Man Utd, undoubtedly one of the world’s best teams, have not only been humiliated at home but have also allowed more shots on their goal this season than any other team. Manchester City look good but are struggling on their maiden Champions League excursion, Chelsea are aging at an alarming rate, Liverpool look as mediocre as ever despite spending vast sums of money and Arsenal are going to get worse before they get better. Can we say that any of our teams would beat Spain’s top two at the moment? Or Bayern Munich?
Times have changed
I’m not saying that I expect the Premier League champions each year to reach the points totals that were possible even five years ago but you do expect our clubs to use this competitive nature in our league to better themselves. The old guard need to rise to the challenge of the up and coming teams. They need to progress and they need to reach the high standards that Barcelona and Real Madrid are setting. Otherwise we run the risk of merely swapping teams at the top like Man City for clubs like Arsenal. That doesn’t make the league competitive it just means a change in era. Our league is the most watched in the world because of the style of football and because we have the best teams, or should.
This could be our most exciting Premiership season yet, but is it for all the wrong reasons? I’m not saying for one minute that Man Utd are a team in decline or that the Premier League is getting worse. What I am saying is that teams like Man Utd and Arsenal and Liverpool have been stagnating for years now and they need to use the rise of other teams as a catalyst to push them back to the top. Have Man Utd really been that good since Tevez and Ronaldo left? Is their defence good enough? Have Arsenal ever recovered from the loss of their Henry/Vieira/Bergkamp generation?
It would be interesting to consider if teams such as Man City and Tottenham had not progressed whether our top teams would actually be better? Certainly there has been a dilution of the best players available to the top clubs, the market is tough and the top clubs have to fight hard amongst each other for the players thy want. Ultimately it comes to the question of how many teams can we have competing for the top before the standard of those top teams has to be watered down? And would we rather watch the most competitive league in the world or watch the best teams in the world?
The article was written by Hamish Mackay for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.
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