Premier League 2020-21 Season – Match Week 17 Preview with Liberty Shield VPN

No rest for the wicked! Another full round of games is upon us already.  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?

With two cancellations in midweek do begin to raise questions as to whether or not the Premier League season will be completed uninterrupted or whether a “circuit break” stoppage will be required as Covid case numbers surge upwards across the UK and new levels of restrictions are introduced on a weekly basis.

Come what may, we might as well enjoy the games while we have them and this weekend has some cracking games lined up for us. As ever, we’ve decided to preview three of them to whet your appetite for what’s to come.

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.

⚽  Manchester United vs Aston Villa
📅  Friday 1 January 2021
⏰ 2000 UK Kick-Off
🖥️ Sky Sports Live Streaming

The Big Ron Derby! United and Villa, two teams that were among the very best in the early days of the Premier League, find themselves both in somewhat surprising positions after Matchday 16. United are second, three points behind Liverpool but with a game in hand, despite rarely having played well in the Premier League this season. Villa are fifth, only seven points off top but with two games in hand, after needing an error by hawk-eye to stay in the division last season. This game promises to be entertaining as both teams play attacking football and are among the league’s top scorers this season.

Three wins and two draws from their last five games have seen United climb the table and land in second place. After a disappointing exit in the Champions League that saw the spotlight once again shone on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, this run of form has taken the pressure off. Bruno Fernandes has been in sparkling form and has been the best player in England over the course of 2020. People can moan about some of his theatrics and the number of penalties United get all they want, but the man has 18 goals in 29 Premier League games, 26 in 45 games in all competitions. From midfield. In his first season in the league. For context, Frank Lampard’s best ever season, 09/10, saw him score 27 in 51 games, with 22 in 36 league matches. Bruno is on course to smash those numbers. He’s also managed 14 assists in his 29 games, equaling the number Lampard had in 09/10. Bruno’s first year has been sensational and at 26 he’s likely to keep improving.

Marcos Rojo and Phil Jones are both ruled out while Victor Lindelof will face a fitness test and could make the bench for the Red Devils.

Like United, Villa have their own talisman in Jack Grealish who is having, without question, the best run of form in his career. With 5 goals and 6 assists, along with 10 big chances created, which ties him with Fernandes for second in the league behind Kevin DeBruyne, Grealish has finally began to turn his talent into consistent production. Previously a player of more style than substance, he’s thriving alongside a higher calibre of team-mate this season and Villa are reaping the rewards. With pace and movement around him, plus the creative help of Ross Barkley before he got injured, Grealish has played a leading role in Villa’s very impressive start to the season. Villa will be confident that their attack, in particular the pace of Ollie Watkins and Bertrand Traore, will be able to cause United problems and with Douglas Luiz and John McGinn both excelling in midfield of late, they’ll fancy their chances of matching United in the middle of the park.

Wesley and Trezeguet are out for Villa, but Ross Barkley is fit again and Tyrone Mings returns from suspension.

 

⚽ Tottenham Hotspur vs Leeds United
📅  Saturday 2 January 2021
⏰ 1230 UK Kick-Off
🖥️ BT Sport Live Streaming

The man who can make any team play boring football versus the man who can make any team play the most exciting football in the league. Jose Mourinho, the man who’s won everything in the game but isn’t adored in the way he should be given the success he’s had, versus Marcelo Bielsa, the man who’s won relatively little in the game but is universally adored by everyone who isn’t a member of The Gammon and Gravy Brigade. Leeds have been the most exciting team in the league this season and have managed to drag entertaining games out of each of their opponents, including Burnley! Will Spurs be a step too far? Will Mourinho aim for his men to score early before rolling out the buses? Or can Bielsa drag the old Jose, the one who’s Porto and Chelsea teams played scintillating football out kicking and screaming?

What a difference a couple of weeks can make? Spurs travelled to Anfield just before Christmas top of the league and seen as real challengers for the title, but after two defeats and a disappointing draw they find themselves sitting 7th though they do now have a game in hand on some of those above them due to their game with Fulham being cancelled. They’re really struggling to create chances at the minute, and Jose has gone back into his shell after early season promise that the old Jose might be on the way back. The mindset now is very much, get ahead and hold on to it. Unfortunately for Jose, he doesn’t have the players to do it. The calibre just isn’t there in defense. No team has dropped more points in the last five minutes of games than Spurs and that’s a worrying trait that they may have to look to solve in January.

