Big Weekend: Tottenham v Aston Villa, Liverpool, Michael Carrick, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Madrid derby

Rare for Big Weekend to kick off with a Game to watch we’re almost certain will be largely unwatchable, but that’s a huge part of what makes El Crisico between Spurs and Villa so compelling.

Talking of crisis, Michael Carrick is already fighting for his life at Manchester United, whose struggles – along with Spurs’ – are a large part of the reason Andoni Iraola has thus far got away with an underwhelming start to his Liverpool reign.

He goes back to his old club this weekend in another #narrative-laden clash, while you fear for a rotten and further depleted Crystal Palace defence against Dominic Calvert-Lewin after what he did to Newcastle.

Whatever happens, let’s all make sure we enjoy this last slice of Barclays before they take it away from us for absolutely f*cking ages; the next game after Fulham face Man United on Sunday afternoon isn’t until October 10.

Game to watch: Tottenham v Aston Villa Maybe ‘Game to watch’ is the wrong phrase here. That sort of implies that it might be an actual football match that rewards your time and is worth watching. That’s not remotely the case. It will almost certainly be unwatchable for large swathes. It might face trades descriptions act scrutiny if referred to as ‘a football match’.

Perhaps ‘Spectacle to watch’ is more apt. It’s a misery-loves-company exhibition at the Premier League’s most well-appointed grief-hole. No good can come of it.

Villa are so bad that you’d currently back almost anyone to beat them, but that ‘almost’ is key because there are always limits.

And you simply cannot currently back Tottenham to beat anyone in a Premier League game anywhere, but especially not here. Not at a ground where they have five Premier League wins in the last 22 months. Newcastle have won more Premier League games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2026 than Spurs have.

By far the likeliest result is a deeply depressing and almost entirely unhelpful for anyone goalless draw, given you’re looking here at a pair of teams with precisely one goal and no wins between them from eight games thus far.

It should be a truly spectacular hate watch. And that’s just for Tottenham fans.

Which brings us to another little oddity about this game. It’s likely to be one played in a bit of a cranky atmosphere given Aston Villa’s thoughts on the Big Six in general but very weirdly Spurs in particular.

But really, for all the online bickering between these two sets of fans recently, they’ve actually got a huge amount in common. Both of them are absolutely certain that their current unpleasant situation is entirely the fault of Tottenham f*cking Hotspur.

Team to watch: Liverpool Joined the long list of teams who’ve given said Tottenham f*cking Hotspur a cathartic kicking over the last couple of years. It really is remarkably therapeutic. But they still haven’t looked entirely convincing in a draw-laden start that has continued one of the key traits of Andoni Iraola’s beloved unbeaten runs; they’re not always winning runs.

Fine at Bournemouth, sure, and for now also weirdly fine at Liverpool who have largely dodged attention for what is an uninspiring and unconvincing start to the season due to the more existential crises engulfing others at this time.

And now Iraola takes his new team, one whose only domestic victories this season are easily caveated ones that have come over Ipswich (newly promoted) and Spurs (Spurs), to his old one.

Bournemouth have, like Iraola, largely carried on where they left off. That is, by drawing an awful lot of games. Unlike Liverpool, their odd game out was indeed a defeat, but a narrow one against Man City.

They’ve been a touch careless in not beating both Newcastle and Brentford in recent weeks and should absolutely not fear taking on Liverpool at this time having kicked off their Europa League campaign with an away win at Real Sociedad.

Also just funny that in a game between Bournemouth and Liverpool it’s the former who are coming into it off European midweek action.

Manager to watch: Michael Carrick Now not only the favourite in the Premier League Sack Race, but the clearest and most compelling favourite yet in the early weeks of the season.

The last week has been disastrous for him, with United absolutely wretched in failing to punish 10-man City in the Manchester Derby and then getting hoofed out of the Carabao at the first hurdle from 2-0 up against Brighton, a team for whom turning up at Old Trafford and leaving with either three points or cup progress has now become something of an annual tradition.

The feel-good vibes of the interim reign are gone. It shouldn’t be downplayed just how big United’s improvement was over the second half of last season, but it was also tough to know precisely how much of it was down to Michael Carrick being Michael Carrick and how much of it was down to him not being Ruben Amorim. It increasingly looks like it was the latter, and that United could have achieved results that convinced them to make a permanent appointment with a lettuce in charge. Or even Liz Truss.

This weekend it’s first against second in that Sack Race with Carrick up against Alvaro Arbeloa’s winless Fulham, and three points for United going into the international break would certainly ease the mounting pressure. If nothing else, it would switch the positions in the Sack Race again.

But it does also feel like it would be nothing else. That yes, United might beat a struggling Fulham side, but that it will ultimately mean little for a club heading inexorably towards another reboot, another reset, another rebuild, another wasted season of ripping it up and starting again.

And if they don’t win, that could absolutely all happen before United play another game.

Player to watch: Dominic Calvert-Lewin Absolutely sensational in last week’s thumping win for Leeds over Newcastle, and with immaculate timing too as Thomas Tuchel considers the make-up of his first post-World Cup England squad for the return of the Nations League.

And Calvert-Lewin could hardly ask for a better fixture in which to back up that Newcastle performance than the one the fixture computer has seen fit to grant him: Crystal Palace at home.

But not just that. Crystal Palace at home without the suspended Axel Disasi or the injured Dean Henderson.

And sure, Palace might be buoyed by a 4-0 Europa League win on Thursday night, but they are still the side carrying the Thursday-Sunday burden here, one that has upset the rhythms of larger and better-resourced teams before now.

What Crystal Palace undoubtedly are at this time, though, is the Premier League’s weakest team defensively. They’ve already shipped a division-high 11 goals in four games, but it’s who they’ve conceded them too that makes it doubly worrying.

We can perhaps ignore the four Man City scored, write that off as an occupational hazard for all outside the Premier League’s absolute elite. But conceding three to Ipswich? Two each to Fulham and Everton? That’s almost half the 16 goals those three teams have managed across all their games this season. Even Spurs kept Everton out.

Sorting out the defence was always likely to be Pierre Sage’s toughest early task, with suitably replacing Marc Guehi and Maxence Lacroix in one summer a task that would likely prove beyond bigger beasts than Palace.

But it’s still been alarmingly bad, and has every likelihood of getting worse before any hope of getting better.

Football League game to watch: Millwall v West Ham Yer da quite literally cannot contain his excitement. ‘Proper football’ he’s been saying to anyone who’ll listen – and many who won’t – for much of the last week. ‘That’ll be a quiet one,’ he keeps saying before chuckling and shaking his head.

The two have met 99 times over the last 127 years since forming less than three miles apart as Millwall Athletic and Thames Ironworks. The 100th derby will be the 25th Football League meeting between the two, and the first since 2012.

European game to watch: Atletico Madrid v Real Madrid The first Madrid derby of the season already feels like a contest for the minor placings in La Liga. Both teams have made perfectly respectable starts to the season, sitting fourth and second respectively on 13 and 15 points from six games.

It’s just that this season already has the look of a processional for a Barcelona side that has six wins from six, with an improbable 28 league goals already to their name. The two Madrid sides have been pretty free-scoring themselves – they’re the league’s second and third highest scorers anyway – yet have only 31 goals to their name between them.

To really put Barcelona’s tally of 28 league goals at this stage in perspective, it is 28 more league goals than Spurs have scored this season.