Arsenal’s Title Hopes On The Line Against Manchester City, Salah’s Final Merseyside Derby, Rosenior Under Pressure: Big Weekend Preview 04/17/26

0:00You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network, Suboptimal Radio.

0:11Arsenal, top of the table into the Champions League semi-final, but the fans have rarely been more doom-filled as they rumble down to Manchester City. Don't like to be hyperbolic, but this one feels like the future of human civilisation depends on the outcome. Liverpool out of Europe, now underdogs in the Merseyside derby. Surely there's some mistake. Oh, is this really the end of days? And Chelsea, who can't score, face United, who have like zero centre-backs, feels less a football game, more a physics test about force. This is Big Weekend Preview, breaking down the big five questions you need to know before those games kick off.

0:48It's Rog from sunny Tampa. Oh, the city that Tom Brady built, yeah. Joining us always to break down the weekend ahead is Mr Rory Smith. Yeah, I'm going to not quite so sunny Blackburn today, Rog. That's my exotic location. The Tampa Bay of England, I think it says, when you cross the city line into Blackburn. Let's start now with the serious stuff. Manchester City versus Arsenal. It's happening. Sunday, 11.30am Eastern Time on NBC. Feels like a fight to the death between Schwarzenegger and Stallone in a bar. I'd pay to watch that. Arsenal through to another Champions League semifinal. Somehow, though, doesn't feel like it, Roar, does it?

1:29At Paddy Arsenal, one of many Arsenal fans tweeting, gems like this, mid-April, six points clear at the top of the Premier League, into the Champions League semifinal, and I'm miserable. What a club. Roar, we'll break down the elements of this game in one second, but let me ask you straight up. A win here would propel Arsenal to a nine-point lead, insurmountable. but the fan base is gripped by a level of catastrophizing that hasn't been since the Book of Job. Have you met a single Arsenal fan who's telling you, I think we can win this game? Not in the last couple of weeks, Rog, no. I think in March there was a degree of confidence.

2:04There was a sense that maybe, I think at one point or another, they maybe thought this might be the coronation. This might be going to City and kind of dotting the I's, crossing the T's. Now it looks an awful lot like 90 minutes, 95 minutes of pure, unadulterated torture. for Arsenal fans. I want to give huge thanks to Bank of America, official Bank of US Soccer and the FIFA World Cup 2026 for supporting the Men in Blazers media network. Discover what's possible in sports and in life. What would you like the power to do? It is that. It's why do we do it times a million? It is psychologically fascinating.

2:40The scars, the trauma, the agony of seasons past, those seasons where you believed and then went burned by hope. Fuse with a complete inability to conjure goals from open play in the present. Really done for them. Rather than allowing themselves to be savaged again, it's almost as if the fans are preemptively in the recovery position, already taking the blows that they know, they know are coming. And in the middle of all of this, you've got manager Mikel Arteta. I do believe, you know, there are six games between him and immortality. That title glory that he's pursued a little bit. Well, I mean, not a little bit.

3:16He's been like a bass, Captain Ahab. He's trying to drag this injury-ridden squad over the line. The open play goals I mentioned, the midfield looks shattered. That back line, so vaunted, suddenly looking vulnerable. Even David Raya is decision-making occasionally at Andre Onana settings. Roar, I wrote in the newsletter this morning, you know, all of this needs stress levels lowered, but it kind of feels like the call is coming from inside the house, straight from Arteta. The no fear, pure fire, which he talked about before his team played in the Champions League. Fire levelling set on Smulder.

3:53Part of me thinks he's going to have to unleash all the pickpockets. Cuddles will win the dogs, fan TikToks, the lunch, the dinner, just to try and make it through this one. Talk to James Horncastle on Wednesday. The winner watch also now. I find myself just Googling psychology manuals, trying to work out how fear becomes contagious in group settings. Kevin Keegan, another manager who actually had Newcastle within touching distance of the league in 1996 and then they completely and utterly imploded. He was interviewed this week and he said for him, anxiety, doubt, fear spread to his squad. Like he used the word a virus.

