Football for the Holidays

So many matches over so many days!  For most teams this means four games in 12 days.  Even more challenging is that most will have a nasty two-day turnaround between Boxing Day (Thursday 12/26) and Saturday 12/28.

The first set of matches is this Saturday and Sunday.  And we must say, an inviting set of fixtures it is.  Two we'll be focusing on are Man City - Leicester (12:30 Saturday on NBC) and Tottenham - Chelsea (11:30 Sunday on NBCSN).  Leicester have generally done well in the big tests to its status as a top six club but this is a tough assignment.  And Spurs, for all their farting around so far, could move into 4th place with a home win against a decidedly erratic Chelsea squad.

Speaking of erratic, the weekend kicks off at 7:30 Saturday with an up-and-down Arsenal traveling to face Everton.  The Toffees looked to have agreed in principle to bring in Carlo Ancelotti as their permanent manager but that might not be a done deal by Saturday.  Duncan Ferguson has a win and a draw in his role as caretaker manager.

Five matches in the 10 am slot and I think the schedulers picked the wrong one for TV.  I like Wolves as much as anybody but their match with Norwich seems the least interesting of the five on offer.  My attention will be with Newcastle hosting Crystal Palace and that's not a bad choice for a neutral.  But you could also do Brighton - Sheffield United, Bournemouth - Burnley or Aston Villa - Southampton; any of those could be good viewing based on their places in the table.  Sometimes having NBC Gold is worth the price.  Sunday's warm-up match at 9 am is Watford hosting Man United.  Hard to see the Hornets halting the Red Devils' six game unbeaten streak.

Round Two runs Thursday and Friday after Christmas.  Nine matches are on Boxing Day and they save one for Friday.  For Boxing Day you could do up to four live matches spread out from 7:30 am to 3 pm.  As of this writing, the TV schedule was not on the EPL website.  Pretty sure you can count on TV for Tottenham-Brighton at 7:30, Man United - Newcastle at 12:30 and Leicester - Liverpool at 3 pm.  We'll be taking in Aston Villa - Norwich at 10 am here at 6911 as BFS co-founder Dennis will be in the house.  You might find one of the other five choices more interesting.  Friday is giant killer Wolves hosting Man City at 2:45.

Round Three is Saturday and Sunday 12/28-29.  That weekend's best looks to be a London derby featuring Chelsea vs Arsenal Sunday at 9 am.  I'll be interested in how Wolves fare taking on Liverpool just two days after facing Man City; that's at 11:30 on Sunday.  I'll definitely be in for Newcastle - Everton at 10. Again, TV schedule not up but pretty sure on Saturday you'll be able to see Brighton - Bournemouth (7:30), West Ham - Leicester (12:30) and Burnley - Man United (2:45).

Round Four is January 1-2.  Arsenal - Man United at 3 pm on New Year's Day looks pretty good. 

Newcastle's fixtures for the holidays include home to Crystal Palace, away at Man United, home for Everton and home to Leicester.  Despite three home matches, this could be a rather barren period.  Can hope for three maybe this weekend but the holiday haul could be as little as one point.  Ah well, best to remember the Magpies have more points to date than could have been expected.  Christmas is a time of giving.

Eyeballing other teams, I'm not seeing real obvious ball buster or patsy schedules. A notable exception is Aston Villa, who get Southampton, Norwich, Watford, and Burnley.  Those four are 18, 19, 20 and 12 in the table going into the weekend.  I believe the expression is make hay while the sun shines.


Results, or Lack Thereof

Newcastle's Dwight Gayle misses golden opportunity to
level the match with Burnley

First time this season that the result might be considered "unfair" to Newcastle.  Looked to me like the teams were even despite the 1-0 scoreline in favor of Burnley.  Stats at 538 support that view.  The Magpies were definitely undermanned as Shelvey, Saint-Maximin and Almiron were all sidelined due to injury.  Frankly I was surprised that Newcastle made it a close match without those guys.  They were forced into a more direct, Route One, approach without the dribble possession usually offered by Saint-Maximin and Almiron.  Though those two are short on goals and assists, their value to the team was pretty apparent in their absence. 

Elsewhere, we pat ourselves on the back for suggesting Wolves - Spurs was the match to watch.  Just an awesome display of attacking football with both sides getting their chances.  The Molineux crowd was certainly into the game.  Looked like a draw was in the offing before Vertonghen slipped in the game winner in stoppage time.  We'll do a two-part YouTubeableMoment using some fan cam shots.  Here's Traore goal that leveled the match at 1-1.  Part two is Vertonghen's goal.  Love the reactions.

