Guardiola’s quest to animate a City rerun
No team has defended the Premier League crown since Manchester United won its third in a row in 2009. “We have won two titles and both times when we came back there was an edge missing,” Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany said this March. “That is why it is so difficult to retain titles. Only special teams can do it and we have to become that special team this time.”
City certainly has one base covered: a special coach. Under Pep Guardiola, the club swaggered to the 2017-18 championship, playing breathtaking, progressive football. His players seemed to have understood his methods, and the result was unmistakable: 100 points, 32 wins, 106 goals, Premier League records all.
Guardiola’s challenge will be harder in his third season. Opposition teams, having studied City’s play, will have evolved solutions. But the Spaniard is a master of staying ahead of the curve. It will be fascinating to see what he devises.
City seems satisfied with its squad, expensively assembled last season. The only major acquisition is Riyad Mahrez from Leicester City, another line-breaking dribbler recruited to demolish the buses rival teams invariably park.
Finally, a proper title tilt from Liverpool
Since its triumph in 1990 — then the Division 1 championship, not yet the Premier League — Liverpool hasn’t got its hands on the most coveted trophy in English football. The club has finished second four times in 28 seasons, even coming within three points of the title in 2013-14, thanks to a red-hot Luis Suarez.
But for the first time in a very long while, there is genuine excitement at Anfield that the squad has the depth of quality needed to mount a sustained campaign.
Under Jurgen Klopp, the Reds have proven a dynamic, attacking threat — a nightmare for top sides — but there has been the sense that they can be overrun in midfield and exploited in defence.
Liverpool has spent big to address these issues: the costliest defender and goalkeeper at that time (Virgil van Dijk and Alisson), a steely defensive midfielder (Fabinho), and a dynamic, elusive central midfielder (Naby Keita).
On paper, Liverpool looks City’s strongest challenger; indeed, Klopp’s side has already beaten Guardiola’s thrice this year, once in the Premier League and twice in Europe. If Mohamed Salah can reprise his 2017-18 form, the Reds will be in with a sniff. No wonder Klopp said, “I am really looking forward to the season.”
Mourinho and the famous ‘third season syndrome’
Coaches have a sell-by date, and critics of Jose Mourinho — especially those who detest his success — hug themselves in delight when his methods begin to unravel. This has happened thrice before, twice at Chelsea and once at Real Madrid, each time after a triumphant second season.
The mood sours, Mourinho is sullen when addressing the press and says things no club owner wants to hear. The players grow tired of his intense management style. What was ‘special’ becomes ‘toxic’.
All of these signs have been in evidence at Old Trafford (except for a trophy-filled second season). Mourinho’s issues with Paul Pogba remain while his criticism of Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial last season was damaging. Manchester United’s pre-season had more drama: Mourinho lashed out at the club’s owners for the lack of transfer activity, derided his youth players and disparaged others for not cutting short their post-World Cup holiday.
He even went so far as to say he “fears” a difficult season. Another meltdown will be riveting — as will an unexpected resurgence, bucking all odds.
Chelsea’s tryst with Sarri-ball
Chelsea can be credited with a lot of things — particularly over the last 14 years, when it has been the Premier League’s joint-most successful side with five titles (United has five, too). But not even the most ardent admirers of the London club will make the case that it has played beautiful football. It has had eye-catching players, sure, but the club is invested in winning, not in the idea of football as art.
This is set to change with the arrival of Sarri-ball — the attractive, quick-moving, technical style Maurizio Sarri made popular at Napoli. “My goal is to have fun and be competitive,” Sarri has said. “Ours is not a sport, but a game, and anybody who plays a game starts doing that when they are young because it is fun. The child in us must be nurtured because this often makes us the best.”
A far cry, indeed, from the ways of Mourinho and Antonio Conte. But Sarri has his hands full. A tactical overhaul in a new country with a squad unsettled by the transfer window and in need of a prolific goal-scorer is challenging to say the least.
