The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

The Premier League season is back!

The Premier League is back and underway and it started with a 1-0 win for Manchester United against Fulham at Old Trafford last Friday. Last season’s champions Manchester City started their campaign with a 2-0 win against Chelsea, whilst runners up Arsenal had a comfortable 2-0 win against Wolves. Arne Slot’s reign as the new Liverpool manager began with a hard fought victory against newly promoted side Ipswich. You can listen to the latest episode of It Was What It Was following the link below, as journalists Rob Draper and Jonathan Wilson take an in-depth look into the true classic that was Liverpool v Newcastle in April 1996. Catch up on the latest episode of the fan debate with Jamie Carragher and Paul Scholes as they look at the opening weekend results with fans across England. Rafa Benitez is the latest to take on the hot seat on Stick To Football, which you can watch over on The Overlap Youtube channel.

Quiz Question…

Who has now played in 23 different Premier League seasons?

GARY NEVILLE’S POINT OF VIEW

I’ve spent the last two years trying to work out just what it is the Chelsea owners know that the rest of the top clubs don’t !

Let’s start with what is good about Chelsea: the collection of players. Despite the defeat against Manchester City, I’m seeing a group that can make the top four on paper. If you have a front three of Neto, Joao Felix and Cole Palmer, a midfield of Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo and Roméo Lavia, plus their back four and depth in the squad, you’re in a position most clubs would envy. The challenge is moulding them into a team that can do it.

However, we can quickly get to the bad. Clearlake have spent £1.1bn since taking over and they still haven’t signed a centre forward who you would regard as a top-class assured starter in the Premier League. (I really like Nicolas Jackson but I don’t think he’s that yet). You’ve six goalkeepers, but not one I would really trust. You have 42 players in the squad but a manager who has just said this week that he will only be working with 21 of them. Good luck moving onto the other 21. And good luck motivating them for the rest of the season if you can’t move them on.

And then there is the ugly. The way Chelsea are exiting players is plain wrong. There’s a way to manage a player out of a club. No good comes from the manner in which they have treated Raheem Sterling, a senior player with influence throughout the squad. (His statement was unfortunate but that doesn’t detract from the point). You don’t treat a player like Conor Gallagher, a really good pro and an England international who has been with the club since the age of six, whose family are Chelsea fans, like an unwanted commodity to trade. Maybe that is how private equity treats people but someone needs to tell them it’s a terrible look.

Likewise Trevoh Chalobah, who’s been with Chelsea since the age of eight, exiled now to training away from the squad. I’ve seen how devastating that can be. It will send a message to his peers, teammates, fans and especially young players coming through the academy pathway. And it’s not the message the owners think they’re sending. They don’t look tough. They look callous.

Jamie Carragher said this week players have to start saying no to Chelsea. No owners have bad intention but surely they can see how this makes them look?

They inherited a successful team with an academy section winning youth cups and which was just beginning to bring players through to the first team. They had a managing director and sporting director that were a match for anyone in the transfer market and a coach who had won the Champions League.

I can’t believe the current two sporting directors, including one who came from Brighton, one of the shrewdest players of the transfer market, are sat there saying: “This is how we planned it.”

I know better than anyone, albeit at a much lower level with Salford, that you get things wrong as an owner and find yourselves making decisions you would never take in your normal business life. We once sacked three managers in 20 months. You look at yourself and think: “How did we get here? This isn’t who we are?”

Maybe it’s like that for Chelsea’s owners but the players must just feel like they’re on the waltzers at the fairground. Every time it looks like settling down, the owners come along and spin you around again. Whether it’s Mauricio Pochettino finally getting the team playing consistently, or Sterling playing decently in pre season, it seems they’re just one moment away from a fresh spin cycle.

Taking stock I still see a team that can finish top four. Good players, a promising young coach and the fact that key opponents such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Tottenham have their own challenges this season represents an opportunity. But the values the club portrays, the connection with their fans and the necessary bond of trust with players is miles away from what was promised on the way in, two years ago. Maybe it will settle down but my hunch is players, manager and fans need to prepare themselves for another spin of the waltzer. 

The Tactics Board

By HTO

You Asked, Gary Answered…

Bold call for this season’s Premier League?

Liverpool don’t finish top 6

Quiz Answer:

James Milner