4:30Is that what we're watching Raw? Because there's almost no cure. If you speak to a lot of people who were kind of part of teams that either won unexpected titles like Blackburn in 1995 or competed for unexpected titles, Newcastle in 96, 97, or even kind of won a title after a long wait. And obviously there's an example close to my heart of that, Rog. I think there is a point where it becomes very real and they realise what they've got to lose. and it's human to feel anxious and to be kind of, not to freeze so much, but to become very tense, to become very stiff, very kind of inhibited by the weight of your own expectations almost.

5:07It's really hard to watch Arsenal and not think that's what's happened, but since the Carabao Cup final, certainly, they do seem less than they were. I was looking back through their form today and before that game at Wembley, they were fine. It was City who were dropping points, Arsenal were winning games and it just seems that whatever happened at the end of March has kind of knocked them. They then go and lose at Southampton and okay, it was a reserve side, there weren't that many first-teamers, you could maybe make an excuse but I think the realisation has dawned on them that we're now in kind of decision time and that brings with it its own pressure, brings with it its own stress and it does seem to be affecting them in some way and you're right, I wonder whether Arteta, instead of maybe trying to allay that stress, he seems to be leaning into it we think there are reports in the athletic today that the the fire thing wasn't just a metaphor that he actually lit a fire at colney the training ground just say this again because this is this is amazing this is a man who i would say you know his team are in the eye of the storm in the crucible everything needs to be lowered the pressure from outside diffused just you know focus it's just football we can do this you've been training for this year just tell us what he has reported in the Athletic.

6:25I hope this is found out to not be true because this one is mad. What the Athletic are reporting and they're very well connected at Arsenal as they are at lots and lots of different clubs is that as a kind of follow-up to the pure fire message of his press conference I think after Bournemouth Arteta decided to light a fire during a team meeting. Now I'm assuming that it was safe that everything was done properly that there were guardrails in place, Rog. But he does like a very literal metaphor. He likes the idea of delivering on his metaphors. He likes a literal metaphor. He loves a literal metaphor.

7:01And yeah, the fire, I guess, is meant to symbolise burning with passion, something. I'm not sure. He's tried lots of these things over the course of his time at Arsenal. And the players seem to kind of buy into them. I think a lot of them will think deep down, I'm not sure about this. But it shows that he is, he's throwing everything at it. There is no stone being left unturned, no log being left unburned, Rog. God, imagine him. This is a stone. Let's all turn it over. There, see, there is no stone left. But this is a madness. I think the fire is meant to be like purification, separation, burning the bad, leaving only the good to start.

7:38I mean, we are one step away. Imagine him putting on like prodigy fire starter and just saying, it's time for human sacrifice. This is what it's come to. But from a City perspective, we've got the opposite vibe. Pec Guardiola, a man who we know to be the most obsessed manager in world football, is undertaking what can only be like the greatest psyopstrick warfare has ever seen. Because he so tightly wound up, such a control freak. He's pretending to be like, just blissed out, whatever, no big deal, just another title race. This is who we are, nothing to see here. Gave City players two days off this week.

8:14They have the psychological edge of that Carabao, the Kepa selection, self-inflicted wound of a 2-0 defeat. But raw, this closing sprint ability that Pep has, his May-April record, is remarkable. Maybe this is what he's coasting on at this point. Maybe he knows, maybe he smells the glory. 40 games in April-May, Pep Guardiola's title hunters have lost just once, including 19 straight wins at home. This is who they are. Maybe that's what he's coaching. On Arsenal fans, you probably want to put your earmuffs on when I tell you that your boys have lost 11 of their last 39 in the same spell. But there is an edge for Arsenal in this game, and I wanted to hear you talk about it.

8:55City, they're the team who need to win, right? It's pretty fascinating. Does Arteta actually set up to try and get out of there with a point as opposed to try and go head-to-head, toe-to-toe? City have to take this game to keep closing this gap or they run out of games. Yeah, normally you'd say that it's dangerous to set up for a draw, that it gives the players a mixed message because they're not sure how much they commit, how much they should go for it. Are you inhibited by those conflicting messages of, we kind of want to win but we don't need to win, so just hold steady. but fortunately there's not a vast amount of difference between Arsenal playing for a draw and Arsenal playing to win because Arteta's style has become so inhibited so cautious I guess it will look the same that Arteta will be looking to the Etihad and thinking there is a way that we nick this by one goal that will be his approach I think he'll want to win because and you've alluded to it already this is the third kind of springtime showdown between Arsenal and Man City in the last four years the first one ends in that 4-1 win for City and it was kind of it was waking Arsenal up from a dream.

