Champions in Waiting

Of the twenty English Premier League teams, five claimed title aspirations at the start of this season. I will stick with the teams I predicted in an earlier article would finish in the top four as the genuine title contenders. Chelsea for their experience and apparent strength in depth, United for their experience and manager’s prowess, Arsenal for their development as a team over previous seasons and Manchester City for their limitless investment in players.

Pre-season favorites and defending champions Chelsea had an assured start but went on a painfully long poor run at the quarter way stage of the season when they inexplicably sacked assistant manager, Wilkins and lost a few of their seasoned campaigners to injury. Chelsea’s £ 70 million January investment should help them close the gap on their rivals but the poor loss to Liverpool probably cost them the championship as there will not be many more weekends where both Manchester United and Arsenal slip up.

Manchester City fans may feel hard done that I apparently just insinuated the champion will come from either of Manchester United or Arsenal. No doubt Manchester City with over £340m spent on player purchases since Sheikh Mansour’s 2009 takeover has assembled a squad of genuine championship winning quality. However, Manager Mancini’s approach contrary to Spurs’ Redknapp is apparently too conservative to win the title. The purchase of Dzeko gives City’s attack a new dimension with some genuine height although they seem to still be mapping out a formula to effectively utilize two out-and-out strikers at the same time. During today’s derby Mancini was forced to portray more adventure although Rooney’s stunning goal may have volleyed City out of title contention.

Arsenal with the best away record in the league and a few gritty victories like the recent one at Everton has shown continued progress and are clearly the only other side with a genuine chance of winning the title. Wenger has previously won the title three times so he has the know-how. The majority of his side has also matured together gaining significant experience over the years challenging for the title in the Premier League and Champions League. To quote Wenger, “the title is Arsenal’s to win”, although record breaking results like the pioneer Premier League surrender of a four goal lead at Newcastle will cause some concern about Arsenal’s on pitch leadership quality. Two potentially decisive moments of Arsenal’s season lie in their performance against Champions League favorites Barcelona and the impact of their expected first piece of silverware in six years, a predicted Carling Cup triumph against Birmingham.

Manchester United being table toppers and with the experience they boast from previous triumphs will no doubt be most people’s favorites at this stage. Most pundits have echoed all season that United are not playing particularly well although they continue to surprise with their league placing. United deserve credit for being the league’s highest scorers going into the 26th round of games and for sustaining such a long 29 unbeaten game start to a season in which many wait for a consistent display of their best form. I believe United’s season will greatly depend on performances of their recent bargain buys Chicarito and Smalling. Chicarito has popped up with game winning goals in the three away wins that United have enjoyed so far this season while Smalling has been an assured presence when he has been called in as cover for Ferdinand. Given that Chelsea only edged United to the title last season by one point despite the absence of most of United’s back four beyond the first half of the season, one cannot over emphasize the importance of a solid defensive bench as cover for especially injury prone veteran Ferdinand. After their recent loss to Wolves, rivals may have started to rub their hands in anticipation of the major collapse that followed the last notable long unbeaten run by Arsenal’s “invincibles” but United popped up again with the “bounce back ability” commodity that has seen them dominate the Premier League era. United’s major challenge during the business end of the season will no doubt be their away form especially with a few potential “six-pointers” lying in wait, but Ferguson’s tremendous ability to re-invent the side in recent seasons when faced with different challenges should edge them to title number 19 of their illustrious history.