Season Preview 2017-2018

£400m PSG trio of Mbappe, Neymar and Cavani

While I may have missed my regular season review due to time constraints, I wasn’t going find an excuse to miss my season preview. There will be hints that the Gooner in me will try to avoid addressing my very flawed predictions at the start of last season (Yes, it ended disastrously for Arsenal and I never fancied Chelsea’s chances). Well, that means you just have to bet the opposite of what I predict. Arsenal’s season did end with another victorious day at Wembley, but the deep roots of Arsenal’s real failure still persist in the big picture, we have not progressed. More on that later.

The transfer market this year has moved like a Bitcoin, never seen before prices with no rationality. Who knew it took so little time to dwarf the £89m spent by Man Utd on Paul Pogba last season. This summer PSG had other ideas, shelling out a mind-boggling £200m on Neymar, smashing the previous world record by more than twice. They also manage to secure the services of highly sought after Kylian Mbappe, who moved in a deal that will take him on loan initially and end up costing £166m. It’s not however clear whether PSG is obliged to make the move permanent. The Qatar owners look pretty serious about things, and their finances do not look shaken by the sanctions imposed by their Gulf counterparts. The figures mentioned in the transfer market have been drastically inflated compared to just two years ago. We’ve seen Suarez and Higuain move for £75m recently, but prices in the market today have gone pretty beyond £100m mark. Are the Financial Fair Play rules actually enforceable? Do clubs really make that much? The spotlight will be on PSG on how they explain their way out. The question now is whether the footballing regulators are serious about limiting these “artificial financial assistance” from club owners. 

Last season saw Chelsea regain the top spot in England after a tactical masterclass by their new manager, Antonio Conte. While it didn’t look like his first season was going to be fairytale at the beginning, a dazzling 13 game winning streak made all the difference in the title race. The rarely successful formation of having three at back worked wonders and was instrumental to their triumph. It was indeed a quick rebound after falling to a lowly 10^th last season. The paradigm has shifted at the top, with Spurs again making decent challengers for the title, their ascendancy and influence has become ever more noticeable. City and Liverpool hung on to their top 4 places as periods of inconsistency largely left them out of contention. Despite a customary late resurgence, Arsenal for the first time in 17 years, failed to qualify for the Champions League. And lastly, Manchester United had a lower than usual finish as they took a calculated risk to enter Champions League from the alternative option of winning the Europa League. It was an unconventional way but Jose decided the chances of a top 4 finish were much slimmer. His judgement was spot on and Utd are back in Europe. This transfer window saw England clubs participate in another record where £1.4bn changed hands. The commercial revenues generated by the Premier Leagues clubs have spilled over to the smaller teams. You can now see a smaller club like Everton spending over £100m.

As my team from North London, it's been further downhill and it looks pretty bleak at this point of time. I’ll start off by addressing the crisis Arsenal is facing.

Arsenal's record signing Lacazette

Arsenal – The Emirates Meltdown

Cancer doesn’t develop overnight, neither does it progress through stages in days. In fact, it develops over a long time and depending on the severity and how soon before being detected, determines the chances of recovery. Much like Arsene Wenger, he started out as great organ and the system functioned well. As the organ deteriorated, the system went into decline. But as he refused to be replaced by good functioning organ, the system has gone critically ill. He has had great achievements in the past and his methods worked magic. But today, his tactics are futile and predictable, the team is in disarray, the morale is at rock bottom, key players are running down on their final year of contracts, there is no Champions League football and the fans have all but turned on their longest serving manager. How has the situation got this bad? 

For a start, the problem has been brewing for years and he has finally run out of luck, except for the mind bending fact on how he managed to secure a contract extension this year.  The problems at this clubs is on many occasions we have been bailed out by exceptional players in the past like Henry, Fabregas, Van Persie, Alexis and dare I mention even players like Nasri and Adebayor. These players have covered for our weak defence, making us a perfect illustration of “attacking is the best form of defence”, but that hasn’t worked, has it? For years we have played with the fire of mediocrity, conceding easy goals, self-destructing during crucial games and lacking the mental toughness to pull through on our off days. Luck has been our side as we managed to always finish in the top four. 17 consecutive years in Europe’s elite competition, a fluke is completely out of the question with that kind of consistency. By keeping our heads just above the water, the position of Arsene Wenger has never been challenged. It’s as though the 13 year league drought has no impact on the club. Like how Jack Welch describes, the people in middle are the most difficult, there are not good enough to promote and neither are they too bad to sacked.

