Frontlines: Twists & Turns Ahead

Here we go then, headlong into another nine-month roller-coaster of intrigue, drama and suspense, with appetites already whetted by the finest World Cup since 1994 (at least). England’s top flight offers an immeasurably more satisfying contest now than it did ten years ago, with five teams that have to be included on any list of potential winners, and another couple (Everton, Spurs) who aren’t a million miles off cracking the elite.

All eyes seem to be focused right now on the team who finished seventh last time out, the crumbling Manchester United empire. Abrasive Dutch maverick Louis van Gaal has assumed command, the idea being that his single-mindedness, fanatical devotion to detail and colossal ego will signal a clean break from the timidity of David Moyes’ ill-fated reign.
I’ve defended Moyes before: Sir Alex Ferguson had bequeathed him a squad whose key operators were plainly well past their peak, with wholly inadequate replacements available. Even so, the scale of the meltdown was beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings. The aura of invincibility vaporised overnight; teams began to relish coming to Old Trafford rather than fearing for their lives; the 97th-minute stoppage-time winners dried up totally (or went in at the other end) and the man in charge seemed powerless to halt the slide.
Luck plays its part. Robin van Persie’s goals had fired United to the title the previous season. But this time round he was injured and out of sorts – and without him, the shelves were surprisingly bare up front, with Danny Welbeck disenchanted, Wayne Rooney hit-and-miss, Wilfred Zaha clearly not trusted, and Javier Hernandez forgotten. The midfield has basically been a gigantic black hole since Father Time caught up with Giggs and Scholes – but it isn’t as if United didn’t have years to identify their replacements. Instead, creative responsibilities were left to Michael Carrick and Tom Cleverley. Juan Mata’s mid-season arrival made little impact, and with Rio and Vidic beginning to show signs of wear-and-tear, the team looked leaderless as well as gravely lacking in real quality.
The good news for the Red Devils’ estimated five billion fans is that it won’t get any worse. One massive factor in their favour is that, by way of reward for missing out on the top six, United have no European competition whatsoever to distract them. Liverpool’s startling progress last year can’t be ascribed entirely to their having Thursday nights free, but there’s no doubt it was a gigantic help. Playing 40-odd games a season as opposed to 55 or 60 bestows a mighty advantage in terms of squad freshness as the season wears on.
Having to trek to the Ukraine and back on Thursday nights for the largely unloved, grossly over-populated Europa League is an ordeal that every leading club would prefer to do without, and it’s conceivable therefore that United could mount a title challenge. Still, I suspect it will take a lot more than a few months to reshape this team into a force capable of winning week-in, week-out. Van Gaal is already the subject of truly embarrassing levels of veneration from sections of the Red Devils faithful, who clearly crave a strong father figure (post-Fergie daddy issues, perhaps?). To listen to some of them, you’d think that van Gaal not only invented the football, he can walk on water, heal the sick and single-handedly command the sun to shine. The reality is that he inherits a team who finished 15 entire points off the Champions League places.
About the only impressive thing about last season was the way the fans largely stuck by Moyes, going some way towards exploding the spoilt/fair-weather stereotype. Van Gaal is still in the honeymoon period, and is likely to get generous latitude from the fans. But on pure player quality, United look like a team that will finish fifth this year. That will hardly be enough to satisfy either the fans or the board.
As for the title race, with United cautiously discounted, there’s a shortlist of four: Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal. (Spurs, at a stretch, could break the door down if their second-year players find their feet. New manager Mauricio Pocchetino looked the real deal at Southampton, but over the course of a full season, I suspect they’ll be about 10-15 points away from title contention).
Liverpool’s situation is in some ways the inverse of United’s. Sharp-fanged talisman Luis Suarez has gone, his psychotic episode at the World Cup having bitten quite a chunk out of a transfer value that had been estimated around the E100million mark. Unquestionably one of the world’s four or five best players, Suarez is prodigiously talented and in many ways irreplaceable, but the correct move was to cash in on a serial offender who you always sense is one temper-tantrum away from earning himself a lifetime ban. Pool have shelled out (in many cases over the odds) on a largely youthful crew of replacements to replenish a squad which, for long stretches last season, was playing irresistibly fluent attacking football. The problem was at the other end: Pool’s defence was not up to scratch, shipping 50 goals (more than Crystal Palace), with a few disastrous lapses from Sakho, Kolo Toure and the like. And yet, they came very, very close to winning it all purely by virtue of out-scoring the rest.
