The international break is over, and club football returns to save us all.<\/p>\n
Obviously the woke mob won\u2019t let us enjoy it properly. Their sickening campaign to ban Easter football means there is not a lick of Barclays to be seen across the long weekend, leaving us with just four FA Cup quarter-finals for sustenance.<\/p>\n
As well, of course, as the anti-woke EFL who say no to the wokerati and bravely, patriotically plough ahead with a proper Good Friday-Easter Monday double-header schedule as nature intended.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Game to watch: Manchester City v Liverpool<\/p>\n
A fascinating clash between two huge clubs<\/a> whose seasons currently exist on absurd knife-edges.<\/p>\n For Man City, a domestic treble remains a perfectly plausible outcome from a season when they\u2019ve never really looked all that convincing really. Having outclassed Arsenal in the Carabao final<\/a> they will hope they also sowed doubts that might leak into a Premier League picture that is not as clear-cut as it might appear.<\/p>\n That current nine-point gap<\/a> can look very different if City win their game in hand against Crystal Palace and beat Arsenal at the Etihad.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the FA Cup, where in the quarter-final they meet a Liverpool team whose season offers tantalising potential for spectacular glory but more probably really quite dramatic failure.<\/p>\n If they fluff their lines in the Champions League against PSG over the next couple of weeks and then fail to qualify for next year\u2019s competition, not even victory in the FA Cup could save a season that was supposed to be one that hailed the true arrival of an Arne Slot Dynasty after last year\u2019s title success. Slot was supposed to be the new Guardiola; now next season might go on without either of them<\/a>.<\/p>\n With City\u2019s laser focus now on the league and Liverpool eyeing one of two routes back into next season\u2019s Champions League, it\u2019s fair to say this post-interlull FA Cup engagement is in many ways the most low-key game left for either.<\/p>\n But it should still be good, and it\u2019s not to say it doesn\u2019t matter; just that other games will matter more in the grand scheme.<\/p>\n The two Premier League games between the pair this season have both been highly entertaining. City were comfortable 3-0 winners at the Etihad in a game that might have looked very different had Virgil van Dijk not seen an equaliser just before half-time chalked off by our old friends in the VAR booth.<\/p>\n And the Anfield game was a contender for the season\u2019s best as City overturned a 1-0 deficit in the closing minutes before the sensational final act provided by the Haaland-Szoboszlai hullabaloo<\/a> and, yes, another intervention from the VAR fun police who insisted on following the \u2018Laws\u2019 and \u2018rules\u2019 and not allowing a goal that had to be disallowed to instead stand because that was funnier.<\/p>\n So, you know, hopefully some more of that kind of thing to enjoy.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Team to watch: Arsenal<\/p>\n That is, of course, if the poor loves can even fulfil their FA Cup quarter-final fixture at Southampton. What with all those injuries<\/a>. We\u2019d imagine they\u2019ll have to give serious thought to forfeiting this and the other trophies they\u2019re competing for due to simply not having any players left at all.<\/p>\n What we think will actually happen, though, is that there will be just enough players available for them to deal with Southampton and then the injury crisis magically starts to dissolve into nothing just in time for the midweek Champions League game against Sporting.<\/p>\n What serendipity! What good fortune! What entirely predictable behaviour that is not remotely unique to Arsenal but which they have nevertheless perfected to such a perfectly unarsed level of housery that everyone pretends it is just them!<\/p>\n Chuck it in the pile with boring football, scoring goals from set-pieces and celebrating.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, be interesting to see how Arsenal do indeed respond to an unusual situation. They\u2019ve had two weeks to stew on the demise of their Quad God dreams in what was a really quite alarmingly ropey performance in the Carabao final.<\/p>\n They\u2019ll beat Southampton, obviously, but could really do with it being reasonably convincing without expending any energy whatsoever to get momentum back in their on-field season after that rare yet significant setback followed by an interlull played to Mikel Arteta\u2019s tune<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Manager to watch: Liam Rosenior<\/p>\n Because it really does feel like we might not have many more opportunities. We\u2019ve had our fun and taken the p*ss, a lot, but it is a vaguely absurd situation.<\/p>\n Sure, it\u2019s largely Rosenior\u2019s fault that he has become such a figure of fun because absolutely nobody is forcing him to say the astonishing guff that he says<\/a>, but it\u2019s not really his fault that he\u2019s been over-promoted well beyond his level by a set of thin-skinned suits who are insistent their way is the right way and would rather have a yes man than an awkward sort in the dugout.<\/p>\n Rosenior isn\u2019t going to rock the boat, but unfortunately he\u2019s so far out of his depth that the players are starting to do it instead<\/a>. That feels like we\u2019ve mixed a metaphor somewhere along the way there, but you get the point.<\/p>\n Does feel like Chelsea will once again be looking for another new manager<\/a> to oversee the football sideline of their player trading company<\/a> in the summer, and perhaps sooner if it looks like they might miss out on the Champions League lucre.<\/p>\n