It was a very good weekend for Liverpool, and a pretty good weekend for the Premier League. It’s one round of games, and blips and quirks do happen. But that three of the top four on Saturday morning could lose felt not only invigorating – maybe this isn’t a league entirely predetermined by how much money you have – but also, perhaps, part of a pattern.
And that pattern is of football that is a bit patchy, a bit scratchy, a bit lacking the sort of fluidity and quality we’ve become used to, which is perhaps not so good. Moisés Caicedo’s equaliser aside, Chelsea’s draw at Manchester United in Sunday’s showpiece was an extremely limited game. The sense this autumn has been of a lot of sides packed with good players not playing particularly well.
Aston Villa’s defeat at Tottenham brought the most spectacular scoreline, 4-1, but was in some ways the least noteworthy of the three defeats for sides near the top. Brilliant as they have been under Unai Emery, there has been for a while an expectation of a reset, if only because the demands of the Champions League, particularly on a squad that is not used to balancing European and Premier League demands – even if their manager is – are so intense.
After conceding late to draw at home to Bournemouth last week and then losing to Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday, it wasn’t the greatest surprise that they should also drop points at Tottenham. What was unexpected was the manner in which Spurs tore them apart in the second half. Perhaps it was just a case of Villa opening up as they chased the game and being picked off by wildly inconsistent opponents having a good day, but it was impossible not to wonder whether fatigue might be a factor.
Arsenal’s woes are well-known and defeat at Newcastle was no great surprise. The loss of Martin Ødegaard has affected their balance in midfield but seems also to have hit them psychologically – as though they cannot quite conceive the possibility of playing well without him. They have already dropped 12 points this season. Given a good rule of thumb is that a side hoping to win the title must take 90 points, that places their title challenge in severe doubt; they effectively have only 12 more points they can drop in the 28 games they have remaining.
But perhaps this season it won’t take 90 points to win the league, and not just because of the potential points deduction hanging over Manchester City. City’s 32-game Premier League unbeaten record came to an end at Bournemouth on Saturday – a stat that should in itself give pause; teams really shouldn’t be able to go the equivalent of 85% of a league season unbeaten, or certainly not in the manner City have, with a weary sigh and nobody paying much attention.
Bournemouth deserve their own recognition in this; their last three games have been against Arsenal (home), Villa (away) and City (home) and they have taken seven points from them. As Pep Guardiola said on Saturday, “We couldn’t match the intensity.” That is credit to Andoni Iraola and his excellent Bournemouth who, after a wobbly start, have hit a fine run of form, inspired by Antoine Semenyo.
But City, in truth, have been uneasy for a while. Five times already in the league this season, they have conceded the first goal in a game, and they struggled to beat Fulham, Brentford, Wolves and Southampton. This is not the control to which Guardiola aspires. He complained about a season that, with the Club World Cup next summer, could stretch to 70 games – “like the NBA, but the NBA has four-month holidays and we have three weeks … When that happens, you have injuries for a long time.”
And, of course, in that he is quite right: top players are expected to play too much. City are missing Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne. Arsenal can legitimately point to their injury list as well. To which there is an obvious response: stop playing so many games. It’s the clubs who have driven the expansion of the Champions League, the clubs who go on lengthy pre-season tours, the clubs who have the power to refuse to play in the Club World Cup. To greedily take the money and then complain about the consequences – while, for instance, abolishing replays in the early rounds of the FA Cup, denying smaller clubs much-needed revenue – is illogical and distasteful.
The consequences for the league, though, could be fascinating. City did have a wobble in November last year, going on a run of one win in six Premier League games before winning 17 of their final 20, so nobody should be drawing any firm conclusions, but there is a possibility that this could be an old-fashioned season in which the elite do not just chomp remorselessly through opponents, but actually have to battle.
It’s appalling that the cost is injuries to players, expected to push their bodies beyond the limit. But, if that can be left aside – and perhaps it can’t – on a more abstract level a dip in quality may be worth it if the narrative drama improves, an awful paradox into which the economic model of modern football has forced the game.
-
This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition
