stevenage
Plymouth Argyle v Cardiff City
League Two:
Fleetwood Town v Barrow
Swindon Town v Crewe Alexandra
Just a reminder, there is no early game in the Premier League today. The first three fixtures of the day kick off at 3pm.
Aston Villa v Leeds United
Brentford v Brighton
Chelsea v Burnley
Somebody in the comments has started a game of Pointless… It would be rude not to have a go!
Quiz time!! (Pointless-style) - No Googling plus extra rule - read all below
(For anyone who hasn't seen the Pointless show on tv, the idea is to come up with an answer you think the least amount of people (out of 100 max.) will have said. So the lower you score, the better your ranking at the end. The numbers I have completely invented but I think they are fairly reasonable.
Anyway - since the advent of the League Cup in 1961, we asked a hundred people... (is that how it goes? - sounds like Family Fortunes now)... we asked a hundred people to name any football ground to have hosted either a League Cup Final game OR an FA Cup Final game.... (by my reckoning there have been 15)
Please limit your guesses to 1 go each for a while until I open the second round of guesses, 3rd round......etc...
Good luck.
Alan Johnson has messaged in to say:
“Big game for Middlesbrough today. Oxford at home could be the perfect fixture to make the defeat at Coventry a mere blip in a very good run of form. Boro in the Premier League with a couple of Brazilian signings is always fun.”
Sheffield Wednesday face Sheffield United in the Steel City derby tomorrow. The Owls could be relegated TODAY if West Brom defeat Coventry City. Any other result means that Wednesday will have to defeat their neighbours to delay relegation.
Igor Tudor has said Tottenham are in “an emergency situation” but issued a guarantee that his new team would escape relegation.
Tudor is a veteran of short-term appointments and has performed rescue jobs at Udinese, Verona and Juventus. He offered a curt “100%” in response to questions on his confidence in Spurs’s survival. The Croat’s tenure begins on Sunday with a north London derby at home to the wobbling Premier League leaders, though a lengthy injury list leaves him with only 13 fit senior players.
“What I saw this week was the quality of the players,” said Tudor. “We have enormous quality in the squad.”
A coach presiding over 12 remaining league matches, the Champions League being a lower priority with Spurs five points off the relegation zone, made no promises of living up to the club’s attacking traditions.
“When you start pre-season and then you have 50 days in pre-season and you have 20 players, of course then we see the style. This is an emergency, an emergency situation, when you need to find fast what suits the 10 plus three players and it’s totally different.”
Tonight’s match between Manchester City and Newcastle will be huge. A draw or Newcastle win should give Arsenal a bit of breathing space for now – even if they don’t get three points tomorrow.
The Gunners are still in control of this title race. You’d think lessons would be learned from Wednesday’s draw…
You would imagine Arsenal are getting really tired of this 'bottlers' stuff thrown at them by now. Professional footballers or not, they're still human so nobody can tell me they're all not aware of it, not with this social media world we live in these days.
A large part of me thinks they'll go out and pretty much destroy Spurs this weekend, and, with the momentum from that, get a couple of good results in the next couple that will see the gap grow again.
And some of me wants them to do it too because you're talking about one of the genuine, historical clubs of English football when it comes to challenging for honours... - longest in the top flight by some margin, 3 league wins on the bounce before any of us were born, Cup Final wins, Herbert Chapman, Charlie George, Liam Brady, Michael Thomas and 'The Invincibles' of Arsene Wenger... - ...so to have all that reduced to what just feels like a bunch of folks pointing and going 'Ha Ha!' like Nelson Muntz in The Simpsons... nah, not for me thanks.
Anyway, looking forward to the game - North London derbies often entertaining as hell (even if the meeting earlier in the season was a bit of a slaughter). Spurs-Arsenal always makes me think of that brilliant curling effort from Brady that time....
"Look at that! Oh, look at that!" - John Motson
League Two fixtures (3pm GMT unless stated otherwise)
Fleetwood Town v Barrow (12:30pm)
Swindon Town v Crewe Alexandra (12:30pm)
Accrington Stanley v Shrewsbury Town
Notts County v Tranmere Rovers
Bristol Rovers v Grimsby Town
Gillingham v Oldham Athletic
Newport County v Cambridge United
Colchester United v Barnet
Crawley Town v Chesterfield
Harrogate Town v Bromley
Cheltenham Town v Salford City
League One fixtures (3pm GMT unless stated otherwise)
Rotherham United v Doncaster Rovers (12:30pm)
Wycombe Wanderers v Stevenage (12:30pm)
Plymouth Argyle v Cardiff City (12:30pm)
Bolton Wanderers v Blackpool
Northampton Town v Leyton Orient
Huddersfield Town v Barnsley
Stockport County v Wigan Athletic
Wimbledon v Bradford City
Port Vale v Reading
Mansfield Town v Lincoln City
Peterborough United v Exeter City
Luton Town v Burton Albion
Arne Slot has responded to Wayne Rooney’s claim that the Liverpool head coach does not have the “aura” to manage the club by pointing to his Premier League title success last season.