We did need some quality after Saturday's action, though some of it did have drama in one form or another, if only in that the scores were close.  Liverpool took forever to put Watford away in a sleepy 2-0 win.  Hopefully you skipped Burnley - Newcastle as we recommended; that was a snooze.  I watched Crystal Palace play totally disinterested football for 70 minutes against Brighton; after Zaha's goal the Eagles looked poised to steal all three points but the final was 1-1.  Chelsea paid dearly for not putting Bournemouth away earlier as the Cherries sneaked home with a 1-0 win thanks to a stoppage time goal from Dan Gosling.  The goal had initially been waved off for offside but VAR showed it was legit.  Nice flick from Gosling, which you can see here; they don't show the VAR part but my take was he was clearly onside and the goal was correctly allowed.  Leicester dropped two points at home to Norwich, managing only a 1-1 draw.

The "Manager Sack Race" special between Southampton and West Ham was exciting enough, if not high quality.  Somewhat surprised that Hasenhuttl survived the 0-1 loss at home to the Hammers.  Not sure he'll be quite as lucky if Southampton fall to Aston Villa this weekend.  Didn't see the 1-1 draw between Man United and Everton; a home draw couldn't have gone down well for the Red Devil supporters.  While I was watching Newcastle struggle, Dennis was doing the same with Aston Villa, taking in their 0-2 loss to Sheffield United.  And Man City made life uncomfortable for Arsenal, scoring early and often to take a 3-0 road win. 

So Liverpool go into the holidays with a huge 10 point bulge over Leicester, who can now likely hear the footsteps of Man City in third.  Chelsea cling to fourth, just three up on Spurs.  Incredibly, Newcastle are 11th, level on points with Arsenal!?  The bottom three are Southampton, Norwich and Watford; Aston Villa are ahead of Southampton on goal differential.  Let's see what the holiday fixture overdose does to the standings.


The Kids Were Alright (apologies to The Who)

Who's the running back?
  Liverpool reaches deep to field a team against Aston Villa

One suspected the day might be difficult for Liverpool in their quarterfinal Carabao Cup match with Aston Villa as a bunch of teenagers took the field sporting uniform numbers worthy of NFL interior line men (recall the A team was in Qatar for the World Club Cup tournament).  Actually they had the run of play for about 15 minutes.  Even as they were slowly falling behind, the Liverpool youngsters look the better side.  The 0-5 final is a tad harsh.  Aston Villa survived what was clearly a no-win situation for them and advance to the semis to take on Leicester, who beat Everton on PKs.  The other semi will be an extra Manchester Derby as City bested Oxford United 3-1 and United handled Colchester 3-0.  The semis will be two-legged affairs with matches on January 7th and January 28th-29th.  Dennis hopes that Leicester will be more focused on the title race and will also field a B squad for the semis.


Club World Cup

The minnows were not in the mood to be eaten by the sharks and provided some entertaining Club World Cup semi-finals.  The Saudi club Al-Hilal took a 1-0 lead into the halftime lockerroom and were still tied 1-1 late into the match against Brazil's Flamengo.    Alas, a 78th minute goal followed by an own goal minutes later put an end to that upset scenario.  Liverpool had nearly the same fate against Mexican side Monterrey.  The teams traded goals early (the Monterrey goal from Ramiro Funes Mori who you might remember from his days at Everton), then traded punches for the rest of the match.  Only Firmino's stoppage time goal saved us from extra time or PKs, which was a good thing because I had not set my DVR to allow that. 

Pre-tournament favorites Flamengo and Liverpool now meet in the final at 12:30 on Saturday; you can catch it at 5 pm on FS2.  DVR tip: since it is not a live event, you will not be prompted to add extra time so record the next show as well if you don't want to risk missing the whole thing. 

A financial note:  Top prize money for the Carabao Cup is £100,000 (for the team, not per man), while the Club World Cup winner gets £3.75 million.  I guess that explains the Liverpool's personnel decisions.



Don't expect to post next week.  We'll be back in two weeks with the exclusive BFS ratings for the EPL sides during the holidays.  In the meantime, celebrate the holiday of your choice by watching a football match or twelve.

Points Over Performance

Well we knew the Magpies luck would run out someday.  Except it wasn't last Sunday.  Some surprises over the weekend.  And all seven EPL sides advanced to the knockout stages of European competition.