Steven Gerrard, whose banana-skin moment against Chelsea will pass into legend as the season’s defining image, has returned for another stab at glory, as the sands of time begin to run out on the 34-year-old’s hopes of winning a League title. It’s possible that he may be carrying psychological baggage from the enormity of last season’s disappointment, but more likely he’ll continue to win games and influence matches on a very regular basis. Despite the addition of Dejan Lovren, more defensive reinforcements would not go amiss, but there seems enough depth in the squad to cope with the demands of European combat. I would not be in the least bit shocked if Liverpool equal or better their performance levels of last season.
Chelsea have done by far the best business of the top contenders. Selling David Luiz for fifty million was a stroke of genius, virtually covering the combined cost of Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas. The former is a powerhouse, aerially dominant centre-forward who looks tailor-made for the English game; the latter is already a proven performer in English football, a magician week-in week-out for Arsenal before his 2011 departure. Cesc is still only 27, at his peak and with a point to prove after being largely a supporting actor at Barca. He will encounter zero difficulty adjusting to either the city or the league.
The problem for Chelsea is up top, where last season a threadbare roster of strikers (Torres, Samuel Eto’o and Demba Ba) was hopelessly ill-equipped, ensuring that Chelsea had to fight tooth and nail for most of their wins. Mourinho appears to have decided that the solution is to be found in the ageing limbs of Didier Drogba. Though frequently magnificent on the biggest occasions, Drogba isn’t the sort who will bring his A-game every week (they finished sixth in the table in what was thought to be his final season). Still, the arrival of Costa should ensure that they aren’t quite as barren in front of goal, and any points anyone takes from them will be hard-earned, so the Blues certainly can’t be dismissed.
Arsenal fans sound fairly optimistic. Alexis Sanchez’ arrival, combined with last year’s capture of Mesut Ozil, suggests that Arsene Wenger’s notorious reluctance to splash out has modulated a little, and the Gunners will certainly be a pleasure to watch. They will likely flatten weaker teams on a regular basis: the problem, as it has been for a long time, will be getting the better of their direct rivals. Nothing about Arsenal’s back four suggests that they will be in any way more resolute this year, and there is no reason to think they are any better equipped to take down Chelsea or City this time out. It sounds dismissive, but it seems these days you can almost rely on the Gunners playing lots of wonderful football while finishing in fourth place.
Title prediction, then? Well, for two of the last three seasons, I’ve stuck my hard-earned on Manchester City (the exception, happily, being the season they didn’t win it) while taking great care not to be too cocky about it, and electing not to declare it in print in case it put some sort of hex on our chances. But this year, I’m more confident than ever about City’s chances (and gobsmacked to see them trading at 12/5 against).
Manuel Pellegrini was just settling into the hot seat last year, and there were quite a few early-season setbacks, leaving City in a position of playing catch-up. Even then, it was starkly apparent (especially on home soil) that City at their best were capable of hitting levels many light-years removed from anyone else in England. Their better performances (4-1 and 3-0 wins over United, a 6-3 stroll over Arsenal, 6-0 and 5-1 demolitions of Spurs, 7-0 against Norwich) illustrated that this team is in a stratosphere of its own. The problem was consistency, and occasionally concentration: shoddy efforts at places like Cardiff and Sunderland made the task tricker than it should have been.
I’m expecting City to hit the ground running this time. I expect us to forge an early lead, which gets steadily bigger as the season progresses, possibly to the point of finishing roughly 10 points clear of the pack. I have a suspicion Liverpool may again be the most formidable challengers, with Chelsea a close-ish third and Arsenal a slightly more distant fourth, which (if I’m correct) would mean an exact replication of the 1-2-3-4 pecking order from last season.
But of course there will be twists and turns aplenty. Bring it on!