A matchweek of fixtures has been completed. It’s time to slip into some overreactions before it’s just another game, and another one, and another one after that, forever and after. Also, we’ll do so even if it’s hard to overreact to everything being almost exactly as it were. Nothing was surprising. It was all comforting. But in that, itself, in the fact that much has remained the same, we can grab onto our previously-in-the-season held beliefs. Stuff that seemed awkward at the time such as Arsenal being as good as they had been – league leaders, perhaps Premier League title contenders. But no, not that belief, that’s too silly. That’s too wrong with that we believe in this life to be true: which is that Manchester City will plow through absolutely every and all teams in the world unless it’s the Champions League. The 38-week marathons are there for them to dominate. Because virtually unlimited resources are a hell of a thing to have, kids. And if not, look at Newcastle. The new kingpins in town. They’re cute, they’re adorable, they’re a fantastically well assembled team, but the darkness of their shadow is profound; horrifically so. Those kinds of things are what we have to contend with now as the bystanders, as the people onlooking the circus, the sporting spectacle. Grave moral matters are shoved at us because they’re too unignorable not to. Now it’s about infinite oil barrels and dismembered journalists and probably even worse if you get on to dig further.
Speaking of digging, however, the hole that Manchester United felt like would just get deeper and deeper when after two weeks of the season Brighton and Brentford had humiliated them. Not even an elite-level manager would fix it. The gravity of the Old Trafford black hole would win, would be too much, would suck Ten Hag in rather than him drag the team out of it. But man, once again, if you’re a football club with problems, just put the best manager you possibly can to work. Because that… works. Club after club you hear of being these messes, these unfixable basket cases, that need 20 years, 46 transfer windows and whatever else to get better. It turns out a handful of players and a conductor who’s great at what he does will change the current, will change everything for you. So you, the dysfunctional club, or rather the dysfunctional owner of the dysfunctional club, don’t have to be the one to change.
Just like Tottenham didn’t change over the World Cup break. Nor did another Premier League team like Brighton – like Tottenham also with a starting player in the Argentina World-Cup-winning starting team – who went to Southampton just to show how good they are and toy around with a team of “Saints” that will have to try to escape hell from here to the end of the season and it is not looking promising. But let’s get into some overreactions.
Rashford & Martial are back to stay forever and win everything for Manchester United
One of the greatest heart-warming stories of the season, emphasized, exclaimed in the first post-World Cup match. A 3-0 win against Nottingham Forest. There have been hints all season, after the declutter of the summer, that maybe the solution was that thing that tried to get fixed when it never actually needed to. That is the attacking duo of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial. It all seemed over, doomed, gone. Just like Martial, who was loaned out to Sevilla, which only kept on ruining a bad situation. He didn’t come back to life, to be his old self, and Sevilla lost all flickering hope of winning La Liga or even seriously pushing for it. The desperation was bad enough that he was shipped out from Old Trafford – how do you rebound from that, after it’s done nothing but get worse? Because there’s something about home, about places in which special things happened, in which magic tricks with aces and spaces were once performed. You forget, we all do, but there was a moment in time in which Rashford and Martial clicked and functioned to levels bordering on “we could win a league one day with this level of ever-increasing attacking performance from them”. But then people came in, disrupters, imposters. Things got muddled, distorted and even hopeless. But with all that, finally came the reboot, the genuine second chance for so much of this to finally work.
Out of necessity, out of “what do you do with this guy”, Martial came back to Manchester to not only make his old self come back but also for Rashford to do the exact same. The imperfect pairing – because their fit, their in-the-end-complementary characteristics, have always been a little strange to square, to polish and make work. Because they’re sort of both better cutting from the outside-left into the box, with space, on the run, but it turns out that with the right combination of supporting ingredients, these two work with Rashford being that galloping force and Martial the slicker mover in the center lanes, closer to the box, with less room to dance around and figure it out. Ten Hag, the good manager, has made the composition of the music finally harmonize. And this, Rashford-Martial, plus everything else that is already working behind them, is promising. At the very least, enough to pulverize Nottingham Forest and show that you are coming for those Champions League spots. And if we want to go with the overreaction… Will they be the ones to rally from the back, rampage through and win the Premier League outright?
No, that will be Arsenal, who will be winning the league
It’s amazing. They are legitimate contenders to win this Premier League. That should be an overreaction but it’s not. That they will win it probably is, because, you know, Manchester City. But holy hell… It’s not momentum, it’s not a hot streak, it’s not luck; it’s Eddie Nketiah transforming into Ronaldo Nazario. But not to win the game, in desperation, as a Hail Mary. They were on their way to beating West Ham and when they were winning, from a position of power, Nketiah still did that. A guy who is playing the starting 9 position because the World Cup took Gabriel Jesús from them for a couple of extra months. That’s what keeps making this whole thing increasingly wilder, crazier. West Ham this past Boxing Day was the test of truth. And that, the truth, is exactly what Mikel Arteta’s team are. Odegard took advantage over the World Cup of the fact that Norway is still “old Norway” (that shouldn’t last with him and Haaland) and rested up, recharged and came back with his otherworldly gracefulness, incision, movement of the bow over the strings. He’s a legitimate superstar being forged in front of our eyes. And behind their eyes, behind their heads and backs – of opposing defenders that is – is where another Gabriel, Gabriel Martinelli, keeps wanting to run towards. To keep scoring, to keep being a force of havoc, a deity with a bite. Every other component of the team keeps working marvelously. Even throughout growing pains just like that Saliba penalty was. They came back, from the halt, from the vanishing of momentum, without their star striker, to prove that they are for real.
