The Premier League (PL) is back with 2 Premier London Derbies (PLDs) matches this week. On Saturday 2 April 2022 its Chelsea v Brentford in a West London derby for the first time in the PL. It looks like a straight forward win for the 3rd placed Blues, but under the present restrictions at Stamford Bridge who knows. Is the rumoured wish of their German International Timo Werner to move on, a sign of things starting to unravel at the Club, and what about Romelu Lukaku? Callum Hudson-Odoi may change his International qualification from England to Ghana who qualified for the Qatar World Cup thanks to an away goal penalty by Arsenal’s Thomas Partey equalizing Watford’s William Troost-Ekong’s early score for Nigeria. The Bees are in a happier place with Dane Christian Eriksen continuing his literally remarkable revival Captaining Denmark and scoring in their 3-0 Friendly International win over Serbia. Maybe we are in for a surprise on Saturday?
The Monday match on 4 April 2022 is Crystal Palace v Arsenal. We do have form on this the scores in the last 5 seasons being: 3-0 in 2016-17; 2-3 in 2017-18; 2-2 in 2018-19; 1-1 in 2019-20; and 1-3 in 2020-21. While this just favours the Gunners the Eagles are in the ascendance with defenders Marc Guehi and Tyrick Mitchell playing for England in the recent International Friendlies alongside Blues loanee Conor Gallagher. He is however competing with West Ham United’s Declan Rice, who starred in these games, for a place in mid-field. Is Declan Rice the next England Captain after Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane who scored his 49th England goal as a trademark penalty against Switzerland to draw level with Sir Bobby Charlton and only 4 goals behind Wayne Rooney? Fittingly it was England’s 100th penalty goal in all their previous competitive matches excluding penalty shoot-outs.
Until next time, Covid-19 is not over yet as I well know, so “Keep Safe”, Andrew at PLDs.