It's that time of the week again: the football news cycle has coughed up another round of speculation, injury updates, and the eternal question of who will be standing in the dugout at Old Trafford by the time you finish reading this sentence. According to reports, Jason Wilcox wants Eddie Howe to take over at Manchester United if the club decides to sack Michael Carrick, because nothing says "long-term project" like a manager who hasn't even been sacked yet being replaced by a manager who currently has a job.

Meanwhile, in the Premier League's weekend guide, Álvaro Arbeloa has been talking ahead of Fulham's trip to Coventry on Saturday, buoyed by last weekend's much-needed win over Hull. "Nothing has changed for us," insisted the manager, presumably before adding that everything had, in fact, changed. "We were not winning games but we believed in ourselves, we were doing so many things well." The most important thing about the Hull win, he explained, is that they were in the same situation against Manchester United and Ipswich but didn't win, and now they had to improve in their transition and did. They also controlled the ball in their half better than before, which is the kind of insight that makes you wonder why anyone ever doubted them.

And then there's the small matter of El Clásico, which, as the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry faded, apparently also faded in relevance - though not enough to stop hundreds of millions of viewers from watching Sunday's match at Camp Nou. The fixture always matters, we're told, but this weekend's edition is especially significant: a Barça win would move them nine points clear of Real Madrid at the top of La Liga, while a Real Madrid victory could be a catalyst for the rest of their season. So, to answer the question of whether it's still the sport's biggest fixture: yes, probably, but we're going to write 800 words about it anyway.