During the summer, amid the uncertainty over the futures of Gareth Bale, Luis Suarez and Wayne Rooney, and wholesale management changes at all of the Premier League’s top three clubs, many a-pundit insisted that the English top flight would be a six horse race this year, with Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal joining the title hunt.
And if you looked at the Premier League table today, you’d assume the collective hypothesis is on the verge of becoming a reality as Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool fill up the top three positions in respective order, all with nine points and separated on goal difference alone. The Reds even have the chance of claiming pole position tonight if they can clinch a single point or more when they take on Swansea at the Liberty Stadium.
The hysteria regarding the six-horse race at the summit of the English top flight has also begun to reach epic proportions in the media. Andre Villas-Boas was quizzed over whether he thought the Lilywhites could claim the Premier League title last week, Arsenal’s Theo Walcott tipped the Gunners as prevailing dark horses in the title race earlier in the summer, and from the moment Brendan Rodgers took the Anfield helm, he’s insisted that re-asserting Liverpool’s position from the 1980s as English champions is the ultimate aim of his tenure.
But let’s not get carried away here – the Premier League title racket is a three club affair, and come the end of the season, none of the Premier League’s current top three will be involved in it.
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Everyone’s very excited about the potential blow-back from Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United changing managers in significant ways – Jose Mourinho, Manuel Pellegrini and David Moyes can hardly be considered stop-gap solutions by any means – whilst Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs have all been incredibly proactive in the transfer market; the former splashing out £42million on Mesut Ozil, and the latter importing a new cast of exotic, young talents to compensate for Gareth Bale’s record-breaking departure to Real Madrid. Liverpool too have made astute additions over the summer, whilst perhaps most importantly they’ve somehow kept a hold of the wantaway Luis Suarez.
Indeed, we are in a very different world from last season, but not one so strange that anything ranging from Howard Webb becoming Southampton’s new goalkeeper to West Ham qualifying for the Champions League has become a possibility. It takes more than a single summer to bring down bona fide Premier League institutions like United and Chelsea, and a £100million summer investment on new players is hardly going to hinder Manchester City to the extent that the title is out of their grasp, despite a lukewarm start to their campaign that’s been riddled with minor teething pains.
To win the Premier League title you need to be the whole package – world class players, experience, a talented manager and great strength in depth – which is exactly what the Gunners, Tottenham and Liverpool are not.
Tottenham sold their single world-class entity in Gareth Bale in the summer, and although they have certainly re-built well by acquiring some of Europe’s (and one of South America’s) hottest properties in Paulinho, Christian Eriksen, Erik Lamela and Roberto Soldado, they’ll have a hard enough time compensating for the Welshman’s former influence at White Hart Lane, let alone overcoming the 17 point and 20 goal gap between Spurs and Manchester United at the end of last season.
Similarly, Andre Villas-Boas silenced many of his Chelsea critics last term by getting the Lilywhites to claim significant wins off Chelsea, United and City, but to suggest he’s now ready to lead Spurs to their first Premier League title, which would also be his first piece of silverware at White Hart Lane, is a tad absurd.
And if record-breaking signing Soldado suffers a serious injury bout, the entirety of Tottenham’s hopes up front will depend on Jermain Defoe and youngster Harry Kane – it’s a strong deviation from the squads at Chelsea or the two Manchester clubs, all of whom possess three or more strikers capable of starting on a regular basis.
Liverpool are in a similar situation. Unlike the Lilywhites, they managed to stop Real Madrid poaching their only world-class talent in Luis Suarez over the summer, and the Uruguayan certainly possesses the calibre of quality to be part of a title-winning team. Steven Gerrard too can claim to belong to such an elite category, and Daniel Sturridge could also in the near future, but that is where the list of top level stars ends for the Reds.
At the same time, Brendan Rodgers is yet to lift any silverware in his management career from spells at Reading and Swansea, and although David Moyes can be accused of the same problem when challenging his title credentials, the Scot is at a club where the roster, the backroom and every mechanism in between have been geared towards claiming the Premier League title for the last twenty years. The likes of Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Michael Carrick have all won the English top flight five times or more, whereas none of Liverpool’s current cast excluding veteran signing Kolo Toure can argue to have played a significant hand in securing the domestic accolade before.
Arsenal on the other hand have Arsene Wenger’s rare experience in their favour, being the one of two Premier League managers currently serving today that have won the Premier League title before along with Jose Mourinho, whilst he’s also the division’s longest serving gaffer. The acquisition of Mesut Ozil has also put them in a stronger position than last term, but even so, they are still a long way shy in terms of squad depth in comparison to last season’s top three.
Currently, the Gunners have only three natural central defenders in Thomas Vermaelen, Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny, one defensive midfielder in Mathieu Flamini – unless you include the injury-stricken Abou Diaby – and one senior striker in Olivier Giroud. If the Frenchman is sidelined at any point in the season, Wenger will have to experiment between giving Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski a striking role, or offer a first start for over two years to Danish bad-boy Nicklas Bendtner.
It’s by no means the end of the world; all four, as well as free signing Yaya Sanogo, are capable of scoring goals. But does Arsenal’s strike force, or for that matter Tottenham or Arsenal’s, rival Robin Van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Javier Hernandez and Danny Welbeck at Manchester United, or Stevan Jovetic, Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko and Alvaro Negredo at Manchester City, or Samuel Eto’o, Fernando Torres and Demba Ba at Chelsea?
Yes, the Premier League is an exciting place all of a sudden now that Sir Alex Ferguson has retired, Arsene Wenger has finally spent some money and Daniel Sturridge has begun leading the scoring charts. This season promises to be the most unpredictable yet for many reasons, and the top of the Premier League table will most likely finish up with less points separating the top six clubs than ever before. But is it so exciting and unpredictable that the title race is now a six club affair?
I’m afraid not. But despite all the talk of the Premier League title race, it could be Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool in their pursuit of Champions League football that goes on to steal the show this season.
Will Arsenal, Tottenham or Liverpool win the title?
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