Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend

1) Cucurella and Olise key to rivalry match

Hostilities resume in the unlikely derby as Brighton seek their first league win against Crystal Palace in six attempts. In September’s reverse fixture, Brighton needed a Neal Maupay goal in the fifth minute of added time to rescue a point from a spicy encounter at Selhurst Park. Friday’s fixture at the Amex Stadium could be as much about who is present as who isn’t, with both sides missing key players on duty at the Africa Cup of Nations. Mali’s Yves Bissouma will be absent from the Brighton ranks, while Palace find themselves without Wilfried Zaha, Cheikhou Kouyaté and the in-form Jordan Ayew. The Ghanaian’s absence will herald another starting opportunity for Michael Olise, who was outstanding in the FA Cup victory against Millwall last weekend and in the league defeat against West Ham seven days previously. His battle against Brighton’s hugely impressive Spanish wing-back Marc Cucurella ought to be key in deciding the outcome of a potentially fiery match that looks extremely difficult to call. 

2) Arsenal a familiar nemesis for Conte

At Chelsea, Antonio Conte had a miserable record against Arsenal: just one win from eight encounters – and at a time when the west Londoners were a much stronger outfit, with Arsène Wenger in the final, troubled stretch of his tenure. Defeats to Arsenal bookended Conte’s imperial period at Chelsea. Three goals down at the Emirates in September 2016, Conte switched to a back-three formation that provided the framework for Chelsea’s dominant title win that season. But the 2017 FA Cup final, a defeat to a motivated, excellent Arsenal to lift the final trophy of Wenger’s career, was the beginning of the end for Conte at Chelsea. It came ahead of a transfer window where bridges were burned between him and the club hierarchy. It appears too early for that yet in his Tottenham reign, but a somewhat submissive selection in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup semi defeat to Chelsea suggested he was sending a message of sincere dissatisfaction. Watch that space. 

• Tottenham v Arsenal, Sunday 4.30pm

3) Tuchel wants laser-like Chelsea focus

For all Chelsea’s midweek dominance against Tottenham –aside from one brief second-half spell, Thomas Tuchel seemed extremely displeased with his players even though they had comfortably booked their berth in next month’s Carabao Cup final. “We were almost punished for our lack of focus,” he said at the final whistle. “We played at 90% and that’s not our style – we shouldn’t do this.” With a Saturday lunchtime appointment at Manchester City looming, it was a timely broadside across the bows of players who simply must win at the Etihad to maintain any hope of reeling in the runaway leaders. Chelsea may not be good enough to beat a City side currently firing on all cylinders, but should they fail to do so, it probably won’t be down to any lack of concentration or application following their manager’s rocket up the collective backside.

4) How Burnley deal with their losses

Burnley have more league matches remaining this season than any other team in the top flight, so that is one thing in their favour. Now all they need to do is find a way, and a player, to score enough goals for them to survive. With Chris Wood sold to Newcastle this week and Max Cornet away at the Africa Cup of Nations, Burnley will host Leicester with a strike force that boasts one league goal between them this season – and that is only if Matej Vydra has recovered from Covid and a nagging groin problem. Their attack will most likely be led by Jay Rodriguez, who at least scored in last week’s home FA Cup defeat to Huddersfield. Leicester have striker problems too – Jamie Vardy is injured, Kelechi Iheanacho is at the Cup of Nations and Patson Dakais an injury doubt – but Brendan Rodgers’ side do at least have midfielders who can weigh in with goals. Burnley’s chances of scoring on Saturday may hinge on Ben Mee, their top league scorer this season after Wood and Cornet, and a player capable of exploiting Leicester’s ongoing set-piece problems. 

• Burnley v Leicester, Saturday 3pm

5) Villa falling short of Gerrard’s demands

These are exciting times at Aston Villa. Philippe Coutinho will surely make his debut on Saturday with Lucas Digne likely to do so too. Steven Gerrard has clearly made Villa attractive to a better-heeled tranche of footballers, but results in the last month have been rather less impressive than their transfer business. Three defeats have followed the win at Norwich – losses to Chelsea and Manchester United either side of a more worrying display at Brentford, where Mads Roerslev’s late winner was perhaps most indicative. The all-action style Gerrard demands from his players appears to coincide with flagging energy levels towards the end of matches. At Old Trafford on Monday, Villa had a sagging, incoherent United on the ropes from the start of the second half, only for the FA Cup third-round tie to be closed out reasonably comfortably. It may take time – and a pre-season – for Villa to be able to meet their manager’s physical demands. 

