While it was exciting for a while and, with five teams still in with a mathematical chance of taking the title, I suppose in some ways still is, one cannot escape the feeling that this year’s Premier League season is conforming to an increasingly familiar script.
Earlier in the year, journalists across Europe were lauding what was the most exciting season in Premier League history, pointing to Chelsea and Liverpool’s respective slides and the emergence of Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City as genuine title contenders as signs that nothing can be taken for granted in a league once dominated by the same four sides.
Chelsea still in with a shout
For a while, we believed. We believed that someone, be they hard-working Spurs or big-spending City, could come along and upset a league which has only yet been won by four clubs. We believed that Arsenal, so long patronised as the talented but immature kids in a crowd dominated by been-there-done-thats, could finally find it in themselves to mount a serious challenge. We believed that, after managerial turmoil and three successive Manchester United championships were cast aside in 2010, Carlo Ancelotti had restored Chelsea to an overpowering force in English football.
For a while, we believed that this would be a season to remember. In many ways it has been; we have seen Dimitar Berbatov bag five at Blackburn, Wayne Rooney’s dramatic contract U-turn, a 26-game unbeaten run, the emergence of world-class talent in Gareth Bale and Javier Hernandez, minnows Blackpool wreaking havoc amongst the more established boys, the return to management of a Kenny Daglish, whose God-like status on the red side of Liverpool is bettered only by that held by the Beatles. If even. On paper, it has been one for the history books and gossip columns alike.
That said, does no one else get the feeling that the bigger picture of the business end of the season, supposedly the most exciting portion by its very nature, has become formulaic, upsettingly familiar, and just a little dull? I certainly do.
I will start with Arsenal, perhaps the most culpable in that regard. Bereft of the experience and know-how of the 2003-2004 ‘Invincibles’ for some time, save, of course, the recent return of Jens ‘Prodigal Son’ Lehman, in recent years we have watched as Arsene Wenger builds a talented squad of youngsters, challenge United and Chelsea and even the lead the table for a few weeks, before self-imploding when the pressure is on. Every year since the likes of Vieira, Henry, and Ljungberg moved on to pastures more lucrative, we have watched Arsenal’s formulaic rise and fall and patted them on the back when it all went wrong with pacifying assurances that they were the one to watch next year.
Until recently, it looked as if Wenger had finally turned his side into men. Key to their impressive maintenance of a title challenge were the likes of Samir Nasri and Robin Van Persie, who have brought real potency to a well-rounded side. When Barcelona laid down the gauntlet in the Emirates last month, they stood up to the challenge and sent Los Ché back home with their tails uncharacteristically tucked between their legs.
Their real challenge, however, was finishing the job in Camp Nou. It must be said that no team can be criticised for letting slip an advantage against the deistic entity of world football that is Lionel Messi’s Barcelona, but such a morale-sapping defeat when expectations were so high coincided with an extremely disheartening capitulation in four competitions.
Not for the first time in recent years, Arsenal managed to get so far in the Champions’ League, the Premier League, the League Cup, and the FA Cup before a devastating period of two weeks saw the most almighty of downfalls. One has to wonder how a side so lacking in the experience of the likes of Manchester United and Chelsea can pick themselves up after a disastrous showing in all competitions. While Arsenal’s Premier League form is not dreadful in itself, a few blips have come during a period in which the previously unbeaten Manchester United lost three Premier League games and Arsenal have absolutely failed to take the full advantage that a better-placed Chelsea might have taken a few years ago. Ironically, United seem to have come out of this difficult patch better off than Arsenal; while the Red Devils look to have gotten failure out of their system, for Arsenal failure looks systematic.
Five points ahead of Arsenal in first place and everyone’s Marmite United, who are also reading from a well-known script. So well-known is this act bizarrely entitled ‘squeaky-bum time’ that journalists can take it as understood once the end-of-season run begins. Recently, United have been nowhere near their best and no one can rightly claim that they have, but we can already see familiar patterns emerging.
Manchester United are seasoned veterans at this stage of the season
It is a definite mark of the measure of Sir Alex Ferguson that United are still characterised by a never-say-die self belief which has been with us from the days of Steve Bruce’s two 96th-minute headers against Sheffield Wednesday, through the astonishing fulfillment f Clive Tyldesly’s now famous ‘Can Manchester United score? They always score!‘ in Barcelona in 1999, right up to Berbatov’s last-gasp winner against Bolton last weekend. This is a side who never know when they are beaten and have the length of tooth to see themselves home.
Furthermore, we have seen much more of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes in recent weeks than we have at any stage of the season. As usual, Ferguson is turning to the old heads to instill calmness and composure into his charges at a time when the pressure is at its greatest. This has been written so many times that it is almost stock journalism for this stage of the season but the importance of those two characters cannot be stressed enough. That said, the likes of Rooney, Michael Carrick, Edwin van der Sar, Nemaja Vidic, Darren Fletcher have all been around for three league titles with United, with John O’ Shea and Rio Ferdinand having lifted four and Wes Brown seven.
So, with all this repetition in mind, is it really that bad that we have Manchester City blindly pumping cash into their side? Roberto Mancini’s recruitment policy is frequently maligned for its excessive nature, but I am certainly of the opinion that in terms of enduring entertainment, the league can only eventually benefit from a ‘throw paint at a wall and see what sticks’ approach. Who knows, in a few years Mancini could stumble across a bit of title-winnng experience and cause a real tumult of interest at the end of the season.
All in all, we are in for a fairly repetitive end to the season as the two main contenders fulfill their usual requirements. Arsenal will desperately try to catch up as United try to hold on to their lead and rely on their experience to see them home. I think it just about will, but wouldn’t it be nice to see a late title surge from Stoke or something similarly unexpected for once?
