Premier League 2020-21 Season – Match Week 16 Preview with Liberty Shield VPN

There’s only 362 days until Christmas!!!  Premier League matches are shown by pay-TV broadcasters Sky Sports, BT Sport, Amazon Prime and with match highlights available free on BBC Sport with Match of the Day. Need a Premier League VPN?

Hopefully you’ve had a good Christmas, eaten and drank more than your fair share and made the best of the strangest Christmas any of us are ever likely to experience. Hopefully the new year will bring better news with regards to the pandemic and the distribution of the vaccines.

With games coming quick and fast over the Christmas break, we didn’t want to leave anything to chance so we’ve put together a quick preview of the second set of post Christmas games, taking place on the 28th-30th of December. Due to time constraints, it’s being written before the games on the 26th and 27th so won’t include any injuries sustained in those games, but it should give a decent idea of what’s what and who to watch on those days. We don’t want you ending up with Burnley vs Sheffield United on your television so we’ve tried to take some of the decision making out of the equation.

Our Premier League VPN articles are brought to you in partnership with EPL Index, and Dave Hendrick – host of the Two Footed Podcast, offering FREE podcasts to football fans.

⚽  Chelsea vs Aston Villa
📅  Monday 28 December 2020
⏰ 1730 UK Kick-Off
🖥️ Amazon Prime Live Streaming

Chelsea finally managed to beat a top 10 team when they overcame 10th placed West Ham last Monday night, and at time of writing Aston Villa sit 9th in the league and have been a top half team this season, even spending some time in the top 4. Both Frank Lampard and Dean Smith have been heavily backed in the transfer market, and both will be under a lot of pressure to deliver this season.

Chelsea head into the post Christmas games in inconsistent form, with two wins and two defeats from their last five but they will hope to come into the Villa game off the back of a comprehensive win over Arsenal and perhaps even Timo Werner rediscovering his scoring touch. Werner’s allround play has, in general, been very good but his finishing has deserted him and he has developed an unhealthy relationship with the goalframe. No player in the top 5 leagues has struck the woodwork more than Werner this season and if he had been more clinical, Chelsea would likely be a top 4 team right now.

Chelsea are likely to be without Reece James, Ben Chilwell and Hakim Ziyech until the turn of the year.

Aston Villa have also won two and lost two of their last five, but their two wins came in their last three games before Christmas. They started the season in fantastic form before suffering a dip that they now appear to have bounced back from. They’ll face Crystal Palace at Villa Park on Boxing Day knowing that a win could push them back up the table. Though they currently sit ninth, they do have two games in hand on most of the league, those games will be against Manchester City and Newcastle and wins in both would likely land them back in the top 4, where they spent the early weeks of the season. Heavily reliant on Jack Grealish for creativity, they also need Ollie Watkins to rediscover his goalscoring form.

Wesley and Trezeguet are ruled out with no return dates as yet, but both Ezri Konsa and Ross Barkley should return for the Villains.

 

⚽ Everton vs Manchester City
📅  Monday 28 December
⏰ 2000 UK Kick-Off
🖥️ Amazon Prime Live Streaming

Two of the greatest managers of all time coming head to head should be enough to sell this game, but if not there’s plenty to like about the players on the pitch as well. Everton have real top four ambitions this season and City, of course, will still fancy themselves as title challengers despite a somewhat disappointing start to the season.

Everton’s season can be broken into three parts. Their first five games went brilliantly, winning four and drawing against Liverpool to lead the league with 13 points after five games. Their form dipped drastically in their next five with a fortunate win over Fulham sandwiched in amongst four defeats as they dropped to 8th in the league. A draw at Burnley has been followed by three successive wins over Chelsea, Leicester and Arsenal. They will face Sheffield United on Boxing Day and should be fancied to make it four wins on the spin heading into this game with City. Key for Everton is racking up wins against “Big 6” clubs, as they have over Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal this season, as that will help change the mentality and the club and remove the stigma that hung over them for the better part of two decades. Even if Arsenal aren’t the Arsenal we’re used to, a win over them is still significant and getting used to “beating Arsenal” will prove a useful habit when the Gunners do eventually become a competent football team.

Allan, Lucas Digne, Fabian Delph and Jean-Phillipe Gbamin are ruled out for the Toffees, but Andre Gomes and James Rodriguez could both return over the Christmas period.

Man City are unbeaten in five games but sit 8th in the table, eight points behind Liverpool. They do have a game in hand, against Aston Villa, but given that Liverpool haven’t been nearly as consistent as last season, City will still find frustration with their poor start to the year. Injuries and a lack of creativity from people other than Kevin DeBruyne have hampered them going forward and a persistent injury to Aymeric Laporte has hampered the Frenchman and caused City to be more chaotic than normal defensively. They do possess the best defensive record in the league but that’s largely been down to luck and poor finishing by opponents than their own doing. Leeds should have scored a hatful, Southampton had chances, Liverpool had chances but City escaped relatively unscathed on each occasion. Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison will present a unique challenge and it will be interesting to see if Carlo Ancelotti attempts to use similar tactics as Jose Mourinho did when Tottenham cut City apart with ruthless efficiency. Pace has been City’s kryptonite this season, and the Everton duo possess plenty.

