This Weekend’s Matchups: Boxing Day in England

Posted Friday, December 24, 2010 by NYTime.com

The English Premier League is the only major soccer league in action this weekend:

Sunday
Fulham vs. West Ham United
Craven Cottage, London; 7:00 AM ET
Alone among the big leagues, the English Premier League plows on through the Christmas festival. Boxing Day soccer is as traditional as cold turkey, and West Ham is desperate to ridicule another tradition — the team at the bottom of the league at this time of year invariably gets relegated. Only one club, West Bromwich Albion, has defied that prophesy. “It’s time to make that two clubs,” the Hammers coach, Avram Grant said. “As long as we show our spirit, we will stay up.”

Blackpool vs. Liverpool
Bloomfield Road, Blackpool; 10:00 AM ET
If this match beats the deep freeze and is played, it will be Blackpool’s have-a-go attitude against the under-performing Reds. The Liverpool captain, Steven Gerrard, is fit again after tearing a hamstring, and his colleague Dirk Kuyt says players love, not loathe, the hard work of four games over 11 days in the holiday season. “I’m sure a lot of the top teams will drop points this month,” Kuyt said. “If we could get four good results in a row then who knows? Certainly the gap will be closer.”

Newcastle United vs. Manchester City
St. James’ Park, Newcastle; 10:00 AM ET

After the change of heart by Carlos Tévez, who claims he now wants to remain with City and is no longer homesick for his kids in Buenos Aires, he and his team will try to conjure a better performance than they gave in a loss at home to Everton on Monday. Newcastle’s stadium is a fortress, but the team’s form fluctuates, and its owner panicked by changing the coach, making this a contest of fire, brimstone and unpredictability.

Aston Villa vs. Tottenham Hotspur
Villa Park, Birmingham; 12:30 ET

Spurs have been England’s revelation this season, particularly in the Champions League. Villa lost its coach, its rhythm and its belief in itself, and since the French veteran manager Gérard Houllier arrived, it has depended on youth, with mixed results. One player Houllier dropped, hoping to jolt him out of his apparent indifference to the cause, is Stephen Ireland. “I like the man, I like the player, he has got a skilled touch, he has got an eye for the pass, but he has got to adapt to modern football as well,” Houllier said of Ireland, adding: “There is a discrepancy between what I see in training sometimes and what I see in the games.”

This Weekend’s Matchups: Boxing Day in England

Monday
Arsenal vs. Chelsea
Emirates Stadium, London; 3:00 PM ET
In theory, this is the match of the week, and was therefore held back for television on Monday evening. But this is Arsenal’s time to prove that its coach, Arsène Wenger, is a real prophet. “We have played our four biggest rivals away from home this season,” he said. “So now we are in a very strong position to win the league. What we have learned in the away games is that we are up there with our quality.”

Arsenal’s big guns, Cesc Fàbregas and Robin van Persie, are back from injury. Chelsea’s form is not what it was at the start of the season, but it also welcomes back a very important player, Frank Lampard. A full house of 62,000 awaits.