The Premier League returns this weekend after two stops and starts and the latest one being the International Break. We now head down the last stretch before the World Cup season interrupter, with everything to play for as we are, obviously, still in September. But as everything is still up for grabs, there is this impending feeling that no one can stretch higher than Erling Haaland. But yet Arsenal are giving us what can turn out to be their best season in half a decade if not a decade and a half. That was unexpected. Like Manchester United finally finding themselves and not being the league’s embarrassment. Chelsea have already switched managers because for as much as Boehly seems to “not get the essence of our game”, he’s gotten the essence of Chelsea right on the bull’s eye. We have Spurs being good, Liverpool trying to escape from doom on the back of Thiago Alcantara as long has stays uninjured. And then we have everyone else, such as Nottingham Forest’s squad-building insanity, Bournemouth being not-that-hopeless-after-all, Leicester and the mile-long hole they’ve fallen into, are Crystal Palace still good?, the Brighton de Zerbi era that is waiting to begin and much more. We’ll maybe not to everything today, but we’ll get to a lot. These are the (my) Premier League’s winners and losers after two months of the season.
Loser: The, Albeit Wishful, Dream of Tottenham Truly Contending
It is probably strange to pick Tottenham as a loser in any form after what has been by and large a great start to the campaign, in the driver’s seat to capture a Top 4 Champions League spot at the end of the season. However, all or almost all their games in these two months have left a certain feeling of uncertainty… How good are Tottenham? This question has recurred once and over again. Unless things are completely out of whack, it is usually difficult to be wrapped up in questions about if you’re actually good or not and also compete for league titles. Tottenham feel nothing like they did a year ago (weak, flat, almost waiting to be put down) – they’re strong, they have the same record as Manchester City, they feel super Conte-like… Which is precisely why it leaves with just that tiny but unignorable bitter taste that they don’t have it to push for the Premier League title. In fairness, if City remain in tornado mode until the end and garnish 90-plus points, not Tottenham nor anyone else will have enough oomph to truly compete. Arsenal, when all is said and done, will probably have not had enough either. But it is different for Tottenham because their window is a lot smaller on paper; their time, in so many ways, is right now. Harry Kane and Heung-min Son are at their peak now – from here on out it’ll likely not be ascension but descension/plateauing. Antonio Conte, if past is prologue, will not be here for long. Knowing all this, they went out this summer on a legitimate shopping-spree. They made all the right moves, they’ve played well, they have an attacking quartet that can stare in the eyes of any attacking unit in world football. But… the team, the whole of it, is not quite there. These things many times just need a little bit more time to reach those points of ready-to-go title contention status. It is why it’s a shame that with how incredibly good Conte is as a coach, as Kane, Son, Kulusevski plus Richarlison are as players, that they might not as a team have that little bit extra to go for the league or for the Champions League with true capability. One or maybe even two defenders of a higher grade (a Milan Skriniar type), a midfielder of a better creative ability (a Nicolo Barella or Christian Eriksen type; basically, what Conte had at Inter) might have made them true contenders. Because more than anything, it would have been really cool for them to maximally seize upon Liverpool’s stumbles, upon Arsenal’s probable unreadiness, upon the hope that Manchester City might crack. And they are just not quite there. Maybe they will. But they are not right now.
Winner: Brighton Knowing Who The Hell They Are
It was all a giant wave of social media sobbing among the football public for little old Brighton getting raided by Chelsea. First, it was Marc Cucurella. And secondly, Graham Potter and his entire coaching staff. How unfair the world is. Because it certainly is. But you have to push back and act to the best of your ability and not get folded by the world. “They should not allow this, they should institute a designated market period for managers, like they do for players”, was said and repeated by many – even by many smart people! But I could not agree any less. It’s funny because even if that kind of reaction is logical and expected for this to happen when Chelsea come and lure away Brighton’s manager, it doesn’t happen when X or Y manager loses their job. People, fans, like to lament it when it affects themselves but would be up in arms if their clubs couldn’t sack their poorly performing manager when they so pleased. Imagine that teams would have to wait to January to fire their head coach? But beyond the point of worker movement, which we’ll delve into much more in future editions of this newsletter, Brighton didn’t lament; they prepared. Brighton was not gonna have this happen and then just sit there licking their wounds. They stuck a 16-million-pound release clause on Graham Potter and were ready for this day to come just as it did. Silly, almost insulting names were hardly pinpointed to Brighton in the rumor mills. Names were barely laid upon the Seagulls: Brendan Rodgers was thrown out there and then it was just the most “potential managers of Brighton” possible: Kjetil Knutsen of Bodo/Glimt, Bo Svensson of Mainz and Robert De Zerbi formerly of Sassuolo and Shakhtar. They did not blink, they did not faulter, they did not second-guess themselves. Just as they’ve done with players, who they’ve signed and sold, Brighton acted with the street and spreadsheets smarts. Knowing who you are, knowing what you’re trying to achieve and constantly refining and fortifying the process, all you need is ultimately to deliver, to execute as brightly as your aims are. That’s what Brighton are doing because they understand who they are.
