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On the plus side the interim manager, Mike Jackson, has enjoyed a dream start after taking 10 points from his four games in charge, masterminding a team that have shown no shortage of character since the departure of Sean Dyche. In a nutshell, if Burnley go down they will not be financially well-placed to yo-yo straight back up and their situation could get an awful lot worse before it gets better. The release of Burnley’s accounts on Wednesday revealed exactly how financially ruinous relegation could be for a club that were sitting on extremely healthy cash reserves before their leveraged buyout by ALK Capital in December 2020. JB 4) Burnley owners make high-stakes game United fans have spent much of the season as onlookers hoping Liverpool and Manchester City can slip up in some fashion. What legacy will the caretaker leave? Giving debuts to Álvaro Fernández, the 19-year-old Spaniard, to follow the few minutes granted to Alejandro Garnacho against Brentford on Monday is about all there is left. Ralf Rangnick was later brought in to change the club’s culture but will depart to coach Austria and make periodical returns for his consultancy role as the outsider he has always been. A win against an in-form Brighton will get them there but this wasn’t how it was supposed to be when Cristiano Ronaldo returned to the club last summer, as more optimistic fans dreamed Ole Gunnar Solskjær might be capable of restoring the glory days to Old Trafford. Manchester United’s penultimate match of a season when their remaining objective is a place in 2022-23’s Europa League.
Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images 3) United seeing out season of broken dreams Oleksandr Zinchenko after the defeat in Madrid. After City’s failure in a massive midweek test of their mettle, a season that promised so much could be completely derailed by Sunday evening.
It is up to Guardiola to rally his troops, a task that may take some doing. His much-improved side travel to the Etihad Stadium to take on a team that were left floored and visibly distraught by their mugging by Real Madrid. All but one of those losses occurred before Wor Eddie joined Pep in the managerial ranks of the nation state-owned sportswashing vehicles, only to lose his first El Gasico derby 4-0 at St James’ Park in December.
Until, that is, you examined Eddie Howe’s record against Pep Guardiola – a miserable 11 defeats from 11 with an aggregate score of 34-5. NA 2) City need to be built up for El GasicoĮven before their midweek Champions League defeat at the Bernabéu, Manchester City’s home match against resurgent Newcastle looked one of the more likely banana skins on their top-flight run-in.
Seasons are on the line for both sides, who would doubtless have preferred different opponents at this point. Spurs were not especially convincing in beating Leicester but, with an on-song Harry Kane and Son Heung-min kept fresh for the best part of a week, might fancy exposing any tired legs from that monumental comeback at Villarreal. Like Liverpool, Spurs have a rival sitting just above them who, by and large, keep on winning: falling five points behind Arsenal this weekend could prove very costly going into Thursday’s north London derby and it adds to the sense that neither team can really afford anything but victory at Anfield. The extent of any European bounce or, in City’s case, hangover may be hard to predict but Jürgen Klopp’s men have certainly built up fearsome head of steam to carry into the final four games. For the second week in a row, Liverpool can get their work done before sitting back to see how Manchester City fare.