Saturday Cannon Fodder: open thread

Good morning TSF! The Premier League schedule is a bit wonky today, and I’m not totally sure where. There are five matches, four at 11 am Eastern and one at 1:30 pm Eastern. Tomorrow is also a bit strange — Arsenal play at 7 am Eastern, which isn’t a regular Sunday match slot. The fixtures today aren’t great.

We’ve got Nottingham Forest v. Brentford, Wolves v. Brighton, Manchester City v. Fulham, Leeds United vs. Bournemouth, and Everton vs. Leicester City. The biggest storyline of the day is will Erling Haaland play. The striker has been out since leaving the field with a foot injury against Dortmund in the Champions League 10 days ago. Haaland is back in training, but Pep Guardiola is being coy about his status, much to the chagrin of FPL players everywhere.

As I was writing this morning, Wolves announced that Julen Lopetgui will be their new manager, starting November 14th. Sure, why not. He’s a good coach.

Oddly enough, I might be most interested in the Leeds-Bournemouth match. It’s a battle of a team that the underlying numbers say should be ahead of where they are (Leeds) against a one that stats say should be significantly worse off (Bournemouth). I’ll also be watching the Everton match with my Toffee-supporting GF.

There is a great match in Italy today on Paramount+. Atalanta host Napoli at 1 pm ET, looking to reel them in at the top. Currently, Napoli are 5 points clear.

The MLS final is a 4 pm ET on Fox.

In college football, #1 Tennessee takes on #3 Georgia at 3 pm ET on CBS, #24 Texas takes on #13 Kansas State at 7 pm ET on FS1, and #6 Alabama travels to #10 LSU at 7 pm ET on ESPN.

Game 6 of the World Series is at 8:03 pm ET on Fox. The Astros currently lead the Phillies 3-2 in the series.