Loser: Defenders Having to Defend Against Erling Haaland
It is going to be long; it is going to be hard; and the climax, anti or otherwise, will in all likelihood be Manchester City winning the Premier League once again. It has been staggering to watch them in action this season. As it has been for five years now. But now the Sky Blue Machine has the ultimate individual football machine: Erling Haaland. In relative terms, of course, they, he, slipped and slid all over the place during the beautiful curtain raiser of the season that was held in Leicester between they the Cityzens and Liverpool. “This is the big leagues. This is not the Bundesliga. Haaland will struggle here”. All kinds of phrases such as that reveled in that first week, being loudly expressed by the most ardent Premier League zealots, who think the English top division is so much better than every other one that it is closer to being a different sport than it is to the football that it’s played beyond its shores. As usual, that line of think, this time too, was proven to be bullshit, fast. Yes this is the best league in the world – it has too much money to not be (and therefore, it has the best players, the best managers, the best of almost anything money can buy). But it is still football. And therefore, it will be destroyed by Haaland. The superlatives will be too little, too silly and perhaps too inaccurate by virtue of him being too over-the-top good. What isn’t inaccurate is Haaland when wrestling rival defenders, when galloping towards goal if in enough empty space, when “Shinsuke Nakamura-ing” his former teammates in order to score and win the game against Borussia Dortmund. He’s been a nightmare for basically all of the defensive units he’s faced. He's just too uncontainable. He will be forced into an unfavorable profile shot and have to shoot with his right foot, like it happened against Wolves, and he will score. He’s too good. Because he will do what he did to Dortmund, with no angle, with no anything. He will just score. The opposing teams will continue to rack up losses and they will not be few.
Winner: The Patience Mikel Arteta Got
Arsenal walk into the North London Derby feeling perhaps the best they’ve felt in a long time. The coolest thing about witnessing this Arsenal team, their progress, their evolution, their figuring out of things, their learning as they’ve gone, is this payoff we are now living through. The narrative satisfaction level is currently high. Because you don’t see many of these things often. Everyone always points to this being the ultimate kind of aim, of football desire, the Long-Term Project TM. Something tends to get in the way, something tends to derail, at most places that even dare to try. It may still do here. Apart from the 2020 FA Cup and Community Shield, nothing has quite been tangibly achieved. Not even a Champions League spot was captured last season, failing on that very real and very big goal. But what has been best of observing them experience that such bitter disappointment is the resilience, how they’ve shaken it off, not letting themselves get flustered, doubtful. This level of levelheadedness is hard to come by. But Mikel Arteta has received it – has in small, incremental, slow but ultimately reliable progress, obtained it. As someone who probably was not truly ready when he got the job in December 2019. As Tifo’s/The Athletic’s Jon Mackenzie asked recently on Twitter, was Arteta always this good of a manager or has he, essentially, grown into it? Did he just need time to implement his ideas or was this time for him to develop these ideas into practicality? It is a very interesting question of essence. And I’d probably lean towards the latter of the options, but one way or another, it is beautiful to see even from a vantage point of plain neutrality. It will be exciting to see how things continue from here on out for them. They have beaten all those teams that only about a minute ago would make them trip, slip, dip. Against Manchester United they lost, against Tottenham this Saturday we will see. Which gives them, perhaps, a greater sense of comfort, of project-solidity than Spurs, is how much younger they are. Tottenham, one would smartly guess, have their clock ticking much faster against them. The Arsenal long-game, the patience they’ve gifted this team, has so far won in the grand scheme of things. It is Spurs who got into the Champions League, however, and the game this weekend can easily begin to flip perspectives and trajectories. When expectations are high, there’s almost always a potential crisis at the corner turn.
