The BBC’s most bitter pundit reckons Birmingham are going to have their way with Arsenal. Agree?

The BBC’s very own Nostradamus of football, mystic Mark Lawrenson, has had his palms crossed with silver again, and after placing his enormous jewelled turban squarely on his head, has issued his weekly vision of the Premier League results. To his credit, he has broken with the pundits’ code of utter conformity, and has dared suggest Birmingham will turn Arsenal over. Most audacious, your All-Seeingness!

If you’d like to have a go at outwitting the sour one, here are his “visions.” Leave your thoughts in the comments box.

Birmingham 2 Arsenal 1

Fulham 1 West Ham 1

Liverpool 2 Boro 0

Portsmouth 2 Sunderland 0

Wigan 2 Derby 0

Newcastle 0 Man Utd 2

Reading 2 Villa 1

Blackburn 2 Bolton 1

Man City 1 Everton 0

(Carling Final) Tottenham 1 Chelsea 0

The best sports on the telebox this weekend

In a bid to cling on to the sports they still have the rights to show, the BBC’s premier channel will be showing nearly six-and-a-half hours of Six Nations action on Saturday. The Beeb are trying their best to make us all take in some rugger, but if egg chasing isn’t your thang, there’s plenty of other sports on offer. Check out the programming below, and find the best odds on all of it on our oddschicken.

Bundesliga
VfL Bochum/ Hannover 96 (Setanta Sports 1, 7.45pm)

Super League
Bradford/ St Helens (Sky Sports 1, 7.30pm)

Premier League
Birmingham City/ Arsenal (Sky Sports 1, 12.45pm) - betting preview here
Newcastle Utd/ Manchester Utd (Setanta Sports 1, 5.15pm) - betting preview here

After years spent enduring the humiliation of being the trophy no one could pick out in an identity parade, suddenly there’s interest in the Carling Cup, and not just from fans eager to find out whether new Wembley is just as much of a urine-soaked hellhole as the old one. For Spurs, this is a massive chance to start convincing themselves that they are worth so much more than to be a team in transition for all eternity. For Chelsea, who have had their foot on Tottenham’s throat for so long they think shoes are made of soles, uppers and finest White Hart Lane neck, their responsibility as a member of the Big Four is to make sure that no one currently outside the Four starts getting ideas about joining the club. Winning things is terrific, especially the bit where the confetti comes out of the cannon, but keeping the money flowing is better, and competition from jumped-up fringe teams for Champions League supercash is disastrous for business. So at last a Carling final with exquisite footballing ingredients: scores to settle, resentment, paranoia and wild-eyed ambition. Hooray beer!

The statistics

* Since the Premier League began in 1992, Tottenham have won just two of thirty-six league and cup meetings against Chelsea.