Fernandez after winning goal

Once again, Newcastle stumbled out of the blocks, looking unlikely to generate any offense of their own.  Fortunately, Martin Dubravka did some more fine keeping to keep things scoreless.  Dennis notes "he might just be really good."  But when Southampton scored early in the second half, I had no confidence that the Magpies would respond.  Bruce replaced Joelinton with Carroll and was rewarded when the Bunned One sent a great cross that our goal scoring machine Jonjo Shelvey headed in to level the match.  Okay, a draw wouldn't be bad.  Bruce then replaced Almiron with Sean Longstaff.  He fired a great shot from the top of the box that Alex McCarthy could only parry away, right onto the foot of Frederico Fernandez, who did not miss from three yards out.  Hmm, stealing another 2-1 victory.

Some downsides here.  Saint-Maximin hurt his hamstring late and appears to be out until January.  Also, Joelinton looked lost out there.  Sure, he hasn't exactly been provided the best service but his touch was awful.  He might just not be very good and maybe we see Andy Carroll start this weekend.  The biggest issue is that they are still getting pretty much outplayed and yet getting positive results.  They are:

17th in goals scored
19th in shots
17th in shots on target
14th in goal differential
17th in shots allowed
14th in shots on target allowed
9th in goals allowed

Okay, that last one isn't too bad.  I looked at some "efficiency" type numbers but not much help there.  Newcastle are basically in the middle of the pack on things like goals per shot, goals per shots on target and shots on target per shot.  They are pretty high up (that is, low percentage) in goals allowed per shots on target allowed, which may speak to the work of Dubravka.  So we are left with the continuing conclusion that there's a lot of luck here.  Check out this table, which suggests essentially the same conclusion we reached before.  Based on expected goals, Newcastle would be in last place.

But Newcastle are 11th in the table so stop complaining right?  As both announcers pointed at a various stages of Sunday's game, Newcastle are about points, not performance.

"I love this game" - Manager Duncan Ferguson celebrates
 an Everton goal against Chelsea

Two surprises in the form of an Everton 3-1 win over Chelsea. and a Man United 2-1 derby win. Stats say maybe the Toffees stole this one but while watching it I sure felt they were the better side.  Same for the Red Devils; they spent most of the match up 2-0 even though the stats say City dominated.  A late City goal made it a little tight towards the end but it seemed like a masterful performance for United.

Three wrongs make a retake

Wolves - Brighton was the lively contest I had anticipated - for the first half.  But after a rousing 2-2 opening, the second half was pretty flat, with the match ending in a 2-2 draw.  My favorite moment was late when a Wolves player executed a foul throw (lifted his back foot) from the wrong location (a good 10 yards closer than he should have been) while being interfered with by a Brighton player (picture left). Spurs scored on Burnley early and often in a 5-0 thrashing which has everybody breathing easier at the New White Hart Lane.  Arsenal spotted West Ham a goal, then scored three of their own in 10 minutes to take that London derby relatively easily.  In other news, Liverpool (handing Bournemouth a fifth straight loss) and Leicester just keep winning.


He...Could...Go...All...The...Way

Lots of good choices this week but we'll go with Heung-Min Son's 102 yard kickoff return for a touchdown incredible run from his own 18 as this week's YouTubeableMoment. Happy Michael B?  The video does give one a sense of how many bloody cameras they have on these matches.


The Same In Any Language (apologies to I Nine)

BFS Scandinavian Correspondent Philip S is not traveling but did send along this video (explicit language!) of American Jesse Marsch delivering a bilingual halftime talk to his RB Salzburg squad. They were down 1-3 at the time to Liverpool in a Champions League group stage match.  Maybe it helped because they tied the match up by 60 minutes before ultimately losing 3-4.  I take away two things.  First, as noted by the poster, see how the initial focus is an attitude adjustment before turning to the tactical elements.  Second, I wasn't aware that I knew the German word for f***.


EPL Teams Move On

Liverpool and Chelsea came through when they needed to and secured their berths in the knockout stage.  RB Salzburg played Liverpool tough for almost 60 minutes (they probably did not want a repeat of the halftime talk referenced above) but goals in rapid succession at 58 and 59 minutes ended any hopes of advancing.  Chelsea got on Lille early and held on for a 2-1 win to send them on.  City won against Dinamo Zagreb but they were already moving on while Spurs fell to Bayern but they were also already set for the knockout rounds.

In the Miss Congeniality Contest Europa League, Wolves, Man United and Arsenal got results sufficient to move them to the knockout stage of that competition.