The club has been on a decline, no progress on challenging the title, no improvement in Europe (think the number of times we get knocked out in the last 16) and the same old problems of a leaky defence and the repetitive collapses every season. Arsene Wenger is absolutely clueless and becoming irrelevant in football today. He over relies and overplays key players, his staff does a terrible job in the treatment room, he doesn’t seem to understand that there are so many gaps in the team and continues to deploy his methods that are clearly not working.

Let’s get down to what happened during the summer transfer window. For years, Arsene expressed interest in looking for ‘world class’ players. Yes we’ve seen Ozil and Alexis arrive despite having more attractive suitors elsewhere. Apart from that, it’s been a bunch of average players that Arsene seems to see something we can’t. Walcott, Debuchy, Mertesacker, Elneny, Wilshere, Jenkinson, Welbeck, Chambers, Gibbs, Gabriel, Sanogo, Perez, Joel Campbell. How can you compete for anything with players like that in your squad? How far do you think you can go? The fact that most of these players are still here clearly shows that Arsene has completely lost the plot. While we might not actually know whether he has tried to offload them (I note some of them have left), the negotiators have done a horrendous job this close season. We still have all these players on our payroll amounting to millions a week and we know these players aren’t going to make us title contenders. We could be doing so much more with these players sold. What have we done to address out number 1 problem of a bad defence? We offer Mustafi for sale, we keep Debuchy, stick to Mertesacker and Rob Holding and buy.... nobody? I’m really starting to question whether he knows any common sense at this point. The defence is the elephant in the room that needs fixing and Arsene has done nothing about it, get us a god damn centre back mate!

Alexis has been eager to leave, he certainly doesn’t want to sign a new contract despite a new contract on the table. We’ve been as usual, playing the enquiring game and some “stealth-like” mission where we fear other teams knowing who we want to buy. Based on the transfer news in the summer, it’s been a serious lack of activity. You’re not going to sign Mbappe or Lemar, so get on with it and find us someone else! Instead, we waited for the last 2 days to negotiate an exit for Alexis, made a whopping £92m bid for Lemar, who was never interested in moving to a club that plays in the Europa League. Now Alexis will be lost on a bossman and the club has effectively squandered £60m. A wise man once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”. Arsene, a man who has lived for a good 67 years and been in management for more than two decades, has done the exact thing and left the club for the dead. Only one major signing all season with the rest of the weak links waiting to be exploited. The fans will be enduring more thrashings by the big teams, getting accustomed to it, much like a mid table team.

There is nothing much positive to takeaway this summer. We have fallen to new lows and were expecting new blood to drive the team forward (player AND manager). Instead, the board have failed miserably in their role to bring in change and improvement.  Their lack of competence and ignorance will hurt the history of the club and the loyal supporters who have remained defiant despite some of the worst times in history. The club has lost its identity as a competing club for the league title, we are no longer daunting opponents like before and a fixture against Arsenal now represents an opportunity for 3 points instead of 1. The decline in this club is going to continue unless change finally comes in. Although football is pretty unpredictable, the league table doesn’t lie, over a period of time, Arsenal will be exposed time and time again, leaving the team realistically aiming for finish in the top four. 

The main contenders, briefly.

Chelsea's new goal machine Morata

Chelsea - Staying on Top

The Blues have only successfully defended their title once, during the golden age of Frank Lampard, John Terry, Didier Drogba, Petr Cech and of course Jose Mourinho. This summer saw the arrival of Alvaro Morata, who decided to step out from the shadows of the superstars that surrounded him at the Bernabeau. A prolific and clinical finisher that is perfect for Chelsea after freezing out Diego Costa. The other arrivals were Tiemoue Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater, Antonio Rudiger and Davide Zappacosta. They have bought the right enforcements while doing good business offloading many players who are surplus to requirements. Willian, Kante, Alonso and Hazard will remain the key players for the Blues this season. Batshuayi will play an important role as a second choice striker and is expected to step up when called upon.  Like how Leicester lost Kante when they won the title, it was a surprising choice to sell Nemanja Matic, who provides enormous strength in the midfield. While Kante still provides the defensive qualities, the extent of Matic’s absence could be a factor in Chelsea’s season. We'll see whether Bakayoko can fill this void. The back three formation will be in the spotlight and there will be less doubts this time around, the mercurial David Luiz remains a concern. Only a slim chance of defending their title.

