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Decadence and indiscriminate big-spending mean Premier League could be all but finished by Christmas
Extreme wealth has warped the judgment of the league's big clubs who are under pressure to spray-spend £100m each summer

Regression is the trend for many of the Premier League’s big clubs this autumn as extreme wealth warps judgments in the transfer market and the religion of ‘entertaining’ football veers towards self-brainwashing.

By Paul Hayward10:25AM GMT 10 Nov 2014

Fans of a certain vintage will look at the table today and see the 1970s, when Derby County, Ipswich Town and Nottingham Forest were all contenders.

Among those going backwards after 11 games are teams we have come to see as automatic top-six citizens: Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool, Manchester City (six wins from 11 matches) and arguably Manchester United, who spent £150 million this summer to arrest last season’s alarming decline.

This pattern is unlikely to last until May, when greater squad depth and urgent regrouping will have pushed the rich back towards the top. But the natural order is taking mighty blows and Arsenal and Tottenham in particular are deeply flawed. Mauricio Pochettino is the second consecutive Spurs manager to cast doubt on the “mentality” of the club’s players while Arsenal are starting to look like dilettantes again.

Southampton and West Ham United, both in the top four, have endeavoured to add match-winning and crowd-pleasing talent without abandoning defensive structure – which is not just about the back four blocking well. Arsenal are the prime example of a side whose midfielders seem to think it would be vulgar to help out a full-back or centre-half.

At Swansea on Sunday, poor Calum Chambers was torn to shreds by Jefferson Montero and nothing was done to help him, either by Arsène Wenger, the manager, or Arsenal’s midfielders, who spent much of the game dancing the ball back to the opposition.

Each struggling club have their specific narrative.

Manchester City’s reverses in Europe have corroded the team’s confidence and Manuel Pellegrini’s light-touch management appears unsuited to a group of players who relaxed after their previous Premier League title win, in 2012.

But deeper trends are emerging. In the Champions League, England’s four representatives have won five of their 16 group stage outings. For the world’s richest league this is a disturbing ratio, mirrored by their Premier League form (Chelsea excepted).

Football’s marriage to PlayStation styles of play has heaped pressure on scouts and recruiters to favour showbiz players. In Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona target proven individual world-class talent to add to a strong existing base.

In England, Spurs attempt to replace Gareth Bale with seven mid-ranking names and Liverpool fill the void left by Luis Suárez by gambling on quantity more than quality. At £20 million, Lazar Markovic is less laser than flickering candle.

In panic mode, United signed Radamel Falcao and Ángel Di María, adding only Daley Blind and Marcos Rojo (after Luke Shaw) to a defensive unit coming out of the Rio Ferdinand-Nemanja Vidic era.

The big clubs spend big and indiscriminately simply because they can. They gamble in the £10 million-£30 million range, mostly on forwards and midfielders, few of whom seem to see themselves as parts of an 11-man organism, attacking and defending as one.

The exception, naturally, is Chelsea, where Jose Mourinho has won his battle to make Eden Hazard, Oscar and Willian play with rear-view mirrors, while adding rigour with Cesc Fabregas and Nemanja Matic. Wenger, whose team are 12 points behind the leaders already, says: “Look at the season and Chelsea are on course for 105 points.” Diego Costa, the buy of the summer, has scored 10 in nine league games.

Chelsea now have Matic in a defensive screening role, but no other Premier League behemoth can say they have acquired major defensive ballast, or supplemented individual world-class talent across the back line. City signed Eliaquim Mangala but after a bright start he developed culture shock.

The less glamorous clubs can now see that Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal and Manchester United are no longer hard to score against. Swansea (who are fifth), the so-called mini-Arsenal, made a policy decision to be tougher in their own third of the field, because they saw how much they could gain with a better balance between defence and attack.

So decadence is undermining some of the big names. The pressure to spray-spend £100 million each summer is not yielding good results. It brings problems of balance and integration. It turns the heat on managers if the first 10 results are underwhelming.

And it plays to a delusion English football is increasingly falling prey to. The paranoia is that unless games are emotionally exhausting and aesthetically thrilling, rotten fruit will be lobbed by fans and pundits.

At the summit, Mourinho is showing Premier League clubs how to advance and retreat as a single fighting force. Chelsea are in another galaxy to the rest. Premier League campaigns are not meant to be over by Christmas – but this one threatens to be.

The fun bit is the glimpse of the 1970s: the imagined democracy. If money is undermining some of the big clubs now it will probably save them in the end. Southampton, ram-raided by wealthier clubs in the summer, recruited shrewdly, and stoked the academy fires once more.

Saints and Hammers in the top four, though, is refreshing for those of us who fell in love with football in the 1970s. Regression at the top brings a retro look to the table. For now.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...e-could-be-all-but-finished-by-Christmas.html
 
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psk2310 said:
Look at the La Liga table & how close it is from #1 through #7. Atleti could still win it especially since Barca is in flux & Perez only seems to be concerned with the CL.



Cracker of a golazo from Sneijder...
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Real Madrid with 42 goals already
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Is it possible to get up and out of the FIFA umbrella? Like if the FA just said "you guys are a joke, peace". I think other top countries would follow suit. There's got to be a breaking point.
 
For those asking about the Remembrance Day poppies.






Also for the Gooners, there is a great new coffee table book on the history of the [COLOR=#red]Arsenal strip called The Arsenal Shirt: The History of the Iconic Gunners Jersey Told Through an Extraordinary Collection of Match Worn Shirts[/COLOR]. Saw a great feature on NBC's Premier League World regarding the book which was just released.

View media item 1259080
 
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Let's see if Garcia gets more of the report released. Obviously there's something not being told by FIFA, but I can't help but feel it's nothing damning.
 
When you have Qatar, Russia, & FIFA working together against you, no more will come of the investigation.

:{ @ Putin who will begin sending long range Russian bombers to patrol the Gulf Of Mexico & the Caribbean... :x
 
I didn't read up on for the details in the story, just saw the headline.

Did the computers really get destroyed? :x :lol
 
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