Football goes into overdrive as supporters spoilt for choice

Every two years, at the end of January football fans are spoilt for choice. In the weekend just gone, we had “Super Sunday” in which North London and Manchester met each other in the Premiership.

Barely pausing for breath, the FA Cup Fourth round appears this weekend; these days it is run over three days, starting with Watford against Tottenham in a London derby (well, nearly – Watford is just outside the capital), and Everton against Fulham on Friday night and finishing with Sunderland playing Middlesborough in a genuine North East derby and then Arsenal against Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.

Traditionally, the television schedulers choose the best games in the early rounds of the FA Cup.

Unlike in Africa, not all games are shown on television in the United Kingdom, particularly not those that kick off at 3pm UK time on Saturday afternoon.

These four games are outside the time zone and will be broadcast, and they were chosen because of their likely high number of viewers.

You can understand why they were picked. Two of the games match local rivals against each other (this is rare in the FA Cup even if this year it has already happened twice in the Third Round, Birmingham playing near neighbours, Wolverhampton Wanderers and then the tie of the round, Manchester City against Manchester United).

And the other two are all Premiership clashes.

Eagerly-awaited contest

But there is one match in between, on Saturday lunchtime (and hence also on live television) that will be eagerly-anticipated all over the world.

The two most successful clubs in the history of English club football go head to head at Anfield: Liverpool against Manchester United.

There would be huge media interest in this game whatever the circumstance. Sir Alex Ferguson famously said that his greatest achievement was “knocking Liverpool off their perch” as the dominant force in the country.

It took him a while to do this, but with their latest league title the Red Devils have moved ahead of Liverpool in terms of the number won.

The rivalry, often bordering on ridiculous hatred between the two cites, is encouraged by the short distance between them.

There are similarities: both are clubs from hard Northern cities that feel fashionable London neglects them; both have Scottish managers and American owners. Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes.

But all past reasons for enmity are overshadowed by the very recent matter between Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra.

Liverpool badly misjudged the mood after this happened; the potential for further fall out this Saturday, particularly amongst the Liverpool crowd, is great.

We know that Sir Alex Ferguson will not take the coward’s way out and rest Patrice Evra (at least I hope not) and it could be a stormy 90 minutes in store.

As if this is not enough, African footballers, including those from the Premiership, have escaped the winter cold and jetted off for sunnier weather: it’s the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.