Loser: Liverpool’s New Era
It was always gonna be hard for Liverpool, at their relatively modest expenditure rate, at their sometimes-overcautious modus operandi, to outrun this Premier League field of teams. At the very start of the season, having furthermore defeated Manchester City at the Community Shield, none of these struggles felt probable or even plausible. They did that “Sir Alex Ferguson Era” Manchester United thing of changing while still being ahead. Of chop and changing before things got stale, ineffective towards the aims of keeping on winning championships, of English and of European variety. That so tough of a thing of moving your star players out, even when their performance are still at peak levels, and bringing in new ones. That proverbial thing of “keeping things fresh”. For as emotionally hard as it must’ve been, they took advantage of Sadio Mane’s own desire of trying something new and accepted Bayern Munich’s tangible, monetary interest and let him go. Luis Díaz had already been brought into the fold and it was the first time to go in search of a supersonic type of striker in the “Jürgen Klopp Era” Liverpool. Darwin Núñez it was, along Díaz, and the newly contract-extended Mohamed Salah were the glaring sign of a new era, within an era, beginning. Switching things up to not lose your edge, like Manchester United did, like almost all great teams that are able to sustain success for such long-periods of time. Even Manchester City have seen, in two different ways and at separate months, their main two attacking weapons of the 100-point 2018 season, Sergio “Kun” Agüero and Raheem Sterling, leave – be ultimately replaced. For them it has worked and clicked almost seamlessly. Barring the weirdness of 2020 and when it seemed for a little like it was over, the marauding force that they are just kept moving forward, win after win after win. So the question is now… are Liverpool over? Probably not, but when you yourself and everyone else becomes accustomed to you winning at the psycho rate that Liverpool won in 2018-2019, 2019-2020 and 2021-2022, the doubts corral you. The creeping sense of the end. The key to having this not fall apart, stay as it was, even with these new guys, is to renew and reinforce the rest of the team. Maybe they didn’t change enough. Right now, with Trent exposed with a ferocity never quite seen never before, Van Dijk’s kind of flailing level of performance and Thiago’s injuries, things are gonna be tricky. But in Thiago playing, in Fabinho playing, in Salah turning the light switch back on, seem to remain the biggest keys of making this a transitional season, into the intended new era, and not of the end of everything altogether.
Winner: The Brendan Rodgers Haters
There’s certain kind of person that I’ve come to have very acute contempt and disdain for over the last handful of Premier League seasons: The Brendan Rodgers Truther, let’s call them. In fairness, this kind of person only comes to show this facet of their beliefs at the end of the seasons. Monday morning quarterbacking of the highest order. Opportunists that come with their mini trampolines to dunk on whomever the dunked-on protagonist is. In this case it is Brendan Rodgers, the almost-ultimate overachiever. Almost. It is weird to dissect someone who’s greatest sporting moments in the Premier League (the FA Cup notwithstanding) have happened in such anticlimactic ways. That have unfolded in the most antinarrative ways possible. The underdog that overcomes everyone and everything right until the very end, where it all just collapses, and leaves the idea of “well they should’ve wont it, then”. It’s more complicated than that. What makes this all the trickier is that Liverpool shouldn’t have won the Premier League title in 2014. Leicester shouldn’t have made the Champions League in 2020 nor in 2021 either. Neither of those three separate teams were good enough to, reasonably, be expected to achieve any of those brilliant, marvelous goals. They just weren’t. But they got, so, so, SO, SO close to doing it that people just accepted that they were indeed good enough to do it. If they were good enough to tease to such an extreme, they were good enough to win. That’s how our mind works. That’s why the ultimate loser is he who comes closest and doesn’t win. That’s why Héctor Cúper is one of football’s ultimate losers. Even though he has achieved a body of sporting success that almost any other football coach could only dream of, he’s the one who lost the finals. It’s not true that no one remembers second place; everyone actually does. Who they don’t remember is 7th placed, or the quarter final losers of the Champions League. Those aren’t considered as bad of losers for whatever psychological reasons. But going back to Rodgers, the time has most likely come, not to win (like he won handedly, as he should have and did, at Celtic) but to close this Leicester chapter with that bitter sense that he didn’t get to the Champions League. The “bOtTleR” ultimately failed. So that’s a win for everyone who feels right in their negative world assertions about Brendan Rodgers. Is there a scientific way to explain winning, against the odds, over and over up and until the very end and just then crack and crater, repeatedly? We’ll explore that some other day.