Liverpool play before Arsenal on Sunday.
If they don’t beat Aston Villa at Villa Park, and Arsenal scrape a win at Everton, Rafa Benitez might give up on third place.
Villa-Liverpool is at 1.35pm, while Everton-Arsenal kicks off at 4pm.
Liverpool play two games against PSV Eindhoven, the team that knocked Arsenal out of the Champions League, and they will expect to beat PSV and have two more games in the semi-final.
After Sunday, Rafa will look at his fixtures : Arsenal at Anfield on Saturday March 31 (he owes them one) and PSV away and Reading at the Madjeski and PSV at Anfield and Man City away and Middlesbrough at Anfield and Wigan at Anfield and Portsmouth away.
He might think : “I’ll have four more games than Arsenal, more travelling, more injuries – I’ll settle for fourth place and concentrate on the Champions League.We can beat anybody in a tight, tactical game, so we can go to Athens and win it again.If we do that I’ll be a legend and nobody will care that we finished fourth.”
EVERTON are sixth and 12 points behind Arsenal, having played a game more.
They drew 1-1 at the Emirates in October. As a team they’re somewhere between average and OK. Their best players are Arteta and Andy Johnson, a bouncy opportunist who grafts as hard as any striker in the Prem.Those two score the goals, 11 and 8 respectively.Tim Cahill got 7 before injury put him out for the season..
Let’s hope Fabregas and Arteta, the two Spaniards, don’t kick each other too much. Although Cesc would not kick Arteta because he’s Spanish. He’d kick him because he’s a threat to Arsenal.
Managing Everton is a tough gig and David Moyes has admitted he tried to sign Berbatov and Kuyt.
I’m biased towards Scottish people, so I’ve got a lot of time for Moyes, even though his team plays commando football.
His job is a hard one because he works next door to a monster club with a rich heritage. Nobody since Howard Kendall has managed Everton for five years, so I give Moyes credit for survival, for finishing seventh in his first full season, for finishing fourth in 2005, and for being unlucky in facing classy Villarreal in a Champions League qualifier. Villareal went on to reach the semi-finals before Arsenal beat them.
Moyes was voted LMA Manager of the Year in 2003 and 2005.
What else?
Kolo Toure will be back. He is important, popular and spinal.
I hope Toure plays at centreback with William Gallas. If those two can shut out the lively AJ, Arsenal can nick another 1-0, as they did at Aston Villa.
And maybe Sunday’s goal won’t be an o.g. or a deflection.
In fact, I think Rosicky can beat Tim Howard with a shot from outside the box.