City’s only absentee at present is Eric Garcia though they will have to manage Laporte, Aguero and Gabriel Jesus carefully.

 

⚽ Southampton vs West Ham
📅  Tuesday 29 December
⏰ 1800 UK Kick-Off
🖥️ Amazon Prime Live Streaming

The two surprise packages, for good reasons, in the Premier League this season face off on Tuesday evening knowing that victory can keep them firmly in the mix for a Europa League spot. After disappointing seasons overall in 2019/20 for both clubs, they really have bounced back and shown that managers who are given time and a little bit of backing can make things work for their clubs.

Ralph Hasenhuttl has masterminded an incredible turnaround of fortunes at Southampton over the past 13 months and deserves huge credit for the work he has done building and developing a team that has shown itself capable of competing with the very best in the league on a week to week basis. Saints did, briefly, top the Premier League season and have spent three weeks in the top four, which considering they were relegation threatened when 2020 began, is amazing. A hard-working unit, Saints are dynamic in attack with pace and movement in abundance. They’ll be disappointing by recent results, in particular their 3-2 defeat at the hands of Manchester United where they went 2-0 up and should have been out of sight before crumbling in the second half. If they can find a bit more consistency, then a spot in Europe for next season is very much within their grasp. They’ll head into this game having played Fulham on Boxing Day, and will expect to be coming off a win over a relegation threatened team.

The Saints have doubts over Danny Ings, Stuart Armstrong, Nathan Redmond and Jannick Vestergaard but Oriel Romeu is available again after suspension kept him out of the Fulham game.

West Ham became the first top half team to lose to West Ham last Monday, but have comfortably outperformed all expectations that were held for this team coming into the season. David Moyes seems to have reverted to being the Everton-era David Moyes rather than the Manchester United/Real Sociedad/Sunderland version of himself and that David Moyes is a good Premier League manager who gets the best out of his players, prepares brilliantly for games and also does very well when shopping on a budget. Vladimir Coufal, signed for £5mil, has been one of the signings of the season so far putting in numerous impressive performances at right back, which had previously been a problem position for the Hammers. Moyes has twice managed to find quality players at good value from Slavia Prague following last January’s addition of Tomas Soucek. The Hammers face Brighton at home on the 27th, a game they will be confident of winning, and will firmly believe they can take something from St. Mary’s.

Manuel Lanzini and Arthur Masuaku are ruled out for the Hammers but Michail Antonio is expected to return for this game.

 

These are just some of the games available to you from the Premier League this week, and with another round of games to come at the weekend it’s a very exciting time for the Premier League. With so many games to choose from, the worry is wasting time on the wrong game. We’ll try and guide you in the right direction so that all you need to do is sit back, turn on your Liberty Shield VPN, settle in, and enjoy the games.

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How to watch every Premier League match from anywhere…

How can I watch BT Sport Premier League VPN 20/21 matches live? 

BT Sport has the rights to just over 50 Premier League fixtures during the 2020/21 campaign, and will also carry coverage of the UEFA Champions’ League and Europa League until 2024. Subscribers can watch BT Sport on their computers as well as their various apps on connected devices. They do offer a Monthly Pass with no contract, which will give customers access to the BT Sport mobile app. BT Sport Box Office will no longer show the matches via the now scrapped pay-per-view offering, but is it too late and have customers already moved towards illegal streams and IPTV providers?

Remember that BT Sport also features coverage from the Bundesliga, and holds rights to Moto GP, UFC and WWE coverage as well.  After a long delay the BT Sport app is now available on several models of Smart TV as well as Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices.

How can I watch Amazon Prime Premier League VPN 20/21 matches live? 

Amazon is a relative newcomer to live Premier League VPN coverage. It has 20 matches per season under the current rights agreement, and in 2019/20, it secured all of the showpiece Boxing Day fixtures. Amazon also broadcasts sports including the US Open tennis championships, other ATP World Tour tennis events and NFL games.

Fans will need a Prime membership to watch fixtures on the online streaming service.  You can watch Amazon Prime on your computer or with their connected mobile apps on various devices, including Amazon FireTV.  The Amazon Prime service is priced at £7.99 per month, although if you’ve not subscribed before, you can access its services on a 30-day trial period.

 

How can I watch BBC Sport Premier League VPN 20/21 matches live? 

With Premier League Pay-Per-View now scrapped, there will be once again be a small number of free live matches on the BBC.  However, if you are content with free Premier League VPN 20/21 highlights then the BBC have you covered, with Match of the Day and Match of the Day 2, available live when screened on the BBC Sport website, and also on catchup with BBC iPlayer.