Lukaku and Co ready to take over

Manchester United - The Much Awaited Breakthrough

Based on the opening weeks of the season, it’s looking like a very promising season for the Red Devils. They have a massively talented young squad and their new signings have strengthened the team further. While I tipped United to go further last season, they needed more time to find their best eleven and for Mikhitaryan and Pogba to fit in. I believe the transition is almost complete and they are ready to show their title aspirations once again. Their last triumph was with Sir Alex Ferguson, and I’m sure they wouldn’t want to keep making reference to that year. This year looks the most encouraging with the signing of Matic and Lukaku. Matic will work wonders in the midfield, replicating what he did at Chelsea, while his partnership with Pogba is a pretty exciting one. They probably have the best midfield in the country when you consider their other midfielders Herrera, Mata and Mikhitaryan. At the same time having Lukaku, Martial, Rashford and Ibrahimovic ready to bang in the goals makes a mouth-watering prospect. Lukaku is probably the best choice striker after Harry Kane, a player who is a finished product with Premier League experience. With De Gea between their goal, it just leaves their defence to hold up their end of responsibility for a good chance of the title. Jose knows how to win and we know he can get it right on his day. They got all their inputs right, let’s see whether they can execute. 

Exciting talent Gabriel Jesus

Manchester City - Addressing the Shortcomings

Pep Guardiola’s first season was one with many lessons learned and luckily for City it wasn’t too much of a failure. Considering the amount of talent at his disposal, a season that didn’t go well just used up one of his “lifelines”. The owners didn’t pour so much of resources to wait a few years for success, Pep is fighting for his job this season. There isn’t much too criticize in terms of City’s offensive play when they have the likes of Aguero, De Bruyne, Sane and new boy Gabriel Jesus, but it was the lack of finishing and wasteful opportunities which cost the Citizens last season. Jesus had a sterling debut season before being disrupted by a serious injury. He will be one to watch to contribute significantly to their goals tally.

An unreliable Claudio Bravo and a shaky defence added to their woes last season. Otamendi was again vulnerable and their old guards were no longer playing at the highest level. Pep has done a pretty comprehensive restructuring job this summer by bringing in Kyle Walker, Benjamin Mendy, Bernardo Silva, Ederson and Danilo Silva. At the same time, he has cleared out out of favour players like Iheanacho, Bony, Nolito, Fernando, Kolarov, Nasri, Zabaleta, Clichy, Navas and Sagna. I mentioned last season how City needed to do a massive overhaul of their squad and I think they have done just that. Hats off to them. City needs to improve on all their shortcomings from last season and they have made the right moves in addressing them this season. Bernardo Silva will be their player to watch and will add to the already remarkable attacking line-up. Ederson will do better than Bravo and Mendy will strengthen City’s defence. Mangala and Otamendi remain as weak links in the City defence while I’m not convinced Kyle Walker is worth £50m. Nevertheless, I expect City to show improvement overall and have a good shot at the title. 

Final Say
I have noticeably excluded Spurs and Liverpool, maybe they are worth putting some money on based my track record. As you can see I've devoted most of this writing on Arsenal and you can imagine the frustration of a Gooner. It doesn't get easier these days as the chances of winning the league now being a 4 to 5 horse race. One team will be jubilant and the others will be left disappointed. It then begs the question, how far should a club go to seek success of a silverware, knowing that it requires 9 digits of financial capital and still doesn't give very high odds. Football as a business can continue as long as people are willing to spend money watching the beautiful game. My hope is that the game does not get overshadowed by the money and we still see clubs investing in youth, as opposed to knowing you can own any player because you have the financial strength. The sport still thrives on excitement of new talents, small teams doing giantkilling and how every game is so unpredictable. Let's hope the sport keeps its identity. Enjoy your season.

~deyao~