You Can't Make Me Carabao It Cup

Turns out last week I left out two days of December action.  The Carabao Cup quarterfinals are on 12/17 and 12/18.   So there's football 21 days out of 31 this month and your longest drought will be 12/23-12/25.  On Tuesday Aston Villa will host Liverpool, who have already said they will be using a reserve squad since they are playing in the FIFA Club World Cup the following day (more on that below).  A likely squad listing is offered here.  All household names - if you live in their houses.  The other matches are on Wednesday and include Everton - Leicester, Oxford United - Man City, and Man United - Colchester.  Looks like ESPN+, i.e. streaming only for all four matches.


FIFA Club World Cup

I became aware of this competition only through Football Manager after Chester won the Champions League.  It brings together the six continental champions and throws in the winner of the host country's league just for laughs.  This year's line-up includes:

Flamengo - South America
Monterrey - North America
Liverpool - Europe
Al-Hilal - Asia
Esperance de Tunis - Africa
Hienghene Sport - Oceania
Al- Sadd - Qatar (host)

We note that Antarctica is not represented.  Details on the competition can be had here.  This seems like a sharks and minnows situation and indeed the European entrant has won the cup 11 of 15 times.  The South American teams have the other four wins.  Still, we know from Jurgen Klopp's personnel choices that this competition is still a higher priority than the Carabao League Cup.


Regular Stuff

But those other competitions only happen after some good ol' league play.  Except, the match ups aren't exactly going to blow you away.  My pick for the weekend is Wolves - Tottenham at 9 am Sunday morning on NBCSN.  Spurs are favored even on the road here but this should be a close contest.

Newcastle make a tough trip to Turf Moor to face Burnley.  The Clarets are probably still smarting from the 0-5 thrashing by Tottenham so that's not good.  I wouldn't look for more than three goals total here and that might be a stretch.  In the unlikely event you feel compelled to watch what is likely to be an ugly (though probably close) match, this one's on NBC Gold at 10 am on Saturday.

Saturday starts at 7:30 (NBCSN) with what looks like a massacre as Liverpool host Watford. The Reds average three goals per game at home vs Watford's .6 per game on the road.  At 538, they have Liverpool at 80% likely to win.  But I'll still watch.

The other 10 am matches besides Newcastle don't exactly stir the blood either.  TV game is Chelsea - Bournemouth; The Blues are enigmatic but the Cherries are on a five match losing streak.  You could opt for Leicester - Norwich or Sheffield United - Aston Villa on Gold.  Actually, the latter might be a decent watch.  The Saturday "feature" NBC match at 12:30 is Southampton - West Ham.  The primary interest there might be that the losing coach could find himself sacked by Monday morning. Hard to believe Manuel Pellegrini would survive should West Ham lose; Ralph Hasenhuttl might have a little more slack but a home loss to a relegation rival won't look good on the resume.

Sunday's matches besides Wolves - Spurs have some potential.  Man United host Everton at 9 am (NBC Gold) and Man City travel to face Arsenal at 11:30 on NBCSN.  Monday's bonus match is Crystal Palace versus Brighton at BFS's second favorite venue, Selhurst Park; that's at 2:45 on NBCSN.  Ah, Selhurst Park in December.  Reminds me of when I was a mere lad of 60.

Luck of the Geordies?

Four more unexpected points as Newcastle continue to get results using smoke and mirrors.   A pile of weekend and midweek action plus the European Championships draw.


Sometimes It Pays To Get Up Early

Jetro Willems goal at 25 minutes leveled the match at 1-1

Yikes, on Saturday not only were the Magpies going to have a rough go of it, we had to get up at 7:30 to watch.  As expected, the Citizens dominated play and it was no surprise when they took the lead at 22 minutes.  What was a surprise was when Willems leveled things just three minutes later on an excellent feed from Almiron (his first assist ever for Newcastle).  Then it was back to regular programming with Man City having the run of play and Newcastle doing their best to withstand the pressure.  Which they did pretty well.  So DeBruyne's brilliant strike at 82 minutes was at once understandable but also deflating.  I was totally unprepared for the Newcastle response just six minutes later when Atsu put a free kick outside the box which Shelvey rifled into the net to tie things up again. Pandemonium.  The video from the Gallowgate Stands is this week's YouTubeableMoment; because we are Magpie-centric here at BFS, here's the TV replay.

