The January schedule is an absolute mess.
For whatever reason the first month of the year has become the epicentre of football’s ever-expanding calendar, a situation that has crept up on us until, out of nowhere, January has become just as difficult to follow as December.
An FA Cup third round with no replays, two Champions League matches, a midweek Premier League round, and no winter break: January looks completely different compared to last year, and with that shake-up comes the possibility of missing key narratives, partly through sheer exhaustion.
The greatest loss is the chance for warm-weather training and a weekend off, something Premier League managers demanded for decades, only to lose within a couple of years of getting it.
Another big loss is a lucrative replay for Tamworth and the travesty of non-league clubs losing the chance of a well-earned replay.
Further down the list, but a loss all the same, is another full round of Premier League games crammed into the middle of the week.
And it just so happens that the round buried on Tuesday and Wednesday is probably the most enticing we’ve had this season.
Arsenal face Tottenham in the north London derby and first versus third sees Nottingham Forest attempt to do the double over Liverpool.
The Premier League title race could be pretty much decided by Thursday – or it could be blown wide open.
Nobody yet believes in Forest doing a Leicester, but the disbelief cannot hold if Nuno Espirito Santo’s side beat Liverpool. There’s every reason to believe they will.
Arne Slot’s side have slowed down considerably over the last few weeks, winning only six of their last ten in all competitions and looking particularly leggy in the draw against Manchester United and defeat to Tottenham.
It’s inevitable that Liverpool would slow at some point and Forest couldn’t have asked for a better time to play them; to sit deep and frustrate for 90 minutes, potentially sucking the life out of the Liverpool attack and counter-attacking a defence that’s been slightly disrupted by injuries.
Arsenal need a big win to set their season back on course and Tottenham’s injury-ravaged defence is surely vulnerable to Kai Havertz getting back to his best, and to Mikel Arteta resetting the narrative after a tough first half of the season.
Bukayo Saka’s injury complicates things, but it’s important to recall that Arsenal are on exactly the same points tally as at this stage last season, when they accelerated to win 49 points from the final 18 games and finish on 89.
Defeat for Liverpool at Forest would put Slot’s team back towards the 89-point mark for the season, and if accompanied by a morale-boosting win for Arsenal in the derby would close the gap between the clubs to just three points.
Liverpool would still have a game in hand, but that is away at a David Moyes Everton team, by no means a banker.
If results go the other way it will be just as significant.
Liverpool beating Forest emphatically ends their remote title hopes and reinvigorates Liverpool, while if Spurs are able to continue Arsenal’s bleak winter then Slot would go eight or nine points clear at the top.
There really isn’t a version of events that doesn’t have enormous ramifications on this year’s title race. It’s the kind of double header that should get the full week’s preview and the weekend headline slots.
Instead, at the strange time of 10pm on Wednesday, we will know whether Liverpool are going to win the league - or if Arsenal will challenge them all the way.
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