As the English Premier League kicks off on Saturday, there’s more money, more hype, and more expensive imported players than ever before. Yet even before a ball’s been kicked, everyone knows there are only four teams that can realistically hope to lift the title. Most bets will be on Chelsea or Manchester United, with Arsenal and Liverpool having settled into the roles of secondary favorites at best.
The BBC’s 2008-09 season preview takes a less jaded view, promising “nine months of entertainment and top-class action from the most exciting league in the world.” Given that they no longer own the TV rights to live Premier League games, that’s a generous prognosis. Every one of the league’s 20 managers pretty much knows in advance what his expectations are, and those of the supporters too. Most of those managers will promise fans little more than respectability and survival, while making statutory noises about a Cup run or a push for a UEFA Cup place.
Unusually, reigning champion Manchester United made no big moves on the transfer market over the summer, despite a drawn out attempt to woo Tottenham’s Dimitar Berbatov that may still end with the Bulgarian striker’s arrival at Old Trafford for a fee likely in excess of $60 million. Not that its squad desperately needs strengthening, but successful teams tend to rebuild while still at their peak. As ever, the expectation will be for a third successive league title amid a serious push towards the later stages of the Champions League.
Those goals also apply to Chelsea, who in the face of stiff competition from United remain England’s most reviled club. The seemingly unlimited and debatably dubious wealth of its owner, Roman Abramovich, has lured Portuguese duo Deco and Jose Bosingwa to west London for a combined fee of around $50 million, as well as setting up Frank Lampard on a weekly wage that will keep him out the soup kitchen for a year or two yet. New coach Jose Felipe Scolari, who under no circumstances wishes to be addressed as “Big Phil,” has promised the more enterprising style of play that Abramovich reportedly wishes to see from his weekend plaything.
Liverpool’s hopes of recapturing its glory years of the 1970s and 80s become more tarnished with each repeat season of underachievement. Its summer was dominated by a failure to sign Aston Villa’s Gareth Barry, and although its strike duo of Fernando Torres and new signing Robbie Keane will undoubtedly score highlight-reel goals by the hatful and guarantee them a top four place, a lack of depth and imagination further back could cost them the ability to mount a serious challenge. Arsenal, meanwhile, will again thrill us with neat and delightful soccer for much of the season, but will not sustain such pretty form into the tiring third trimester.
Tottenham Hotspur has been touted as a potential challenger to the top four, and it’s spent over $85 million on Brazilian goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes, midfielders David Bentley and (Croatian) Luka Modric, and Mexican forward Giovani dos Santos. Euro 2008 star Andrei Arshavin looks like following in what seems like a calculated investment to land Champions League soccer in the medium term. It’s a risky road, but it would be refreshing to see another side in the picture, albeit one that would have bought its way to success. But what other way is there nowadays?
Below that is a pack of big club wannabes where all bets are off. Manchester City (ownership and cash flow issues), Everton (roster and stadium issues) and Newcastle United (unreasonably high expectations issues, and a psychological block when it comes to landing honors) could finish anywhere depending on off-field events, and as such represent an unstable pocket of welcome unpredictability. Aston Villa, under the canny Martin O’Neill, and still boasting Gareth Barry, will finish in the top six. Safe mid-standings bets include FA Cup winners Portsmouth, Middlesbrough (it’s in the name), and Blackburn.
For the rest, it’s probably a question of achieving survival for another season of lucrative TV money. Newcomers Stoke City and Hull City have been penciled in by most pundits to go straight back down in the ignominious manner of Derby County. West Bromwich Albion, who bounced straight back up, may have enough experience now to grant them an extra season or two. Fulham, remolded by Roy Hodgson and still featuring Ed Johnson and Clint Dempsey, will hope to be safe from relegation earlier than the season’s final day, the continued patronage of owner Mohamed Al Fayed permitting.
Only the most slavish fans of Bolton Wanderers, West Ham United, Sunderland and Wigan Athletic will be placing bets on their teams to lift silverware next spring, and all will find themselves with plenty of scope to move upward. But predictable as it all may seem on the surface, there will be enough great games and goals to keep us tuned in, either open-mouthed with admiration at what are inarguably some of the world’s best players, or bored paralytic at 90 minutes of physical, long ball attrition when Wigan meet Stoke. While business realities dictate the league’s outcome as much as pace, skill, fitness and determination, we have not yet reached the point where accountants and marketing hacks actually encroach upon the field of play. With reservations, the EPL is still there to be enjoyed.
U.S. players in the EPL:
Brad Guzan and Brad Friedel (both Aston Villa)
Tim Howard (Everton)
Clint Dempsey and Eddie Johnson (both Fulham)
Jonathon Spector (West Ham United)