It was once tempting, during his days at Spurs, to imagine Redknapp as a sort of idiot savant who was still a hugely effective manager, even if he couldn’t ever write a PhD thesis on what exactly he was doing. Take his infamous advice to Roman Pavlyuchenko to just “fucking run around a bit" – surely that’s a good distillation of precisely what you need to hear during a high pressure game? His job is to talk to footballers, after all.
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Yes, there’s been a lot of hype and wank surrounding this fixture in recent years. But consider this: even José Mourinho couldn’t turn it into a 90-minute festival of elbows and dissent. The two sides have been more or less equal for years, but despite that we’ve had thrashings, thrillers and heroism. This time, it’s likely that Luis Suarez will be dominating the narrative.Eligible to play for the first time since his ban, and looking like he’ll get on the field at some point, Suarez is even more of a loose cannon than normal. He does tend to lose his shit most frequently in big games, and now there’s the added mystery of him having been absent for so long nobody can really be sure what he’s capable of.
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On the face of things, United should get a hammering. Their woefully imbalanced side is the sort of outfit Mourinho takes apart for a morning snack, and their best midfielder has to wear a corset. Their defenders are all young, clumsy and inexperienced, and their attackers are all missing or out of form. To top it all off, Michael Carrick’s back. It’s not looking good.Yet, certain United fans might be feeling weirdly pleased. Among an influential section of their supporters, there was a feeling that the swagger and style had been lost somewhere in the Ferguson reign, the pursuit of success at all costs swallowing up less tangible delights, such as attacking spirit and youth. Now, they have the total opposite. Youth and flair are both in abundance, as are defeats to Leicester and MK Dons.
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The weirdest thing about Mario Balotelli’s season to date? We all assumed that if he could be kept in check and out of the tabloids, Liverpool would have bought a hell of a player. Instead, the opposite has happened – on and off the field, Balotelli has been anonymous. No antics, no goals, no controversies, no T-shirts bearing messages – no nothing. He seems like some sort of modern footballing version of Samson, powerless once shorn of his banter.With Brendan Rodgers looking increasingly exasperated in his attempts to manage him, perhaps banter is what Balotelli should revert to. [This](http:// http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/showbiz-news/police-called-after-mario-balotelli-7989029#.VEksTVroD1o.twitter ), however, is a pretty weak start. Making vague threats towards a woman isn’t going to be high on the list of his greatest hits, but it might at least be worth a home goal against Hull.Southampton-Stoke
It’s hard to imagine how things could have gone much better for Southampton so far. The suggestion they might go down was always daft, but it was a brave man predicting them to improve, let alone do as well as they have. But with the players they kept hold of enjoying some great form, and their new signings doing well, Southampton are third and have just come off the back of one of the Premier League’s biggest ever wins. When you buy an Eredivisie striker and he turns out to be just as good in England, you know fortune is on your side.
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