Romelu Lukaku has a big chance to make an impact against Chelsea, Hull City battle against history and Rangers seek to end Old Firm derby drought
1) Spurs need to keep their heads. But if they can’t …
Won’t someone think of the kids? OK! Will do! But let’s not get too pious: there was something satisfying – nay, gloriously entertaining – about the way Spurs tumbled down the tunnel at Chelsea last season, raging against the dying of the light. Bottom line, we all enjoy a good rammy, providing everyone sticks to slapstick slaps and only feelings get seriously hurt. And hey, at least it showed they cared. There were signs that Tottenham hackles were threatening to rise again against an obdurate Crystal Palace the other night – Kyle Walker and Victor Wanyama were in particularly feisty mood – but while lids rattled in fear of failure, they never quite came whistling off, and Christian Eriksen simmered everyone down soon enough. It was a sign that Spurs have matured, using their passion as fuel to get the job done, as if an eight-game winning streak wasn’t evidence enough. Still, consecutive near misses in the Premier League would be hard to take, and if Arsenal are the team to effectively nix their latest challenge this weekend … well, you don’t need us to join the dots. Should another capital uproar erupt, let’s not be too censorious. Let’s try to understand and – let’s also be honest with ourselves – enjoy! SM
2) Lukaku to dent Chelsea’s title challenge and impress Conte?
On paper, Sunday’s trip to Everton looks like Chelsea’s most difficult remaining Premier League assignment. If they negotiate it safely they will feel nearly untouchable and perhaps even rile Spurs before the north London derby kicks off. But to do so they will probably have to tighten up at the back. Chelsea have not kept a clean sheet in their last 11 league matches and are about to face Romelu Lukaku, who has scored in each of his last eight home games and is likely to be particularly highly motivated this weekend: Diego Costa, after all, is suddenly back in the scoring groove and could, therefore, yet beat Lukaku to this season’s golden boot award (Lukaku is on 24 league goals, Costa has 19 … and home matches to come against Middlesbrough, Watford and Sunderland). Plus, of course, out-performing Costa would surely make a strong impression on Antonio Conte, who might be looking to replace the striker this summer. PD
3) Mignolet starts stretch of four big four games
Forcing Liverpool and their all-at-sea defence to perform on May Day seems like a particularly cruel conceptual joke on the part of the fixture compilers. Liverpool go to Watford with their ever-changing, never-evolving back four having shown no signs of improvement since, ooh, 2012, so there’s little point depending on them to get the side over the line in the hunt for a Champions League place. It’ll be down to the forwards to dig them out of trouble again. But there is a plus point to all this. For many months, the finger was pointed at Simon Mignolet, supposedly radiating unease throughout the team, but he’s been solid enough for some time now, helped by an increased willingness to come off his line and punch. Yet still the goals rain in. Which suggests you could assign Lev Yashin and Dino Zoff to take half the net each and still not feel comfortable putting money on Liverpool successfully keeping out a corner. A big four games coming up for Mignolet, then: should he complete this season’s card without further high-profile calamity, the evidence would stack up in his favour, and against the men in front of him. Jürgen Klopp should therefore decide to make do, and spend every precious pfennig of his summer pot on a top-drawer replacement for the woefully erratic Dejan Lovren instead. SM
4) Will Boro bore City into submission?
Semi-interesting fact: only once in the last three seasons have Manchester City completed a league double over a relegated side, when they thumped Fulham 4-2 and 5-0 in 2013-14. It is a slightly odd statistic, given that on 13 of 15 possible occasions over the same period City have done the double over the teams finishing between 13th and 17th – they just don’t seem to show their very best against the very worst. Seven of the remaining eight demoted teams have drawn one of their two games against them, while Cardiff grabbed a 3-2 home victory in August 2013 and Burnley beat them 1-0 in March 2015. It is a run that will end this season, with Sunderland, Hull and Swansea already dispatched twice (indeed only Boro of the division’s bottom eight sides have taken any points off them so far), but though it is unlikely to sustain Middlesbrough for long they have a chance on Sunday to become one of very few recent relegated sides to avoid any kind of league defeat to these opponents. Memories of Marten de Roon’s injury-time headed equaliser at the Etihad in November will not be happy ones for City’s support: their side had gone into the game at the top of a tightly congested table, but while they laboured to a 1-1 draw – their third stalemate in five league games that had also included a defeat at Tottenham – Chelsea were sticking five past Everton, the fifth of 13 successive league wins, and by tea-time had overtaken them and vaulted to the summit, where for the remainder of the season they have been a dispiritingly distant target. Boro’s 34 games this season have featured 67 goals, making them by some margin the most boring team in the Premier League, where the 19 other teams boast an average total goal tally of 94.9, meaning that Middlesbrough fans have been short-changed to the tune of nearly 30 goals (the next most boring side is Manchester United with 74 goals, and the most exciting teams are Liverpool and Bournemouth, both of whose games have cumulatively featured 112). SB
5) Rangers bid to scratch five-year itch
Between January 1969 and January 1973, Rangers did not register a single victory over Celtic in the league. Dark times for the Teddy Bears, though to be fair that was the Jock Stein era at Parkhead – there’s only so much anyone could have done. Fast forward four decades, and Rangers are in the middle of a much longer barren stretch; their last league win over the old enemy came in March 2012. Their enforced top-flight exile explains away much of that time, but since Old Firm hostilities recommenced in the League Cup in 2015, there have been seven meetings: five Celtic wins, two drawn games, and just the one (admittedly cathartic) penalty shoot-out win for Rangers in the Scottish Cup. The aggregate score over the piece has been 15-5 in Celtic’s favour. How long can this go on? A momentum-shifting statement victory over Brendan Rodgers’ Invincibles on Saturday might be too big an ask, but a bit of positivity wouldn’t go amiss in the wake of Pedro Caixinha’s tactical timidity last week in the Cup. Yet another comprehensive smackdown, and Rangers will go into next season wondering whether this run will ever end. They can’t afford to let a problem mutate into a complex. SM
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