9:58It was a young team. No one expected them to challenge. They go to the Etihad. They lose 4-1. City take control of the title race. The next year Arsenal go and they draw. And I remember it being celebrated on Arsenal Fan TV with a little fist pump and some congratulatory handshakes. And then a week or two weeks later I think they lose at home to Aston Villa. And that's all City need. City go and win their last nine games. They win the title. That point which looked at the time like real progress like a good result is kind of exposed as delusion. So they know that they only need a point. They know that if it's a draw, it lands in their favour.

10:33It has the same effect, basically, as a win. It means that Arsenal win their final five games, they are champions. And it actually, to be honest, leaves them with a little bit of a cushion. They can actually draw one of their final five games and still be champions. The problem is they also know that if they make a single mistake, City will punish them. It's Goldilocks and the Three Bears, isn't it? They've tried losing at City and seeing if they can win the lead. It didn't work. They've tried drawing at City and seeing if they can win the lead, and that didn't work. So they're going to have to go and win at City and see if that means they can win the league.

11:01Yeah, but in Goldilocks and the Three Bears, isn't it the middle one that's just right? I think it's not... My comparison is not Goldilocks and the Three Bears. That's the wrong one. I think I'm thinking about going on a bear hunt, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure what it is, but whatever it is, Mikel Arteta will have either three bears or one bear in the next team meeting. He's so bloody little. He'll serve all the players porridge. That's what he'll do. He will serve all the players porridge. It'll be like, Kepa, you serve the first bear the porridge. Kepa, put your head in its mouth. I don't know how these meetings go down.

11:35But this morning, Pep was asked if this matchup feels like a final. He said, yeah, obviously, if we lose, yeah, it's over. He isn't wrong. If Arsenal win, they go nine clear. As Pep mentioned, title race probably over with just five games to go after that. If they draw the gutters, keep the pressure on. But if Arsenal lose, dot, dot, dot. But again, earmuffs dropped to three points clear with City playing again Wednesday against Burnley. Rod, tell us what kind of game this is going to be in your mind and what's the final score? Spoiler alert it, baby. It's really hard to call, Rod. Genuinely, I think we know what Arsenal will try and do.

12:11They will try and keep City at arm's length, play the margins. That's what they've done all season. I don't think Arteta is going to use this as an opportunity to really cut loose and showcase that he can beat Pep at his own game. I'd be delighted if he did. I think Guardiola will take the same approach they did at Wembley less than a month ago. You lull them into this idea that they've got control of the game and then if you lift your intensity you hope they can't match it. I would imagine it'll look very similar to the game at Wembley. You'd have thought Arsenal would have learnt from that. They'll try to kind of make sure they don't make the same mistakes.

12:42But I have a feeling it will have roughly the same outcome. I think City will just shade it.

12:52Yeah, raw. I think Arsenal are going to have a lot of the ball in that first 10 minutes, control the early stretch of the game, not be able to convert. And then Cherky and Semenya and Doko were roaring to life. Nico O 'Reilly amongst the goals again. City role 2-0 title race. Very, very much on. Before we move on, I have to say, World Cup is 55 days away. And at this stage, every single performance It's been watched a little bit differently. There's the club game, but there's also the international game that lies within. And this segment, presented by our friends at Yeti, is about getting on the plane.

13:28It's called Pack Your Bags, brought to you by our great friends at Yeti. I'm actually a Yeti user. I am in every single way. Can't travel without them. Their bags are so durable, super organisable. They look always gorgeous, even when I'm carrying them and I'm on the road. I've got a Yeti backpack on my back every single day and the Yeti luggage in hand. Pack your bags. It's going to be a recurring segment until we reach our World Cup nirvana. This week, it's Eberichie as a 27 years old and finally at Arsenal, the club he supported growing up. His story is humanly remarkable, but his football in the second half of the season has become ever more influential.

