Three derbies and a clásico…

Three or four times a season you get a weekend when the schedules throw out a handful fixtures that have fans, partisan and neutral, salivating in anticipation. This is one of these weekends.

Everton vs. Liverpool

The latest edition of the Merseyside derby finds both clubs in difficult and trying circumstances. Liverpool will not be present when the draw for the knock out stages of the Champions League is made and with five losses in their opening thirteen league games a dogfight for a top four spot seems to be in prospect.

Perhaps Liverpool’s troubles that have sheltered Everton from a storm of criticism given they are also off to a less than stellar start.  Both clubs can point to extensive injury problems but the statistic that

Serie A has two excellent matches scheduled for Saturday.

Juventus v Fiorentina

These two sides have almost identical records with goal difference all that separates them – Juventus has a + 5 to Fiorentina’s +3.  However, Juventus and Fiorentina approach this game from very different directions.

Ciro Ferrara is facing his first mini-crisis since taking over from Claudio Ranieri at the tail end of last season. Two draws and a loss in the league combined with two draws in Champions League have tarnished a start that had brought four fairly convincing wins while conceding only one goal.

Conversely, Fiorentina have picked up momentum since losing away to Lyon in the Champions League and being badly beaten 3-1 by Roma a month ago. Within ten days of the second loss Fiorentina

The Best…..

Emmanuel Adebayor garnered the headlines but for me Craig Bellamy was the main reason Manchester City beat Arsenal on Saturday. He worked tirelessly on the left hand side – one moment charging forward, the next making sure that Wayne Bridge had support. I didn’t hurt that he scored what also turned out to be the winning goal.

Sunday night’s marquee game in Serie A lived up to billing with Genoa and Napoli going at it. The game swung one way and then another as Genoa recovered from a goal down and a man down to beat Napoli 4-1.

The game became ten-on-ten when Napoli’s Campagnaro gave away a penalty and was sent off in first half added time. The goal of the game – perhaps of the weekend – came from Genoa’s Mesto who picked up

The Best…..

Forty-two minutes of the Wigan – Manchester United game with Dimitar Berbatov breaking into the penalty box…and an absolutely brilliant tackle by Titus Bramble. It was worthy of Bobby Moore or Franco Baresi.

(The second half, however, did not turn out so well for Bramble and his Wigan mates as United tore through Wigan apart and scored five with no reply.)

Ronaldinho sets them up and Pato scores them.  That was the case on Saturday as Milan beat Siena 2-1. The second set up was particularly noteworthy. Ronaldinho sliced a perfectly weighted and angled pass inside the Siena full back for Flamini to run onto. The former Arsenal man then played the ball across the penalty box and all Pato had to do was to redirect it into an empty net. 

Lyon went