Five Reasons to Watch Football This Weekend

Arsenal – Liverpool
Arsenal are well on course for their face-saving run of form by confidently swatting aside shit teams, and with Liverpool veering from one disaster to another, that should be the case here. There's plenty of players out there who could take Liverpool out with delicious, delicious irony, too – Alexis Sanchez, the player they failed to sign in summer? Danny Welbeck, the former United player? It might not feel like it, but Liverpool still haven't experienced absolutely every possible way to lose a game of football. The possibilities are endless.

Arsenal have problems of their own too, of course, but while their bench may still look like a Remi Gaillard prank, future England captain Calum "the new Phil Jones" Chambers is making a return, with most the rest of their crocks nearing a comeback. It looks too early for the crisis to be over, but it's hard to imagine Rickie Lambert and Lazar Markovic are going to be the ones to put a stop to it.

The 4-4 between these two teams in 2009 was the best encounter of recent years, and it's worth remembering how great that was – a bombastic display of mutual destruction between two teams that could be brilliant but were too fatally flawed to ever taste glory. But when it happens every single week, it's odd how a poetic tragedy quickly becomes a depressing eyesore. In terms of romantic, tragic failures, Wenger and Liverpool have gone from Antigone to Purple Aki. And even he isn't really relevant anymore.

Villa – United
Even at the very end of Tom Cleverley's Manchester United career, there were still some holding out the hope that he'd prove to be a fine player. The defences weren't up to much – "He's young, give him time"; "It's completely normal to turn yourself into a brand after a handful of first-team appearances"; "Carrick-Cleverley isn't the worst midfield pairing in Europe"; "It's normal to get dominated by Ben Watson, he's a very good player" – but still, the effort was there.

His forgettable spell at Villa will probably crush such revisionism, thankfully, although it was made a lot more memorable this week after a showdown with Roy Keane, who turned up at his house to offer to discuss the matter of him allegedly spreading stories of dressing-room bust-ups to the press. Presumably in the same manner he invited Alf Inge Haaland for a frank exchange of views on the matter of leg injuries, or offered a civilised discourse to Gareth Southgate on how many pounds of pressure per square inch a male nipple can withstand.

Most strangely of all was the report that he had grown back the beard before doing all this, finally confirming what we already knew: it is an accoutrement of war, something only sported when he has a radge on, and it's a very, very bad sign if you ever see that coming over the horizon.

Newcastle – Sunderland
There's a strong case to be made for the North-East being the real heartland of English football, despite their collective trophy cabinets being as bare as the "1999-2000" section on Graham Rix's CV. And yeah, once we had Alan Shearer and Chris Waddle flying the flag, and now we have Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing. But there's no denying that football just means more up there, the closest thing England has to the kind of fervour of South America or Scotland.

As Newcastle annually lurch away from either disaster or a challenge for the European places, and Sunderland tread water in lower mid-table, it all comes down to the same thing: we're both shit, and this is all we have. You can see the way it confuses usual pre-match previews – there is no other context, no narrative to be woven. This year, they're having to focus on Jack Colback's return to his old stomping ground, for fuck's sake. There's a lot of jeopardy riding on the fact that Newcastle might get Mark Schwarzer on loan. Just switch on and enjoy the seething enmity.

Forest – Leeds
There's probably not a shitter prize on offer anywhere in the world than Sky's transfer fund. £250,000, you say? To give to the multi-million pound sporting enterprise I was born nearest to, so they can spend it on Leroy Lita? It makes the Countdown teapot look like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

There was a truly outstanding twist, however, as this year the grand prize went to… Nottingham Forest, as owned by Kuwaiti billionaires and suffering from a transfer embargo in the January window. Still, what growing boy hasn't dreamed of helping to pay Andy Reid's wages for six months? And to think some people say the magic of the game has gone.

This weekend, they'll be taking on the also-embargoed Leeds United. It sounds like an exciting, dangerous word, conjuring up images of youths in Havana slums or on the streets of Kiev, although oppressed Palestinians can't reopen their lines of supply simply by flogging Steve Morison. In the same week Obama held out an Olive branch to Cuba, can't we do something for the poor guys on our own doorstep? Charity begins at home, you know.

A new low for football bigotry excuses
Football has seen some classic defences of bigotry over the years, from Ron Noades', "How would I have six black players in the first team if I was a racist?" to Andy Goram saying he hung out with guys in the UVF and poses in front of their flags, but doesn't sympathise with them. With Dave Whelan going studs up on Jewish people, I really thought we'd peaked.

But Celtic have come out with a remarkably left-field entry to the racist defence canon this weekend in an effort to overturn winger Aleksandr Tonev's current racial abuse ban: the wind did it. Yes, in the appeal, the club seemed irked that the tribunal "had failed to consider how the weather conditions may have affected [Shay] Logan's ability to hear what was said."

The whole thing is essentially a repeat of the sad Suarez affair, but there's a weird difference here. Suarez was at least a great player – that didn't make it any more right, but there was an obvious motive for the club to want to try and defend him. But clubs are now prepared to drag their name through the mud for the sake of Aleksandar Tonev? On loan? In that sense at least, this is a new low.

@Callum_TH