14:08He's honestly looking at him, Arsenal's greatest hope on the field. He's the one trying to create off the field, his chill, his calm demeanor in press conferences is truly remarkable. Let's just say, it's not just showing up against Tottenham now, Roar. The international picture, 16 caps for England, three goals all coming in World Cup qualifying, a lot of competition in and around that role. Bellingham, Palmer, Rodgers probably favoured ahead of him. You've got Phil Foden, slightly slumping but still in, with a shout, Morgan Gibbs, White also in the picture. Roar, when you look at SA now, where is he?

14:42And is he doing enough to secure a place in the United States journey for this England team? Well, it's difficult to tell, Rog, because Thomas Tuchel, the England manager, has named so many players in each of his squads that it's really hard to work out who is where in which pecking order. And as you say, there's so much competition for that kind of number 10 inside left role. There's Foden, there's Palmer, there's Gibbs White, there's Morden Rodgers, who he seems to really like. So I think it is touch and go, which I guess is a sign of just how much strength and depth England have. My instinct is that Tuchel will end up taking him because of what he's done in clutch moments for Arsenal.

15:16I think he will go, but at the same time, it'll be the sort of decision that Tuchel will have to think long and hard about. Eberichie, pack your bags. OK, on to the next time to enter the Chamber of Horrors. That is Everton against Liverpool, Sunday 9am Eastern Time on USA Channel. Start with Liverpool because I'm not mentally ready to start talking about Everton until you show your cards first. Raw, Mo Salah's last ever derby. The team suffered self-soiling again in the Champions League at the hands of PSG midweek. Again, they'll look better, but only if you measure it against the first woeful performance.

15:50And with that, the season is now down to one thing, which is finishing in the top five. Zero trophies this season. Just trying to get back into that Champions League. Gets worse. Against PSG, there was the agony. Leading scorer Hugo Eketike going down. Ruptured Achilles out for the rest of the season. Alexander Isak brought in for$143 million. He was rushed back. Certainly not yet match fit. I think left around half-time. You look at all of these new signings, the fresh meters, Bruno Fernandes called it. Really, story of the season that so many of them, Jeremy Frimpong out for much of this campaign.

16:26Young Italian centre-back Leone played one game and his season ended in agony. Summer signings list looks like the long-term injury list. And now, the papers are full of rumours in England that up to nine players. I mean, these are so theoretical. It's unbelievable. Want to leave the team at the end of the season, including Curtis Jones and Alexis McAllister. Fans are most certainly livid. You think about alignment rule, which is what we talk about in football. You have none of it. Manager bereft, playing staff in a slight chaos, fans incandescent. And we're not a year on from that magical day when you won the title last season.

17:03Yeah, I think for Liverpool fans one of the most difficult aspects to handle is the speed with which it seems to have all fallen apart that, as you say, it's less than a year since they won the league since Arna Slott seemed to have breezed into the Premier League won the title, made it look easy and then Liverpool set out on this remarkable spending spree which was meant to deliver a 21st league title which was meant to cement their position as a dominant force And I think you've hit the nail on the head, Rog. I think what there isn't anywhere at Liverpool at the moment is alignment. That is the key thing that the club had in the most successful period in its modern history, which is between 2018 and 2022.

17:46That was kind of Liverpool's peak under Jurgen Klopp when everyone kind of got everyone else. There was, you know, full understanding. There was a model. There was a method. There were sometimes tensions behind the scenes, Rog. There always are when these people, you know, these people with Edo's are involved. but everyone was kind of singing from the same hymn sheet whereas now there's upset with the owners because the ticket price rises no one's really sold on slot no one's certain whether the kind of front office hierarchy are in it for the long haul they've kind of half done the rebuild but they've not really done the rebuild and they didn't tell anyone it was only half of the rebuild so expectations have been out of line it does feel ultimately like a club where there's an awful lot of kind of simmering dissatisfaction that it shouldn't really be like this.

18:32Everton, sorry, European aspiring Everton now sit on eighth place, 47 points, just outside the European spots. And if they beat Liverpool, I'm not going to go there. I don't like to talk like that. That only leads to doom. But we do have two unusual things as we clatter into the first ever Merseyside derby at the shiny Newcastle Hill deck. We've got expectation and we have hope. We're playing football with fleeting moments of joy. tenacity. Honestly, having experienced this kind of optimism around the club I love in probably two decades, what could possibly go wrong now? We both know this, Roar.

