It’s been said many times already that this could be the most competitive season in the history of the Premier League. No longer are gamblers having to choose between two teams when deciding which title winning hopeful deserves their bet. No, this season is different. Six (or maybe even more) teams can boast genuine ambitions of winning the league, whether they want to admit it or not.
What’s more, with this new found level of competitiveness, the Premier League can now rival the Championship for that feeling that anybody can beat anybody else. As illustrated below:
During the opening 10 games of this season:
Aston Villa beat Arsenal on the opening day.
Arsenal then beat Spurs.
Spurs have beaten Swansea.
Swansea beat West Brom.
West Brom won away at Manchester United.
United beat Fulham.
Fulham have beaten Stoke.
Stoke beat West Ham.
West Ham beat Cardiff City.
The same Cardiff City who won at home to Man City.
Man City beat Everton.
Everton, who have beaten Hull City.
(I think you see where this is going)
Hull beat Norwich City.
Norwich beat Southampton.
Southampton beat Liverpool.
Liverpool beat Crystal Palace.
Palace won at home to Sunderland.
Sunderland won the Tyne-Wear derby against Newcastle.
Newcastle beat Chelsea.
Chelsea beat Aston Villa, and the circle is complete.
It truly seems that the reset button was hit in the summer. Man City, Man United and Chelsea recruited new managers while Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs strengthened. Somehow this seemed to put everyone on equal footing.
Arsenal sit at the top of the table now by virtue of being the most consistent team so far. They have had a minor slip up in the form of their opening day defeat at home to Aston Villa but have recovered superbly. And the league is full of stories like this, of teams who have performed admirably but not without the odd hiccup here and there.
A lot has been made of Manchester United and their seemingly poor start to the campaign. They hadn’t strengthened the squad enough, Sir Alex Ferguson has proven to be irreplaceable, they’ve had too many poor performances, they’ve had too many poor results. They also now find themselves just 3 points behind second place. I’m sure most clubs wouldn’t mind the type of ‘disaster’ that has befallen David Moyes’ side.
By being the hardest working team in the league, as well as one of the best organised, Southampton have found themselves in and around the Champions League places in the early part of the season. Of course when naysayers finally started to expect from them they were held to a draw at Stoke this past weekend and relegated to as low as 6th. Despite their promising start I’m sure that they would take that come the end of the season.
Spurs and Everton had been expected to struggle to a degree this season. One without last season’s talismanic star, the other without the successful well-respected manager. As they prepared to line up against each other last weekend they were both in a position to move into second place if they had won the game. A nil-nil draw didn’t do too much to help the title ambitions of either but the league is such that back to back wins will see them challenging at the very top end of the table.
And that’s this season. The opening ten games may have given a false impression, perhaps Arsenal or someone else are now going to run away with the league and it won’t be such a close run thing after all. But the unusual scenarios listed above are becoming common place and the league is very much becoming one of the most competitive in the world.
It’s the kind of season where a team like Chelsea can look mighty impressive until they come unstuck against un-fancied Newcastle United like they did this past weekend. Or where a team like Manchester City can pick up a few poor results at Villa and Cardiff but still have enough about them to smash seven goals past Norwich, like they did last time out.
The upcoming round of Premier League fixtures throws up another set of games that once would have been easy pickings for anyone with a Paddy Power account but not anymore. We’ve seen too much this season already to believe in a sure thing. And long may it continue.