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TSN Soccer Analyst

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There is a charm about this season’s Premier League campaign that hasn’t graced the division for many years. The charm of unpredictability. For a long time now the English top flight has been considered the most entertaining league in world football.  Ratings, television budgets and attendances all prove this to be true. It had become appointment viewing for fans across the globe even when a monopoly existed amongst a handful of teams when competing for the top spots.

This season we have seen bigger clubs struggle to reach elite levels consistently while the middle class of the Premier League have unquestionably improved, with many using their increased revenues much more wisely to attract players of a higher quality. All of this has made the league even more compelling for many neutrals. Of course the sport isn’t really catered to neutrals at all, with fans always having a team, but when watching a game that doesn’t feature their own side supporters are being rewarded with more surprising results.

The woes of the reigning champions Chelsea has already made it more than likely that last season’s top four will not be the same top four come the end of the season. In the 2014-15 season Chelsea, Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United surprised no one by occupying the Champions League spots after combining to win 88 of 128 games against the other 16 teams (a 67 per cent win ratio). This season those four have combined for just 37 wins from 76 matches (48 per cent). The current top four of Arsenal, Leicester City, Man City and Tottenham’s win ratio against the other teams is also below last season’s top four rate at 61 per cent.

The ongoing problems at Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford have allowed others to take advantage and if the current top four remain through the end of the season it will be the first time since the 1995-96 season that two teams who didn’t finish in the previous campaign’s top four do so the next year.

The last time that happened the league was a very different place. Blackburn, Man Utd, Nottingham Forest and Liverpool were top four sides from 1994-95 in a 42 game league while Chelsea and Arsenal were mid-table teams finishing 11th and 12th. Only United and Liverpool made it back to the top four in 1995-96, along with Newcastle and Aston Villa, and in the first ever Premier League featuring 20 teams - 38 games apiece - the top four that year combined to get 294 total points. That was the start of six successive seasons where the top four didn’t combine for more than 300 points. It was an era of competitive balance that we have rarely seen since. In the last 14 seasons only twice has the big four scored less than 300 (2002-03, 2010-11) and in back-to-back years from 2007 to 2009 they peaked at 331 points during a time when English clubs were dominant in the Champions League. 

A 2009 column in The Guardian wrote: “In the past four seasons, the Premier League has provided nine of the 16 Champions League semifinalists, five of the finalists and two of the winners. Spain, in the same period, has yielded three semifinalists, Italy two and the Netherlands one. There is little reason to believe the hegemony will not continue.”

Time has since proven them wrong. The column looked at a number of reasons for the dominance and near the top of their list, behind money, was continuity and competitiveness. “Perhaps, the biggest advantage they have had is for the past five seasons the same four clubs have qualified for the Champions League. That gives English sides greater financial clout, a greater sense of security and greater experience of European competition.”

Months on from that piece three English clubs made the 2008-09 Champions League semifinals to make it 12 from 20 over a five-year run between 2004-2009. Little changed between 2009 and now in terms of who represented the Premier League in the Champions League but everything else has. Of the 24 semifinalists since only three have been English. European football has changed and the era has been influenced heavily by Pep Guardiola and Barcelona with goals per game increasing almost by half a goal a game. Many of the world’s best players now make a living in Spain and Germany, two powerhouses of European football domestically and internationally. 

No longer giants, English football is now vulnerable with Italy breathing down their necks hoping to take a slot off them in the Champions League within the next three seasons. Privately, there will be concerns if two teams enter the Champions League next season with little experience in that competition.

English football in the last half decade may have had a tough time in Europe but domestically the Premier League has gone from strength to strength riding a media wave and thriving in an on-demand world. This season is a great example of it with many calling it the best they have seen. Beneath the surface and the hyperbole, however, a significant issue related to their poor play in Europe is developing quickly. The standard of football maybe entertaining and unpredictable but it is lacking real quality.

This past weekend Manchester City strolled to a win over Crystal Palace but the 4-0 scoreline flattered Manuel Pellegrini’s men who spent much of the game stuck in second gear after being handed two first half goals. Yes, there were great moments when David Silva and Sergio Aguero combined beautifully with a sensational 1-2 on the edge of the box before halftime and the five-player move to score their fourth was marvellous but in between they again left us all wanting more. Injuries haven’t helped City - Aguero and Silva are still not 100 per cent - but they are still a side full of brilliant individuals without an identity still searching for their best shape. Pellegrini opted for a narrow 4-4-2 on Saturday with playmakers Silva and Kevin De Bruyne asked to occupy wide positions. They got the result but few times did they really get in behind a poor Palace side. It is little wonder Pep Guardiola is likely to come in to start a new era because even if they win this season’s Premier League for the third time in the last five seasons they will still be considered collective underachievers.

Liverpool against Manchester United on Sunday was billed as one of the fixtures of the season and it began with great anticipation and excitement. Then the whistle blew to start the match. For 90 minutes these past titans of English football showed exactly what can happen when mediocre teams full of average players can meet. It was dreadful. There was little star power or moments of genuine quality in a match full of misplaced passes played predominantly between both penalty areas. United won the game with their only shot on target while the game’s only world class player, David De Gea, rightfully was awarded the man of the match award after a couple of outstanding saves. In a season lacking moments of elite play it has been in goal that the league continues to shine. De Gea, Thibaut Courtois, Hugo Lloris, Joe Hart and Petr Cech are all amongst the world’s best at their position. Arsenal’s Cech was brilliant again on Sunday, producing two fine saves to deny Joselu at Stoke, and preserve an important point for an underwhelming Arsenal side that also lacked real quality on the day. The Gunners, with Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil, have presented us with high levels of play more than most but injuries robbed us of seeing them this past weekend. 

This is the price English football pays when it demands so many games from its stars and it should come as no surprise that the standards seem so low following such a busy period. Sanchez, Ozil, along with the likes of Aguero and Silva, offer signs of hope that standards can improve during the final four months but while we wait for them all to fully recover it has become all too clear that the Premier League may be great but inside it there are no great teams and very few great players.