19:09Derbys have their own ecosystem. We used to say that in times when Everton were dire. Now Liverpool are the diabolical team. And I believe that Derbys have their own ecosystem just as much, which kind of nullifies current form as you go into them. And Roar, do you know exactly how many of the last 14 home derbies Everton have actually won? Not that many, I would guess, but I'm also of the view that Everton haven't lost that many, Rog. That's actually true. We've won one bloody derby. We've had a lot of draws in there. I think it's nine or ten. Although that 2-2 draw at the last delicious Goodison Park derby of all time probably felt sweeter than any win.

19:47But let's get a prediction here. What do you think the final school line looks like? You are right, Rog, that derbies have their own ecosystem. But the thing is that this ecosystem still favours Everton. Because like you say, they have the momentum, they have a bit of confidence, there's a bit of joy. Liverpool are riddled with anxiety. And I think in Hill Dickinson, with that crowd, knowing that it's the first one there, I think Everton kind of imposed themselves physically. And although I don't think there will be a 4-5-6 goal humiliation for Liverpool, I think it ends up being quite a comfortable Everton win.

20:19You do. I imagine that Slott is doing what all progressive modern managers currently do at the Liverpool training and just lighting a huge fire and imploring his team to like just rip the sleeves off their shirts and throw them in together. I'm actually going 2-2. I've been to Hill Dickinson once this season. Do you know, I actually realised I saw Tottenham come down and thrash us 3-0. I mean, how are the turntables? It's going to go 2-2. I think Rio's going to do us a small another tart goal in there, but I believe Mo will find the back of the net in his last Merseyside derby to haunt us again.

20:52Shirt off. It's definitely going to be shirt off for that right rule? Not with the weather as it is in Britain at the moment, Rog. I think if Mo Salah's taking his shirt off, he's a braver man than I am. OK, third big game. We are not worthy. Chelsea against Manchester United. Team who can't score against a team who can't find a defender to actually play. If you're listening to this, I think you're on the depth chart at Old Trafford somewhere right now. This game Saturday, 3pm Eastern Time on Pocock. Chelsea come in with a hello darkness, my old friend mentality. Three straight Premier League losses.

21:24zero goals scored in any of them dire, dank, or a level zero Brentford and Everton chasing down their hand on the European places this is who they are now pressure starting to show Liam Rossini asked this week if his players still believe they'll finish in a Champions League spot at the end of the season he said of course they still believe of course we still believe why would you ask me this question why exactly would we Liam but standing across from them Manchester United team good news they're still third still in control of the Champions League destiny, but coming off a first home loss of the Carrick tenure.

21:59Indeed, United's first home loss against Leeds since 1981. MTV was launched that year. That's how long ago it bloody is. The United of our Carrick imagination. I think it's a slight exaggeration to say it's starting to be found out, but only just. He seems to have an inability to evolve. I think fans are starting to get frustrated with his late, late substitutions, giving a little bit of a dent to the give him the job, permanently lobby. One win in four now, no clean sheet in five. But most certainly coming to this fixture with a lack of centre-backs. Harry Maguire suspended. Hair-tugger Lissandro Martinez also out.

22:36Late news, Lenny Uro now suffered an injury, not travelled to London. United are going to have to find a way how to fill that slab head-sized hole in their back line. Well, when you look at this game, Chelsea at home, United missing, well, pretty well everyone. that can clear the ball. Both teams have got to prove themselves to themselves again. What do you see? Yeah, it's a really interestingly poised one. And as you say, the fact that United have lost all of their defenders probably levels it a little bit. The game against Leeds on Monday night, it was a setback for Carrick. They looked rusty.

23:09Leeds looked more urgent, more kind of determined. And as you say, it now feels a little bit more like there's a sense around United that reality set in, the dream is broken, the spell that Carrick cast. isn't quite working anymore. Chelsea really need a win. They're the team currently in danger of missing out on the Champions League places. And they're lucky because Liverpool are incompetent and Villa are slowing down. So they might get away with it, but they need to start picking up points. It feels like one of those games that's a real kind of battle of insecurities. And I think it probably ends level.

23:42And I'm not just saying that, Rog, because that's the result that works best for Liverpool.