Several thoughts.  First, despite pre-game speculation of wholesale line-up changes, Steve Bruce's only tweak to the starting eleven was Manquillo in place of the injured Yedlin.  Most surprising for me was that he left Shelvey in despite Longstaff's availability.  Yeah, that worked out okay.  Almiron was also rumored to be headed for the bench in favor of Atsu but he started and contributed an assist.  Dummett started despite a bad game against Aston Villa and looked steady in the back three.  So credit to Steve Bruce for personnel decisions that worked out.

Fast forward to Thursday at Bramall Lane where Newcastle took on Sheffield, the second luckiest side this year.  Basically more of the same.  Little possession; in fact, Newcastle looked more helpless with the ball than against Man City.  But there was a cross from Manquillo that Saint-Maximin deposited into the net for his first goal in a Magpie shirt.  Also, Dubravka was superb in net so maybe sometimes it's not just luck.  Newcastle got a second goal from leading scorer Shelvey on a nice pass from Andy Carroll.  The AR had raised the flag but there was no whistle from Stuart Atwell so Shelvey continued onto the goal and beat the keeper.  VAR showed that Shelvey was onside and the goal counted.  There was much whining from the Sheffield side.  Enough, you play to the whistle.  If you don't know that the raised flag from the AR is not the definitive call on offside by now, you deserve what you get.  In fact, the Stuart Atwell had said as much to Shelvey earlier in the game.  Newcastle defending was well-organized and resolute so who's to say they didn't earn these points?

Except, let's be honest. The Magpies totally stole these points.  Man City had 76% of possession, outshot Newcastle 24 to 6, shots on target were 9 to 3 and corners were 10 to 1.  The stats at fivethirtyeight are even more one-sided.  On paper this was a blowout.  Pretty much the same against Sheffield United.  I'll argue that in part these results are a function of Newcastle defending and taking advantage of the goal scoring opportunities presented.  Is that pure luck?  Dennis says maybe not but is this pattern sustainable?  Hmm, probably not.  Still, there we are 11th in the table, closer to 5th than the relegation zone.


We Report, Owners Sack

Three of the six managers mentioned in last week's post are gone.  Of course, one (Emery) didn't even make to the post's publication.  Results since then have taken care of two more.

Flores - I don't often coach EPL sides but when
I do, I get sacked mid-season

Watford had led relegation rival Southampton for most of the match, meaning Ralph Hasenhuttl was
on the hot seat.  But the Saints scored at 78 and 83 minutes to turn the tables and Quique Sanchez Flores was the one who got axed.

Marco Silva survived the weekend after a nightmare loss against Leicester.  The Toffees had basically stifled Leicester and carried a 1-0 lead well into the second half.  Although Jamie Vardy tied things at 68 minutes a draw still appeared likely.  Then in the 4th minute of stoppage time, Iheanacho took a pass that split Everton defenders and put it past Pickford for an apparent game winner.  Except the call on the field was offside.  Then it was overruled by VAR and Everton was saddled with another loss.  Club officials held off firing Silva, apparently unwilling to make a change before Wednesday's Merseyside derby.  The 5-2 loss at Anfield was enough for them to pull the trigger.

Manuel Pelligrini is hanging by a thread.  West Ham did get a surprise 1-0 win over Chelsea but then fell 0-2 to Wolves mid-week.  As of posting, he is still employed.

Old Gunner Solskjaer didn't do himself any favors with a 2-2 draw against Aston Villa, but saw his stock rise considerably after a 2-1 win over Tottenham on Wednesday.  We thought the PK on Sissoko that was the difference in that match was kind of harsh.  On the replay it wasn't obvious that there was any contact.  But VAR was probably right to leave the call alone as it wasn't obvious that there wasn't any contact either.  Probably should leave Ole Gunnar alone anyway; United are unbeaten in last four and have climbed to 6th in the table.

Ralph Hasenhuttl's Southampton side got wins over relegation rivals Watford and Norwich so he's safe for awhile.


Random Observations

So much action to digest, I'm left to make one-off comments.

