The English Premier League has always been an environment like no other, long has it been heralded a league where anything can happen. Of course this stamp of optimism is usually assigned to the less than likely teams after an early season spike in form, or when Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy is linked with a move to Real Madrid…
In 1995, Blackburn rovers lifted the premier league trophy on the final day of the season due to Manchester United being held to a draw at West Ham. A year when Blackburn rovers broke the premier league record, signing Chris Sutton from Norwich for five million pounds.
You may argue that top-flight Football was different twenty years ago; maybe you could discount the number of overseas investors that were willing to inject ten billion pounds into a Manchester city or Chelsea?
The truth is that after all the money is spent, the title race will come down to just a couple of factors; How many goals a team concedes and how many goals a team scores. The latter usually being the deciding factor in most premier league seasons, during the 94/95-season Blackburn won the league scoring eighty goals and they conceded only thirty-nine. In the 09/10 season Chelsea where crowned champions scoring one hundred and nine goals and only conceded a tiny thirty-two, the trend continues to be true.
What do the millions buy you? Could any striker in the premier league have scored a winner against QPR just as Sergio Aguero did a couple of years ago – probably?
This season, Chelsea have already conceded nineteen goals from ten games, if the premier league were judged purely on those figures they would firmly be in the bottom three.
If we consider the time old statement to be true, the beauty of the premier leagues is that anything can happen; a team that ran away with the league by eight points last year are now sat in a solemn fifteenth place.
Jose Mourinho might well be dismissed if Chelsea register a poor result at home to Liverpool this weekend, the next question would be, who would replace him?
Would Pep Guardiola decide to leave Bayern Munich to answer the Abramovich phone call? If not, without a better replacement Mourinho will more than likely be given until the end of the season.
Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool constitutes the figurative mountain, which Jose must climb if not to save his job but to save his reputation.
The premier league will continue to provide shocks, teams will underachieve every year and the odd team will unexpectedly push their way into the top four. Jose Mourinho must understand is that he isn’t the special one anymore, it doesn’t matter how many champions league trophies you have won or how poor the referees have been and will always be on certain nights, it’s a game of goals conceded vs goals scored.