Life after Wenger at Arsenal
North London changed forever when a certain Frenchman announced he was leaving. For 22 years, Arsene Wenger, for all practical purposes, was Arsenal. His departure was felt acutely — even by those who felt it was time he left.
The club’s greatest manager — along with the visionary Herbert Chapman, who made Arsenal a dominant force in the 1930s, revolutionised tactics and championed floodlit football and jersey numbers — Wenger had three distinct periods.
Early Wenger was about unrestrained success: three Premier League titles (including the Invincibles season), four FA Cups and four Community Shields. Then came the move to Emirates Stadium and a tightening of the belt: Le Professeur had to manage on a shoestring budget and make the Champions League every season to keep Arsenal afloat. And finally, a return to trophies (three FA Cups and Community Shields in five years) as the debt was all but paid off and top talent could be bought again.
But pressure mounted in this final period, as Arsenal wasn’t seen to be competing for the Premier League. The fan-base divided, and Wenger had no option but to move on.
The club appears to have handled the transition adeptly, hiring some of Europe’s finest administrative staff and a world-class coach in Unai Emery. But as the post-Ferguson era at United has shown, vacuums take time filling.
Tottenham’s Wenger years under Pochettino
As much as Spurs fans hate being compared with Arsenal, they find themselves where their North London neighbours were in 2005: servicing the debt of a new stadium. Fortunately, Tottenham is perhaps better placed. There’s more television money in the game these days and Mauricio Pochettino has shown he can put out world-beating teams by developing the players he has at his disposal.
Besides, Harry Kane, one of Europe’s finest sharp-shooters, will stay and play; a prolific goal-scorer papers over many cracks.
Spurs will need all of Pochettino’s tactical ingenuity to keep up with their bigger-spending rivals, but it will be no easy task. There’s frustration about the lack of transfer activity, something Gunner fans from 10 years ago can relate to.
There’s also unrest about the lack of trophies. Arsenal went trophy-less from 2006 to 2013, but there was light either side of this tunnel. Pochettino is yet to win a trophy of any denomination while Spurs have a mere two League Cups in the last 25 years. A triumph in any of the four competitions Tottenham is in will be something to behold.
The never-ending possession debate
Every season, at least one gormless expert pronounces that possession isn’t all it’s cracked up to be — that all this tippy-tappy stuff doesn’t wash in England — and that champion teams are counter-attacking units that have less of the ball.
There’s plenty wrong with all of those claims. Possession, as Guardiola among others have pointed out, is a means to the end, not an end in itself; it’s also an excellent defensive ploy: you can’t score when I have the ball.
Besides, a possession-rich team can still be ruthless on counters: Wenger’s Arsenal at the turn of the millennium and Pellegrini’s City, to name just two, were comfortable with the ball but also explosive on the break.
But the least intelligent of the claims, because it’s so easy to cross-check the numbers, is that champion sides have less of the ball. Over the last 12 seasons, only Leicester (42.4%) had less than 55% possession. The other outlier is Guardiola’s City (71.2%). All other champion sides had between 55 and 60% of the ball.
What will the numbers say this season? And will the experts blither on regardless?
An underdog uprising
Leicester and Burnley have shown over the last three seasons that it’s possible to dream in an unforgiving, dog-eat-dog world.
Six top clubs may be fighting for four Champions League spots and the scramble to avoid the drop in the bottom half is particularly poignant, but there’s still room for a bolter that comes out of nowhere.
Although Leicester’s fairytale run all the way to the trophy is unlikely to be replicated, the excitement of an uncelebrated side punching well above its weight is one of the warmest feelings in sport.
The fortunes of Wolverhampton Wanderers, Cardiff City and Fulham — the three promoted clubs — will be followed; if any of them pulls down a giant, the tremors will be felt.
Manuel Pellegrini’s West Ham, which has positioned itself as a resurgent club with its signings, and Rafael Benitez’s Newcastle, which followed its promotion with a solid 10th-place finish, will fancy their chances of causing a stir or two.