Manchester City only scored three and proved what a fraud they are
That’s it. Manchester City are done. They are so done. It’s a wrap. It’s over. They are only winning 1-3 at Leeds. There’s no coming back from that. They are no longer serious contenders. Good luck getting into the Champions League spots when Haaland only scores a brace. Two sad goals. And not even a clean sheet on the other side of the field. They are finished. Frauds they are. With the bald fraud they have as their manager more than anyone else… That ladies and gentlemen was my best and most desperate grasp of straws that I could conjure up. They are still, a month-plus later, that team. Not the one just wrongly described. But rather the winners of 4 out of the last 5 Premier League championships. Sure, the night in Leeds ended up being a little ragged, tricky down the stretch, ever-so-slightly nervy when the Jesse Marsch boys rallied and pulled one goal back. But Manchester City missed chances for fun. And they scored three on top of that. It’s just another dimension. One they are still fully apart of. The Guardiola Fatigue showed its head in late 2020 to have it chopped off and never return. Not so far at least and not anytime soon, it seems. Grealish remains a strange addition to this recipe of football perfection, but still seems to gel pretty well with everyone for as different as he is to everyone else, speaking in terms of footballing profiles. But everything is just too much. Manchester City problems, despite what Guardiola will try to have you believe every so often, are fake problems. The opening goal was scored on the counter by defensive the midfielder, Rodri, who spent large parts of the game being a central defender. And he made a goalscoring run into the box. Arsenal better give it their ALL and still something else on of it or this will, still, again, be Manchester City’s Premier League title. Now that is not an overreaction.
Brighton are not going to lose steam
Is this an overreaction? I’m not even sure. Obviously, yes, they shouldn’t end up finishing in the top-six spots. Anything that states otherwise is probably an overreaction just by virtue of everyone else that’s in and around Brighton. They just don’t have the firepower to match. Or do they? The Southampton match on Boxing Day was very interesting because without having to do all that much Brighton steamrolled through St. Mary’s in of the south coast (sort of) derbies. They just had to show a competent version of themselves, which they did, and they annihilated the team now coached by one of their former (many years ago) coaching staff members: Nathan Jones. More on him and Southampton another day. But on the day of boxing, De Zerbi ended up having to do little more than stand there, weave a little, roll with the attempts of punches and trust all the good hours on the training pitch and just let Solly March cook. Yes, Solly March. If even guys like Solly March (you cannot call him by anything other than his full name. Ever) can step up and thrust Brighton forward, all they’re deficiencies might not be such. Solly March had shot 64 times and 28 of them on goal since his last actual goal all the way back in November 2020. And he ended that spell of accuracy horror with a wondrous strike that found the back of the net with rocket science precision. Plus, from him came the assist of the first of their three goals and the forcing of the Southampton own goal that signified their second one. Again, like with Arsenal, you could’ve witnessed a complete loss of momentum because of the Qatar Football Experience. But just like with Arsenal, you didn’t; Brighton are still standing and stronger than ever.
Chelsea have figured it all out
Ha! Who would’ve thought that Graham Potter would leave and Brighton would be feeling as good as ever. But in his new life, in the Chelsea reality, things have not been as smooth. What Chelsea feel like is exactly what they are right now: a half-baked idea and dinner starts in 15 minutes. And guests are coming. It is complicated to make things click, to make things find their chemistry, not knowing precisely if that chemistry will even be there at all. Graham Potter jumped into the lion’s den, which isn’t Millwall’s stadium but rather Stamford Bridge. You’d like to think and with good reason, despite the Tuchel thing, that this is a new Chelsea – that Todd Boehly isn’t like the old regime, that the firing of the orchestrator of their latest Champions League title will be a one-off, a one-time thing, the exception and not the rule. That is after moving so much land, so much ocean and so much air [this a phrase I’m probably subconsciously bringing over from Spanish] to get Graham Potter to come on over to The Chelsea Project TM. But this is still the results business. We call it football; we call it sport; but it is first and foremost about the bottom line. Or the top line. 1’s and 0’s and even bigger scores but always, or as often as possible, the highest number in your favor. Against Bournemouth on the 27th of December everything was definitely not figured out. Chelsea are still that strange, complex, anticlimactic assortment of players. They were already a pretty unique, sometimes perplexing thing under the gestures and intense look of Thomas Tuchel on the touchline. Then, on the fly, they have had to become Potter’s weird thing, Potter’s magic trick, if you will. It didn’t feel like an arrival, like infinite parts finally falling into place against Bournemouth, but they won – pretty comfortably so. And while things keep getting molded by the new regime, all wins are welcomed. Because all wins, are time gained.