Looking forward to red-hot action on TV and in the flesh

NOV 30 — For those who love high-quality and high-profile football, take note that this weekend’s action in England really starts today.

Two local derbies featuring the blue and red halves of Manchester and London, respectively, make for a really Super Sunday of English Premiership action.

The first kick-off at 9.30pm (ESPN) sees Arab-funded Manchester City host American-owned Manchester United.

I doubt that the rest of the football-supporting world, or even their supporters, really care that the events in the Middle East this past decade might make this tie more intense. After all, it couldn’t be any more bitter than the rivalry that already separates the Reds and Blues in more than a hundred years of competitive league action.

City is on a good run of two consecutive wins – beating Arsenal 3-0 in England and a 2-0 away win at Schalke 04 in the UEFA Cup – so, they couldn’t have picked a better time to play United.

With bookmakers still rating Mark Hughes as most likely to be the next manager on the chopping block, he has nothing to lose by taking the game to the visitors on Sunday. This will also be a chance to win over any City fan still having doubts over him because of his red roots having played for the ‘enemy’ in his illustrious career.

Surely Hughes will want to upset his former mentor and team like he has done a few times before when managing Blackburn Rovers.

United have a crisis of their own, they can’t seem to find the net. They visit City on the back of two consecutive scoreless draws, against Aston Villa in the Premiership and Villareal in the Champions League.

It is a rare occasion when United fail to score. That it happens twice on the trot is even more unbelievable and I doubt Alex Ferguson will go easy on his team for such a letdown.

With all the attacking talent they boast it must be supremely disappointing to him and all United fans that Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov have in total scored only seven league goals this season.

This compares with Cristiano Ronaldo, who has eight goals to his name in the league alone, and that too while most times looking like he’d rather be at home holding his awards and admiring himself in the mirror.

Last week, United let the chance of catching up with the top two slip by. This week, with the possibility that Chelsea could drop points, United must start picking up maximum points again.

The odds are good for City to draw or beat United, and the score to be higher than in normal derby encounters. I call an "over" on the total goal count, with a City win on Asian handicap too.

After watching the Manchester derby, you can continue to tune in to ESPN for the London derby between Chelsea and Arsenal, which kicks off at midnight.

Chelsea are definitely starting as favourites, what with Arsenal being out of sorts. Arsenal’s humiliating loss to Manchester City last weekend has further dented their hopes of challenging for the Premiership title.

Having given Cesc Fabregas the captaincy, Arsene Wenger will be looking for another inspiring performance to spur Arsenal to avenge last season’s late capitulation to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. This is after the second youngest captain in Arsenal history notched a successful debut as captain helping The Gunners to a 1-0 victory against Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League last Tuesday.

Still, it would be crazy to pick Arsenal for this one but after watching Chelsea play last week, I was thinking to myself that surely Arsenal can do the same, if not better, as what Newcastle United achieved, holding off the Chelsea all-stars for 90 minutes to get a point.

So, I am picking the Gunners to pull off another upset, like they did against MU a few weeks ago. No bias there, just hope and faith. Even if it’s a draw, a good punter will tell you that Arsenal are worth the money laid on the Asian line, with Chelsea surely to give a half-goal handicap.

Liverpool fans would have to wait until early Tuesday morning (3.45am, ESPN) to watch the other Reds in action.

I know I have been saying this often of late but Liverpool have yet again an easy tie. They host West Ham who finally won a match after being on a dry run of late. Manager Gianfranco Zola has not brought any change to the Hammers, they are still losing and will again lose this week to Liverpool, but I’ll still keep my fingers crossed though.

This weekend we are fortunate to watch the Big 4 live on TV, featuring the current stars of the English Premier League. But the following Sunday, 7 December 2008, EPL fans will get a chance to see some past EPL legends in the flesh in Shah Alam.

That’s the date when the Masters Football Malaysia Cup 2008 will have ex-legends, representing MU, Liverpool, Arsenal and an EPL All-Stars team, line-up against each other at the Stadium Malawati, Shah Alam, to battle it out to see who will win the inaugural Masters Malaysia Cup.

With nine players in each squad the tournament will have 36 players on show. One of them will be Ray Parlour, who won three Premiership titles and 3 FA Cup winners’ medals with Arsenal.

I met with Parlour, a life long Arsenal supporter who fulfilled his dream of playing for The Gunners from the apprenticeship level, aged 17, right up to his early 30s. He was in Kuala Lumpur in early November to meet with the press to announce the event.

It was my second time meeting Parlour in person, following his first visit with the full Arsenal team, when they came to play Malaysia in a friendly back in May 1999. But that was just a meet-the-fans signing session.

This time around, we shared drinks while I listened to his stories about his memorable Arsenal moments.

He is just a typical London bloke and so down-to-earth that it was difficult to imagine I was talking to one of the true (and few) English heroes in the Arsenal team over the past 10 years.

I would like to share everything he told me here, but I think I’ll keep that for another day.

In the meantime, do check out www.mastersfootballasia.com for more information on the event itself.