6) A bad week to get worse for Everton?

After seeing their team win just one game and draw three from their past 12 Premier League outings, Everton supporters are mutinous. This week’s sale of their talented French left-back Lucas Digne to Aston Villa, in the wake of his reported falling-out with Rafa Benítez, is likely to have further enraged a fanbase whose patience with their manager was already wearing cigarette paper-thin. “Sometimes it only takes one person from outside to destroy a beautiful love affair,” wrote Digne in his farewell message, in what has widely been perceived as a dig at his former manager. With Benítez’s side heading to Carrow Road to face an abominably bad Norwich City side on Saturday, anything less than emphatic victory would further damage the already fractious relationship between Everton fans and their manager. 

7) Salah’s stock rises further in his absence

Liverpool’s current run of fixtures can also be viewed as an extension of Mohamed Salah’s contract negotiations. The team made a strong case for giving Salah everything he wants by performing prosaically against 10-man Arsenal in Thursday’s Carabao Cup semi-final first leg at Anfield. The hosts lacked sharpness and ingenuity without Salah and Sadio Mané, among others, while Salah’s ostensible deputy, Takumi Minamino, underlined the Egyptian’s importance – and the shallowness of Liverpool’s squad – by missing an open goal late on. A similar performance when they host Brentford in the league on Sunday could result in them falling even further behind in the title race. 

8) Wood shows Newcastle’s short-term aims

Jackie Milburn, Malcolm Macdonald, Les Ferdinand, Alan Shearer … Chris Wood? The New Zealander filling a Callum Wilson-shaped hole in Newcastle’s attack, and the £25m paid for a striker with three goals all season, shows the difficulty of recruitment in the January transfer window. Wood, a decent, troublesome and unselfish forward, will have to do for now as Newcastle look less a superclub in waiting than Burnley-on-Tyne, with Wood joining ex-Claret Kieran Tripper in their ranks under a former Turf Moor manager in Eddie Howe. Harpooning the chances of a less wealthy relegation rival is the limit of Newcastle ambitions for now – and until the drop is avoided, the club can only operate on such a short-term footing. What fans might have said if Mike Ashley and Steve Bruce had turned to Wood as the answer is one for the birds. A first Wood goal in seven weeks and a defeat of Watford, another relegation rival, is desperately required. 

9) Broja will test retooled Wolves back-line

Bruno Lage was shrewd enough to stick with a back-three formation after taking charge of Wolves last summer, with the emergence of Max Kilman on the right helping the team continue using the shape with which most of the players were familiar. But with Romain Saïss at the Cup of Nations with Morocco, Lage has to find another player to deploy alongside Kilman and Conor Coady. Marçal did well on the left side of the back three in last weekend’s FA Cup win over Sheffield United until being forced off by injury at half-time, after which the midfielder Leander Dendoncker filled in competently. But Southampton will pose a tougher test on Saturday, especially with Armando Broja continuing to distinguish himself as an outstanding young attacking talent. Ralph Hassenhüttl hopes to convince Southampton’s new owner to find a way of making Broja’s loan move from Chelsea permanent in the summer. It will be up to Wolves’ makeshift defence to stop the 20-year-old from strengthening the argument for doing so. 

• Wolves v Southampton, Saturday 3pm

10) Old-school values firing Hammers

As Arsenal, Tottenham and Manchester United falter in their chase for a top-four place, West Ham have been taking care of business. The expectation is a thin squad will eventually run out of energy, as happened last season, but David Moyes’s team are currently in fourth place on merit. The improvement in the last 18 months of the likes of Jarrod Bowen, Manuel Lanzini and Declan Rice is a tribute to their manager, a rediscovery of the team-building expertise that first made his reputation at Preston and Everton. Rice is a reminder that stars can be made rather than bought in, while Bowen, who scored twice in Wednesday’s win over Norwich, is a reminder that stars can also be bought and made from the lower tiers. Such old-fashioned values are prevailing over the elite clubs chasing West Ham’s tail, and a repeat of last week’s 2-0 FA Cup defeat of Leeds would keep the Hammers ahead.