Southampton have two wins and a draw in last three and are now a whole point outside the relegation zone; on the one hand that's impressive but they must have been buried to get that many points and barely make it out

Wolves last loss was 9/14 vs Chelsea; that's 20 points in 10 matches so they are 5th in the table, six behind Chelsea

It doesn't take much of a streak to move you up the table; Crystal Palace win two in a row and move to 7th.  The second was a 1-0 win over Bournemouth despite playing down a man for about 70 minutes 

Spurs seemed to be specializing in building three goal leads, then surrendering two late in the match, repeating that formula in a home win over Bournemouth

Sticking it to the Mans - we note that BFS sides Newcastle and Aston Villa both got draws on the weekend against the Manchester teams 

Mourinho finds that maybe you can't go home again as he took his first defeat as Spurs manager in a 1-2 loss at Old Trafford

The new boss at Arsenal doesn't seem to be faring any better than the old boss as they get a road draw at Norwich and a home loss to Brighton; the Gunners are 10 points out of fourth 

Elsewhere, Liverpool and Leicester just keep on winning 

Groups of Death, Pestilence and Plague

The groups were drawn for the 2020 European Championships on Saturday. Details can be had here. Immediate attention went to Group F as the quintessential definition of The Group of Death.  Hard to argue about that moniker applying to a group that includes reigning World Champs France, reigning Euro Champs Portugal and Germany.  No matter that the fourth will be one of North Macedonia, Belarus, Georgia or Kosovo; getting out of that group will be tough.

But there are some other tough draws as well - Groups of Near Fatal Illness maybe.  Group E with Spain (8th in current FIFA rankings), Sweden (17) and Poland (19) is no picnic; their fourth will be one of Slovakia, Ireland, North Ireland or Bosnia & Herzegovina.  Or what about Group A with Switzerland (12), Italy (13), Wales (22) and Turkey (29)?

Complicating the handicapping somewhat is the expanded format.  With 24 teams and six groups, the first two in each group automatically will advance plus the four best third place teams.  I can't wait to read the tiebreaking procedures for that.  So it's possible that France, Portugal and Germany could advance to the knockout stage. 


No Wonder They Win

Anybody else notice that a key passing combination for Man City is Sterling Silva?


EPL and Champions League

Just keep right on watching - games on from Saturday to Thursday if you're so inclined, or reclined on the couch as the case may be.

Manchester derby on Saturday at 12:30 looks like the highlight.  Except maybe not.  At 538,  they are not expecting much of a contest, listing City with an 80% chance of winning.  Ouch.  It's been moved to NBCSN because PGA Golf is going to be on NBC (really?).

Saturday's 7:30 wake up match is car crash Everton hosting Chelsea.  No permanent replacement for Silva has been named so Duncan Ferguson, a current member of the coaching staff, will be in charge.  Just three matches at 10 am.  Bournemouth - Liverpool is the TV game; the Cherries (who looked like Lemons in their yellow away kit at Selhurst Park) have lost four in a row and this does not look like a fixture to end that streak.  Your choices on NBC Gold are Spurs - Burnley and Watford - Crystal Palace.  We'll probably go with Spurs, though the latter may be more competitive.

Four more matches on Sunday but three at 9 am.  We'll be taking in Newcastle - Southampton on NBC Gold.  This is a relegation six-pointer that is more crucial for the Saints, though it would give Newcastle a bigger cushion.  It's a match the Magpies really should be winning but they are so mercurial; secretly, I would take a draw here.  The TV game is Aston Villa - Leicester.  Norwich - Sheffield United is the other 9 am match.  All alone on TV at 11:30 is Brighton - Wolves, which looks like it might be fun.  The weekend concludes Monday afternoon with a London derby between West Ham and Arsenal.  Both of these squads have been underperforming and 538 has it as a close contest.  Also could be Pelligrini's last.

Champions League contests on Tuesday include Red Bull - Liverpool and Chelsea - Lille.  Liverpool advance with a win or draw; you can see that one at 12:55 on TNT.  Chelsea probably need to win to be assured of moving to the knockout stage; that's at 3 pm but looks to be available only by streaming.  Man City (Dinamo Zagreb) and Tottenham (Bayern) play on Wednesday but they have already punched their tickets to the knockout stage.  City is on TV at 12:55 on TNT but Spurs looks like streaming only at 3 pm.

Wolves Man-ager Nuno - having it all

We haven't talked much (at all?) about the Europa League, mostly because it's sole purpose seems to be to tire out mid-table teams with mid-week travel all over Europe so they struggle in league competition.  Group stage competition ends this Thursday.  Wolves and Man United are into the knockout round.  Arsenal, which face Standard Leige, need a win or draw to be sure of advancing.  They had been doing well but a draw and loss in the last two matches left them exposed.  So Wolves are kicking ass in the league despite playing in Europa League?  Maybe Nuno Espirito Santo is more than just the "Best Beard in the EPL."

I love December...