The Premier League appears to be a wide-open contest this season following a number of top teams’ disappointing starts to the season. Chelsea and Liverpool have dropped points in several games against seemingly lesser teams, and on the Manchester City front, their defensive frailties on the road have been present as they dropped points away to Newcastle United and Aston Villa.
Liverpool is a top team who have struggled for consistency at the start of the season. They’ve experienced an injury crisis with key players such as Thiago Alcantara and Diogo Jota facing over a month on the sidelines. For those who enjoy betting on football, Paddy Power’s outright markets have Liverpool remaining at odds of +6000 as the second favorites to win the Premier League title when it comes to the end of the season.
Chelsea has also had many struggles this season, particularly in front of goal, with creating an abundance of chances not being an issue but finding a talisman who can consistently find the net is a completely different question. Thomas Tuchel hoped Pierre Emerick Aubameyang would provide the answers for his side after joining from FC Barcelona for a fee of around £10 million, but did not anticipate that he would not be the manager of the club for much longer.
The German coach has now been sacked in the wake of Chelsea’s UEFA Champions League loss to Dinamo Zagreb, with Graham Potter expected to replace him with Mauricio Pochettino also an option. In terms of Paddy Power’s football tips for the season, Chelsea is now offered as +3000 huge outsiders to win the Premier League title in May.
Chelsea has, however, bolstered their defense this past summer with a number of additions after Antonio Rudiger departed; AFCON champion with Senegal Kalidou Koulibaly joined from Napoli, who alongside Thiago Silva adds vital experience to a relatively young side.
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Liverpool will head into a home game against Wolves boosted by a fully fit Jota to face his former side as well as the potential addition of Thiago to the matchday squad with the Spaniard returning to full training this week. New loan signing Arthur Melo could also provide much-needed control with his press resistance in the midfield if he is to appear for the reds. Klopp’s side has struggled greatly this season without a midfield controller like Thiago and Arthur may provide an adequate replacement when the Spanish International is absent.
Liverpool’s start to the season surprisingly paints them as a team in transition, in the absence of Sadio Mane who has joined Bayern Munich, and Georginio Wijnaldum who left just a year ago; Klopp is still trying to bridge gaps with new signings and young emerging players.
Last year’s Champions League runners-up have recruited many young players as they seem to be going through a stage of rebuilding, despite still being a strong outfit that will surely compete for the title this season, many players will need a significant amount of time to gel and settle into the squad.
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In terms of Pep Guardiola’s City, they will, of course, begin most games as favorites but after dropping points to Aston Villa and Newcastle United in recent weeks their defensive weaknesses have been shown as they are especially vulnerable to counter-attack opportunities.
Their fullbacks Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo are often being caught up the pitch and with Ederson Moraes between the sticks holding a relatively poor save percentage to his name, City is not recording clean sheets at an incredibly impressive rate. City has recruited aggressively this past summer following the departures of long-term attacking duo Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling.
The reigning league champions have started strongly, but a couple of slip-ups mean they trail Arsenal at an early stage of the season. City has dominated England domestically for a number of years now and having clawed back what appeared to be insurmountable leads before, they will be confident of reclaiming the top spot from the North London side within a few game weeks and are certainly the standout favorites to finish in top spot after matchday 38 next year.
League leaders Arsenal’s run of games over the next few months will be vitally important as they seek to continue to accumulate as many points as possible to continue to lead the league table and back up their outside title aspirations. Mikel Arteta’s side will be keen to demonstrate that they can put the 3-1 loss at Old Trafford behind them and find winning ways again as they aim to show their title capabilities.
Picking up three points will be huge for Arteta’s side in terms of maintaining their lead at the top of the table, as well as long-term helping their pursuit of sustaining a title challenge before they think about leading the pack near the end of the campaign.
Gabriel Jesus will hope to improve his goalscoring form with the Brazilian struggling to net in recent weeks, the Brazilians’ goal contributions will be absolutely essential in regards to a potential title challenge this season. The forward has won many titles with City and perhaps that experience helped build a winning mentality that he can translate to the rest of the squad.
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Oleksandr Zinchenko joined Arsenal from City in the summer and similarly to Jesus despite still being relatively young could provide an injection of much-needed experience into Arteta’s side.
Arsenal’s aim for the season will be to ensure they finish inside the Premier League’s top four, but after their impressive start to the season, they will perhaps hope for more, although they maybe have less pressure on them than other title contenders as they are very much a team still in development.
Earning a place amongst the European elite within the UEFA Champions League would represent a successful season for Arteta’s side, as they could recruit more high-quality players that could perhaps allow them to maintain regular title challenges.
Arsenal could very well be nearly men this season, but could they shock the league and go one further to be crowned Premier League champions after finishing outside of the top four last season?
