Louis van Gaal, who is never afraid to vent with his opinions, was not amused when he heard that Gary Neville, who is never afraid to vent his opinions, said it is going to resemble a pub match when Manchester United take on Liverpool at Old Trafford on Sunday. Of course, this tried-and-trusted formula is just part of a show in which we are all willing participants: legend-turned-pundit airs damning criticism of his old side after a flat performance, straight-faced journalists innocently bring this up in the post-match press conference, unamused manager hits out at legend-turned-pundit in the heat of the moment, journalists get easy line and rejoice, and eventually after some mild back and forth about who was right everyone moves on to the next non-talking point. That’s football, baby! Or is it showbiz? It can be hard to keep up.
Yet Neville’s throwaway line about pub sides after United’s slightly fortunate win over Southampton on Monday night may have struck a chord with anyone who has been underwhelmed by the quality of the Premier League so far, to the extent that a feeling is growing that this could be the worst season ever, which will be a kick in the gut for anyone whose job is telling us what a wonderful league it really is.
Alan Parry, the excitable Sky Sports commentator, will have to ratchet up the hyperbole even more now although he will struggle to top his introduction to last month’s match between Aston Villa and Southampton, when he announced that a Southampton win would be a formality in any other league in the world but not in the Premier League, the best league in the world, the only league where you could hope to see a struggling side beat one near the top of the table. The final score was 1-1.
The struggles of English sides in the Champions League indicate the level of competition has deteriorated in the past few years. The Premier League had at least two semi-finalists in the Champions League between 2005 and 2009 (apart from 2006 when only Arsenal made it to the last four) and both finalists in 2008 when United beat Chelsea on penalties in Moscow. Liverpool failed to qualify from their group this season and Manchester City only went through after winning their last two games. The old guarantees no longer exist. Equally, though, Chelsea can be considered third favourites for the Champions League behind Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and after City found their way past Roma on Wednesday night, the presence of Sergio Agüero in their attack means they cannot be discounted altogether in a knock-out competition.
It is true there was a glaring lack of cohesive play when fourth met fifth at St Mary’s on Monday night. Although United’s victory lifted them up to third place, eight points behind Chelsea, there was not much beyond their resilience and the finishing of Robin van Persie to admire about a performance that hardly suggested a side that has been put together at great expense is capable of challenging for the title this season. United have not been playing well, their passing sloppy and their makeshift defence doing little to inspire confidence, but their attacking options are formidable and their main rivals for a place in the top four have all started slowly. Arsenal are stuck in a rut of immaturity, Liverpool are flailing without Luis Suárez and Daniel Sturridge, Tottenham Hotspur have been fitful under Mauricio Pochettino and Everton are having a Europa League season.
Yet this self-loathing does no one any good. At some point, Arsenal will probably gather themselves, do their Arsenal thing and finish fourth. But for the time being the failures of the same old faces has arguably given the league a new lease of life, allowing less fashionable sides like Newcastle, Southampton, Swansea and West Ham to emerge from the shadows – they do not have as much money as the usual suspects but they are giving them a salutary lesson in patient, intelligent team-building.
We should not turn up our noses simply because we are not accustomed to seeing Southampton and West Ham riding this high in December. Both are good sides and remember it is not so long ago that there were complaints about the top four being a closed shop. Perhaps it will still turn out that way but you cannot ask for more unpredictability and then complain when you get it.
That aside, what makes a season exciting? The quality may have dipped but that does not mean we will have to live without drama. In the 2010-11 and 2012-13 seasons, United won the league on auto-Ferguson but this year’s title race has been re-energised by Chelsea’s slips in the north-east, assuming City can survive without Agüero in the coming weeks. The battle for third and fourth place could be as open as it has ever been while no side has been cut adrift at the bottom. Even Leicester, who have not won in 10 matches, have hope and Burnley did not look like relegation fodder during their 2-0 defeat at Queens Park Rangers on Saturday.
One argument against the Premier League is that its elite players head to Barcelona and Madrid, with Suárez the latest star to leave for Spain, yet that is hardly a new phenomenon and it would be wrong to say there is a dearth of talent in England. While the best players are mostly found at Chelsea and City, there is a more even spread of talent below them than in the past: players like Alex Song at West Ham and Bojan Krkic at Stoke are worth paying money to see and they have both been crucial in wins over the leading teams. They do not belong in pub teams.
Admittedly there is an air of inevitability about the sides in the top two positions but we always knew that Chelsea and City, with their billionaire owners, would be the ones to beat and it is hard to see how that differs from the situation in the Bundesliga and La Liga. In Spain, Barcelona and Madrid have carved it up between themselves for years, at least until the Atlético Madrid miracle last season, no one is capable of challenging Bayern in Germany and it is unlikely that anyone will stop Juventus from winning their fourth consecutive Serie A title. In that context, the Premier League does not seem that bad or, indeed, that it is the only league with problems to resolve.