Gareth Bale and Giovani Lo Celso are both ruled out while Lucas Moura and Carlos Vinicius are major doubts for Spurs.

After getting their backsides smacked at Old Trafford, Leeds have bounced back with two wins, along with two clean sheets. Admittedly they needed a very favourable referee to beat, and keep a clean sheet against, Burnley but all that matters to Bielsa and his men is the 1-0 scoreline. Even more impressive for Leeds is that they’ve done that without any of their top 3 central defenders, as Luke Ayling and the impressive young Dutchman Pascal Struijk forming a makeshift pairing. Struijk is making a real case that it should be him who partners Diego Llorente and/or Robin Koch when those two return from injury rather than Liam Cooper who has struggled massively with the step up to Premier League level. With Raphinha and Rodrigo now forming an exciting, in-sync creative tandem on the right side of the midfield four for Leeds, expect to see Patrick Bamford get more and more opportunities to add to his goal tally as the weeks go by.

Koch, Llorente, Cooper, Adam Forshaw and Gaetano Berardi are all ruled out for Leeds but Mateuzs Klich should be fit in time to play.

 

⚽ Chelsea vs Manchester City
📅  Sunday 3 January 2021
⏰ 1630 UK Kick-Off
🖥️ Sky Sports Live Streaming

This game is in doubt after City’s game against Everton was called off due to a Covid outbreak in the City squad, but as things stand the game that’s been dubbed “El Cashico” is set to go ahead as the Premier League rich boys meet at Stamford Bridge. City come into this game in their best run of form of the season, whilst Chelsea are in their worst run of form. The appearance of Thomas Tuchel’s name on the available managers list has led to some speculation that Chelsea might consider making a change in Frank Lampard doesn’t start making better use of the expensive toys he was given in the summer.

Four points from their last five games will have led to angry phone calls from a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean to Stamford Bridge. Roman didn’t sanction the spending of £230mil to see his team continually fail to beat teams in the top half of the league. If he wanted flat track bullies, he wouldn’t have spent a penny because Chelsea already had the squad to beat the teams in the bottom half. Thus far a win over West Ham, themselves more likely to finish in the bottom half than the top half, is the only victory Chelsea have managed over a team currently in the top half of the league. With the talent in their squad, that’s unacceptable. Also unacceptable was the manner in which they lost to Arsenal. Lampard doesn’t seem to know how to use Timo Werner or Kai Havertz and doesn’t seem to have settled on his best front three yet which has caused the attack to look disjointed. Talent, and talent alone, has gotten them this far. They’ll need better management to challenge for the title, Frank needs to prove he’s capable of better.

Reece James and Hakim Ziyech are doubts for Chelsea but will have fitness tests.

After a stuttering start, City have finally found some form and started to win games pretty consistently, though they still don’t look anywhere near as potent as they have in previous years. They’re solely reliant on Kevin De Bruyne for creativity, though Raheem Sterling seems to have remembered that he’s one of the ten best players in the league in recent weeks and is starting to cause major difficulties for defenders assigned to mark him. City could really do with getting Sergio Aguero in the team for a sustained period of time because goals have been harder to come by than ever before for Pep’s men. Defensively they’ve largely been very good this season with Ruben Dias the standout performer and though he’s still struggling a bit in terms of his on-ball work, Rodri has taken his game up a level defensively and is offering fantastic protection to his central defenders, a bit like a Liberty Shield VPN does to your information online.

Gabi Jesus and Kyle Walker are two confirmed Covid cases and will miss this game, though it remains to be seen who else misses out as a result of the virus. Ilkay Gundogan and Eric Garcia face fitness tests but could be involved.

If Chelsea vs City doesn’t go ahead, I’d recommend Southampton vs Liverpool on Monday Night as the third game of your weekend. The Reds are top of the table but have stumbled through this post-Christmas period so far with disappointing draws against West Brom and Newcastle, whilst the Saints also won’t be happy to have only managed draws with Fulham and West Ham and star striker Danny Ings will surely be out to show Liverpool they were wrong to sell him. You should probably watch this game anyway.

 

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.