And so in just one weekend there has been a shift in the Premier League. The almost dominant force has been Arsenal and up until last Saturday everyone could only see them as champions, they were that good. This was a club who were not only winning games but were not conceding either. Eight matches had gone by without the Gunners conceding a goal of which only 3 had passed their goal line since August- and then newly promoted Sunderland turned up. Fresh from drawing at home to bottom half of the table Everton the Black Cats were good for their draw against the league leaders in a game which finished 2-2. In 90 odd minutes Arsenal had just conceded 70% of their total goals so far and when one was a last minute goal which meant dropping 2 points all of a sudden their world caved in. The next day Manchester City romped to a 3-0 win over Liverpool and gaps of 7 and 8 points and in theory at one point in the weekend 9 had now been closed down to just 4.
We have gone from all guns blazing to what the.... You can fill in the blanks and perhaps there is some self doubt now. Arsenal still have a healthy lead over the champions Liverpool but how do they cope with a problem like Manchester City and perhaps even more importantly Erling Haaland who has scored 14 goals from the opening 11 games? The Norwegian is on course to smash his own Premier League goalscoring record which currently stands at 36 and while City do not look like their absolute vintage best they do look good enough to take on this Arsenal side. This Arsenal side of course have never looked stronger since the glory days of Arsene Wenger and yet each time they have come up against a test this season they have failed to win. We know that Manchester City and Liverpool should be their nearest challengers and City took a point at the Emirates earlier in the season this was clearly advantage City even though it felt hampered as Arsenal had equalised late on for 1-1. Liverpool beat Arsenal 1-0 which is currently the Gunners only loss so far. Sunderland shouldn't be a test, but then the season began and we could quickly see just how well equipped the team have been and how difficult a side they are at home to beat. Make no mistakes going into the Sunderland game Arsenal fans were being cautious. No matter that Everton could have had 3 goals against Sunderland a few days before in the first half alone every game is different and so Sunderland proved. And yet of course Arsenal were set to win the game 2-1 after trailing, it looked like they would escape with all 3 points, and yet. Champions are made of sterner stuff and usually would see out games, you can't go conceding in the final minute of added time, and yet here we are and next up for Arsenal is the north London derby. Despite this it is hard to criticise Arsenal too harshly, they still look like the best team in the league and sadly for them injuries have been mounting up.
Football moves quick and if Arsenal were to beat Tottenham and City lose their next game then we would be back to the thinking of last week which was Arsenal are flawless. You do get the feeling though that City are on the charge and are ready to pounce for the top position. As for Liverpool? The Reds look cooked for a title challenge as they have two quality sides in front of them together with Chelsea and a few surprise packages but they were also unlucky in the weekend's defeat. On another day Virgil van Dijk's goal would have stood and we would have had a game poised at 1-1 instead it was chalked off and we went 2-0 soon after and then the game escaped them. But the Reds still have a quality team in there and we should expect a good run from them at one point. Elite football has little errors though, Arne Slot's side are coming off a terrible run but have just beaten Aston Villa and Real Madrid. However a loss to Manchester City has still underlined Slot's second season which feels more like his own having spent almost half a billion pounds as he tries to mould a team in his making and not former manager Jürgen Klopp's. As for which of these 3 sides has the quality to win the league well they all have really but clearly Liverpool have blinked first but we have seen a fragility at Manchester City and now at Arsenal. The real shift though now is that perhaps instead of seeing a team win the league with a 10 point margin which Arsenal were threatening to do at one point we may see a two way battle that goes down to the wire.
To win the Premier League latest odds: Arsenal 1.62, Manchester City 3.25, Liverpool 11.00, Chelsea 29.00, Manchester United 51.00
Over the past 2 years two clubs have emerged through a balance of money injected into their clubs and shrewd buys those teams are Newcastle and Aston Villa. They have been able to finish in the top six and both have qualified for the Champions League in that time. However it hasn't always been easy going this season for them. Take Newcastle who can't seem to buy an away win so far. With six games played on the road the Magpies have lost 3 and drawn 3. Even at home Eddie Howe's side only have the 14th best record with 9 points won from a possible 15. Despite the slow start the good news is that the league is tightly bunched and Newcastle are only two wins away from 5th place. The obvious backtrack this season was the loss of Alexander Isak who joined Liverpool for £125m. Isak had been a star performer for the club but it is ironic how invisible he has been so far at Liverpool notwithstanding of course the niggling injuries he has suffered. Currently the British transfer record player is being overshadowed by a PSG reject in Hugo Ekitike. Newcastle have also been affected and held back by PSR. Make no mistake the team would have bolted out of the blocks just like Chelsea and Manchester City did when they were taken over by billionaires but Newcastle have been restrained. They will welcome a proposal in the near future that will see the financial regulations loosened somewhat. In an ideal world PSR could work but football doesn't exist in this world and all PSR has done is protect the big elite sides from new competition.
Aston Villa began the season so dreadfully there were question marks over manager Unai Emery's future with them. They went their first month without scoring, it made little sense. PSR has also affected the club but recent form has been among the best in the league with five wins from their past six games and this has shot the club up from the bottom three to sixth place. The Villains are now only four points behind 2nd placed Manchester City and all seems well for the club once again. One could argue they have been the best team in the league in the past month bar Arsenal. The Premier League has its elite teams and so called big six clubs but it also needs the likes of Newcastle and Aston Villa and hopefully one or two more emerging clubs to make it sustainable and exciting.
It was awful to see that Raheem Sterling was burgled for a second time this week when at home with his family. The first thing to be noted is that Sterling and his family were left unhurt and that is the most important thing. However such incidents do not have to leave a physical mark. The psychological mark is far worse and can affect daily life. Home invasions and burglaries of elite footballers have been fairly common over the years and answers need to be investigated. Why is it for example that footballers are more likely to be targeted than other celebrities? One accusation could be that young players tend to splash out on jewelry and flash sports cars which can feel like a magnet to potential thieves. But we need to dig deeper because this is a serious issue. God forbid but how would we react if a player was terribly hurt or even worse? Is it just a matter of time? The elite players with wealth that only people could dream about need to protect themselves and when you are in the public eye it becomes an obligation doesn't it? Raheem Sterling earns £300,000 a week. For him like other elite players it would cost him approximately two weeks wages a year to have a security system in place in which potential burglaries would not be able to happen. One has to ask if the wider public all had this threat and were told that 2 weeks wages would make our homes safe no matter your annual salary many would sign up. It feels like a no brainer. So far footballers have only lost possessions that can in effect be replaced. But one day they may lose so much more. For now the cost of security which is a drop in the ocean to the elite footballer surely outweighs doing nothing.
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