Rooney questioned Slot’s suitability for the job, telling The Overlap: “I have met him a few times. He was a nice fella but I just don’t think, for Liverpool, he’s got that aura about him. Maybe this is because you have just come off the back of Jürgen Klopp and it’s going to be difficult for anyone to have that, but I just don’t think there’s that aura about him.”
The former Manchester United striker said it was “strange” for Slot to be in an apparent “audition” to keep his job so soon after winning the league but believes failure to qualify for the Champions League would lead to the Dutchman’s sacking.
Will that new manager bounce come into effect for Tottenham tomorrow?
I am hoping Tudor has the same effect on Spurs as Carrick had when Man Utd played Arsenal!
Johan Lange, the Tottenham sporting director, has explained the rationale behind Igor Tudor’s hire as head coach until the end of the season. Lange said: “it’s very important to go into a shorter process than you do if you are changing a head coach over the summer. We interviewed a few candidates. Igor impressed us very, very much in the interview.
“He comes in with very big experience at the highest level in football. As a player, playing for a very, very big club, one of the biggest clubs in the world in Juve. Of course he was part of this very good generation of Croatia national team in the late 90s. He has shown the capabilities of coming into clubs around this time, February, March, and also big clubs, and made an immediate performance impact. That was of course a very big reason.”
Lange said the next, full-time appointment will be made with playing style at the forefront of executives’ thoughts. “We are very ambitious to create a team that can play dominant football and that can control the matches with the ball for a few reasons. If you look across almost every league in the world, that is how you can say the top teams normally are successful – that is being able to dominate possession, create chances, be aggressive without the balll
“We are also a club with a rich history of having some of the best offensive players in the world and having a very particular style of play that resonates with the history, resonates with the fans and I think that, combined with having a possession-dominant, aggressive style of play, those two things go hand in hand. That is something that is important for us here at the club.”
Jeff Sax has messaged in about Mikel Arteta and Arsenal:
“I cannot understand how Arteta is not receiving more criticism. He has not been able to win the league for years and now he seems to be setting up for another miss.
Look at his body language and head position when on the sideline: no confidence and scared.”
Do you agree, Arsenal fans?
Championship fixtures (3pm GMT unless stated otherwise)
Stoke City v Leicester City (12:30pm)
West Brom v Coventry City (12:30pm)
Swansea City v Bristol City (12:30pm)
Hull City v QPR (12:30pm)
Millwall v Portsmouth
Norwich City v Birmingham City
Wrexham v Ipswich Town
Middlesbrough v Oxford United
Southampton v Charlton Athletic
Watford v Derby County
Mikel Arteta has insisted the word “bottlers” is not in his vocabulary and that Arsenal must take criticism “on the chin” after surrendering a 2-0 lead against the bottom side, Wolves, in midweek.
As always, feel free to email in with any thoughts, feelings, predictions and all that jazz ahead of today’s games. You can also leave a comment below the line.
From strike partners to new eras, here are 10 things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend…
Thomas Frank, sacked by Tottenham last week, is believed to be a contender to take over at Crystal Palace in the summer. Palace would also be interested in Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola, whose contract expires at end of June. The former Republic of Ireland forward Robbie Keane, who is managing Ferencvaros, and Rayo Vallecano’s Iñigo Pérez have also been mooted as potential replacements.
Updated
Crystal Palace have decided against sacking Oliver Glasner despite his latest public outburst on Friday when the manager said he was “just not good enough” to turn around the club’s fortunes.
Glasner has announced he will leave Palace at the end of the season, but the club’s chair, Steve Parish, considered bringing forward the Austrian’s departure after supporters turned on the manager during Thursday’s 1-1 draw at Zrinjski Mostar in the Conference League.
Palace next face Wolves in the Premier League tomorrow.
Premier League fixtures (3pm GMT unless stated otherwise)
Aston Villa v Leeds United
Brentford v Brighton
Chelsea v Burnley
West Ham v Bournemouth (5:30pm)
Manchester City v Newcastle (8pm)
Preamble
Hello, good morning and welcome to another Matchday live! We have five Premier League fixtures to look forward to this afternoon as Leeds United travel to face Aston Villa, Brentford host Brighton, Chelsea take on Burnley, West Ham host Bournemouth and Manchester City face Newcastle.
Not only that, we will be looking ahead to this afternoon’s Championship, League One and League Two fixtures, as well as some of the biggest games across Europe.
And let’s not forget, there’s the small matter of a North London Derby to preview for tomorrow….
We’ll be guiding you through it all - join us!
Spurs are beyond 'playing style'. We waited for that all season from Frank. Tudor's job is purely about getting points. That's it.
You have to wonder how Brennan Johnson feels is Frank ends up at Palace.