Row Z: Could the weather decide the title? Plus: An unlikely father figure and an odd shirt swap

AFC BournemouthArsenalAston VillaBrentfordBrighton & Hove AlbionBurnleyChelseaCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamLeeds UnitedLiverpoolManchester CityManchester UnitedNewcastle UnitedNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham HotspurWest Ham UnitedWolverhampton WanderersScores & ScheduleStandingsFantasyThe Athletic FC NewsletterPodcastsCommentaryRow Z: Could the weather decide the title? Plus: An unlikely father figure and an odd shirt swapPep Guardiola says Manchester City play much better when the sun is shining... Getty Images Share full articleWelcome to Row Z, The Athletic’s weekly column that shines a light on the bonkers side of the game. From clubs to managers, players to organisations, every week we’ll bring you the absurdities, the greed, the contradictions, the preposterousness and the oddities of the sport we all love… It’s the big title showdown this weekend, when chasers Manchester City host nervous nellies Arsenal at the Etihad. Arsenal’s lead was cut from nine points to six in front of an angry, booing home crowd on Saturday. Plucky underdogs Manchester City (transfer spend in the past five years: £960million, $1.3billion) could reduce the gap to three points on Sunday in a match that is set to last the regulation 90 minutes in theory, but one that Arsenal surely intend, in terms of how long the ball spends in play, to cut to around 40 minutes maximum. Should be fun! It was a big surprise Arsenal lost at home to Bournemouth, considering how pumped up their players must have been, having trained while a TikTok compilation with their names being sung played on a big screen in the background. Arsenal playing a TikTok edit on the big screen during training today. ❤️ 🎶 Make it happen, North London forever! We are The Arsenal! 🎶🫡 pic.twitter.com/twpRbaet3P — DailyAFC (@DailyAFC) April 10, 2026 Pretty inspiring stuff — you can see them getting all motivated. Arsenal were then handed yet more motivation not long before kick-off when they were greeted at the stadium by the inspirational figure of Papa Pincus. Yeah, you know, Papa Pincus? Some bloke off the internet. Papa was granted exclusive access to Mikel Arteta and the players, shaking their hands, giving them hugs and saying things like “gaffer good luck, you look terrific” to Arteta, “come on brother, big today, big from you” to last year’s Gerd Muller striker of the year trophy winner Viktor Gyokeres and “Gabby, kill ’em out there, kill ’em” to Brazil international defender Gabriel. We’re sure it meant a lot to the lads. Arteta gets plenty of stick for his LinkedIn methods, but perhaps he’s not going far enough. For example, who didn’t clap at the end of their defeat by the Cherries? Makes you think… A post shared by Jake Humphrey (@jakehumphrey) Anyway, what a 40-minute match we’ve got in store on Sunday. But what will be the deciding factor in who emerges victorious? Team selection? Tactics? Whoever scores the crucial first goal? All eyes are on the Manchester forecast for 4.30pm because, as everybody knows, if it’s sunny then expect a City win, but if it’s raining, the odds favour Arsenal. Has Row Z lost the plot? Well no, this comes directly from the teams themselves. The City and Arsenal squads might have cost hundreds of millions between them to accumulate, with players being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a week and managers relying on dozens of staff members to help accumulate cutting-edge analysis and data to produce tactical masterclasses, but a bit of Manchester drizzle could make the all-important difference. Here’s Pep Guardiola on the reason behind his team’s recent improvement: “The sun. I’m not joking. The sun. In Manchester there is never the sun. If the sun arrived in November, we would be champions in January. Honestly, the mood is better. The mentality of the group.” And here’s Gyokeres on why Arsenal didn’t beat Bournemouth: “We had some OK chances in the end. The pitch was maybe a bit dry there to be honest, so that didn’t help.” The current Sunday forecast is for drizzle and light winds… looks like an away banker, folks. Just keep Papa out of the tunnel. The start of Roberto De Zerbi’s five-year tenure as head coach of Tottenham Hotspur didn’t go too well. The Italian — whose longest reign at any of the eight clubs he previously took charge of in his 13-year managerial career so far was the three years he lasted at Sassuolo — is no doubt looking forward to a lengthy and fruitful tenure at a club whose only manager to last five years in the past four decades was Mauricio Pochettino. And they have had 16 managers this century. In fact, what are we talking about? De Zerbi isn’t even Spurs’ manager/head coach really, because they don’t need one at the moment. They also don’t even need to improve their football. Again, we hear you ask, dear reader, has Row Z gone bananas? Nope, we’re quoting the direct source again, with De Zerbi himself suggesting he just needs to be a paternal figure to the players. “I can (be) a big brother, a father, they (the players) don’t need a coach,” he said after Sunday’s defeat by Sunderland. “They don’t need to improve football. They don’t need to play better. “OK, they can play better and they will play better when we will reach a different level of confidence ourselves.” A reminder, in case it was needed, that Spurs have been in dire form and are now in the relegation zone. In fact, they have now failed to win any of their past 14 league matches, the second-longest run without a league victory in their history. What kind of father figure has De Zerbi shown himself to be to his players in the past? A notoriously calm, reasonable, patient, understanding one, that’s who. We foresee no issues. If you needed further proof that De Zerbi will definitely, 100 per cent last the full five years of his contract, how about the fact he plans to stay until Spurs win the Premier League? “In my plan for sure there is the idea to stay for a long time,” he said last week. “To try to put Tottenham — I’m not speaking about the titles because it’s not the right moment now — but to put Tottenham to stay in the first position in the Premier League, because there are all parts to reach that level.” We know these things can get lost in translation but we all assume he means Southern Premier League South, right? And finally this week, Newcastle United didn’t leave Selhurst Park with much from their 2-1 loss to Crystal Palace on Sunday, but at least Yoane Wissa got to take home a souvenir of the special occasion. Wissa, scorer of one Premier League goal (against Burnley) since his big £55million move to Newcastle last summer, was on the field for just a few short minutes having been introduced as a 95th-minute substitute. He touched the ball on precisely zero occasions. What was the first thing the striker did immediately after the full-time whistle, do you think? Head over to clap the fans who had made the 10-hour, 600-mile round trip on a Sunday to watch their team play dreadfully and produce a grand total of three shots on target against a makeshift Palace side that showed five changes from their Conference League game three days earlier, while Newcastle were playing their first match in 22 days? No, he swapped shirts with match-winner Jean-Philippe Mateta of course! Having made such a big contribution to the game, he just wanted something to remember it by. Something to tell the grandkids about. It’s hard to know who got the better deal from the swap… Wissa went home with the shirt of a bit of a Palace legend whose two-goal substitute cameo turned the match on its head. But Mateta won’t have to iron or wash his. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Tim Spiers is a football journalist for The Athletic, based in London. He joined in 2019 having previously worked at the Express & Star in Wolverhampton. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimSpiers