A week off Premier League football allowed time for the Carabao Cup semi-finals to take place.
The first legs saw wins for Tottenham who handed Liverpool just their second loss of the whole season and Newcastle put two on Arsenal.
Back to the Premier League, Arsenal and Chelsea blew chances to shorten the gap with Liverpool at the top of the table after their draw with Man United. Nottingham Forest though took full advantage of the dropped points and now sit tied with Arsenal on 40 points.
The headliner of the weekend is Nottingham hosting Liverpool, if they can do the double over Liverpool this season it could play a huge factor come the end of the season.
West Ham struggled against Man City and have since fired manager Julen Lopetegui. Over a quarter of the teams in the league have now sacked their managers this season.
Graeme Potter has stepped in as manager for the Hammers and will start things with a London derby at home.
Fulham are now unbeaten in eight league games but would love to bag three points against a team who will be trying to figure out how they want to move forward.
Both of these teams had good wins in the last time out with plenty of goalscoring and attacking ability on show.
Brentford made light work of the worst team in the league and now host Man City who have managed to put back-to-back wins together for the first time since October.
There are still plenty of questions that need answering but Pep Guardiola is finally starting to stare them back onto the right path. I think City away from home but it won’t be easy.
Bournemouth managed three points last round against an Everton side that didn’t create enough chances. Chelsea on the other hand couldn’t hang on settling for a draw with Crystal Palace, a disappointing result all things considering.
Chelsea have been in a bit of a slump recently and their scoring ability seems to have haltered. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them continue in their slump against this Bournemouth side that is staying in touch with European football.
The headliner of the round heads to Nottingham where the league leaders need to do a job.
The only team to beat them in the league is the Trees and now they have to head to their place after just their second loss this season. Falling to Tottenham in the EFL Cup semi may have come at the wrong time meanwhile Nottingham are flying.
Chris Wood continues to impress and if they can soak up the pressure at the back they’ll see a chance or two come their way in the attacking third.
Everton are became the sixth team to sack their manager this season after news broke that Sean Dyche’s time at the club is over. Reading his numbers with the club is pretty grim so it makes sense.
Aston Villa continue their mixed bag of results and still have a game to play in the FA Cup before their league fixture at Goodison Park.
Depending on how Unai Emery rotates his players, there might be a chance for Everton to get the ball rolling for 2025 under new management.
The last time these two teams met, we saw 2-2 draw, a fair result after 90 minutes played.
This time round Leicester enter in during a dismal run of form having lost five in a row. They’re fighting for survival at the bottom of the pack while Crystal Palace may feel like they have a little bit of safety sitting mi-table./
Using Leicester’s run of form as a guide, it’s hard to see anything other than an away win for the Eagles.
Newcastle are fresh of their EFL semi-final win over Arsenal and have good league form to back it up with wins over Tottenham and United.
Wolves are out of the relegation zone but barley and I doubt they’ll get anything of this fixture with Alexandar Isak being one of the top strikers in the league at the moment.
The North London derby heads back to the Emirates for the return fixture. The Gunners took the first fixture 1-0 thanks to Gabriel scoring in the 64th minute.
As Spurs head to the Emirates their league form is sub-par however they did just beat Liverpool in the EFL Cup so who knows what Spurs are up to.
Arsenal are hot favourites at home but without Saka and Arteta continuing to experiment with his squad, there may be opportunities for Spurs to take advantage of.
Ipswich are slowly climbing out of the relegation zone, picking up the odd win and Brighton haven’t won in the Premier League since the end of November.
An eight game winless streak in the league and four draws in a row.
I’d rather side with the Tractor Boys in this one to get at least a point.
Man United have a great chance to get their first win in four Premier League games when they host Southampton.
With just one win to their name the Cherries haven’t seen a lot of improvement under new management. They never looked like getting much out of last week’s game against Brentford so where do they go from here?
There’s a lot going on behind the scenes for United but maybe win might help to calm things down.