Ten daft reasons why this Premier League season is already great and could be the best ever | OneFootball

Remember when this season was boring and rubbish and the Premier League was finished because of long balls and long throws?

Bollocks then and bollocks now. If anything, this has been a welcome return to a really good season. It might even be the best and most gloriously mental Premier League season of them all.

Here are quite literally some – coincidentally reaching the contractually obligated 10 in total – reasons why that is the case.

The Arsenal title win but Gyokeres flops one-two punch

Our childishly petty favourite reason this season is good is the fact the answer to one of the key binary questions before a ball was kicked really does look like it might just be ‘Yes’.

And that question is “Will Arsenal win the league or will Viktor Gyokeres be a big ol’ flop?” It didn’t really seem feasible that it could be both of those things, but we’ve now reached the point where it might even be probable.

Arsenal are favourites to win the league still despite their own recent wobble, and Gyokeres is looking floppier by the day.

It cannot be overstated just how at odds that situation is with the accepted wisdom during the long, far-off days of summer.

Back then, there were two main schools of thought.

Those who had Gyokeres as the final piece in the Arsenal puzzle; the longed for Proper Goalscorer whose 25-goal haul would get them over the line in those frustrating games that have dogged them in recent seasons where they’d play three games they ought to win but with no fox in the box carelessly find themselves drawing two and losing one, and suddenly having another mountain to climb as Man City or Liverpool skipped gaily away on the shoulders of their reliable goalscorers.

Then there were the others, mainly from the Tactico camp, who didn’t much care at all for Gyokeres’ underlying numbers and expected him to struggle desperately to replicate his Portuguese form in the tougher Barclays school. Their numbers were swelled further by the always lively pessimist wing of the Arsenal fanbase who just assumed he’d do badly because Arsenal.

The Tacticos are now gleefully claiming a decisive victory in the battle over the Eye-Test Gang while carefully ignoring the travails of their own preferred option for Arsenal at the time, which was Benjamin Sesko.

Anyway. Gyokeres was, in short, set up to be either the final piece in the puzzle or sh*t. Nobody was suggesting he could be both. The sh*ttiest final puzzle piece in football history.

The beauty of Gyokeres as a footballer was that there were multiple things that pointed to a straightforward either/or scenario. That either he would deliver Arsenal the title, or he would flop. Because he is quite a straightforward footballer. When he and the team around him works properly, he scores an awful lot of goals. We have seen this.

But he is not, in any way, a Harry Kane sort of striker with an elite all-round game. He’s not even an Erling Haaland. If there aren’t goals, there really isn’t much else at all. And there have not been many goals, with just one since September in the Premier League.

In all, three of his mere four Premier League goals have come against the promoted sides. And now he isn’t even contributing against teams at that level or lower, having barely touched the ball in a 2-1 win over Wolves that really might be the least impressive Arsenal win in the club’s entire league history.

Yet where are Arsenal? Top of the pile. Only Manchester City, propelled by the Goalbot 3000 himself, have scored more.

There’s an elemental lesson here about the temptation of narratives, if anyone cares to learn it (we certainly don’t), but the fact Arsenal’s long-term, quietly brilliant squad-building has been so successful that the complete flop of the megawatt ‘final piece’ it was universally acknowledged they desperately required has barely made a dent on their chances of success is already emerging as one of the season’s most delicious lines.

A for real title race

You can’t really have a great season without a proper title race, can you? It’s the main reason we’re all here and we’re overdue. Last season was over very early, and for all Arsenal’s efforts in the two previous seasons it still felt clear which way the story was ending some time before it actually ended.

One of our concerns for this season even a couple of weeks ago was that Arsenal might just absolutely p*ss it. They appeared to have the best team, the best squad and just quite simply the fewest reasons you could think it might go wrong.

But the one reason they did have, is the one both easiest and hardest to define: they are Arsenal.

And somehow, that seems to be panning out. Without really doing an awful lot wrong, an Arsenal team that could very, very easily be eight points clear and disappearing over the horizon is instead looking nervously over its shoulder at the worst possible team to find lurking just two points back.

They’ve both been here before, and it didn’t end well for Arsenal then. This does feel like a different and older and wiser Arsenal, but then they all had little toddler tantrums after Villa scored and then played so badly in beating Wolves – about whom more later – that we couldn’t detect even homeopathic levels of the Hallmark of Champions usually present in such occasions.

A for real relegation battle

Thanks to the outstanding efforts of Sunderland, the competent efforts of Leeds and Burnley trying their very best, bless them, we appear to have a proper relegation battle. We don’t want to jinx it because it’s been absolutely bloody ages since one of those, but it does appear that at least one and an outside chance of two relegation places are actually legitimately in play this season.

Now caution is necessary here because some other promoted-then-relegated teams have looked like they might make a fight of it and then not in the end made a fight of it. But this does feel very different.

In Sunderland’s case because the thing they’re making a fight of is the top six, and in Leeds’ because they appear to be improving for every run rather than starting promisingly and then wilting, which is the more standard direction of travel for these things.

The tantalising prospect of a Big Club getting sucked into the relegation battle, and it not even being West Ham who are already down and dirty in it

Enormously greedy, this, because West Ham should be enough. They’ve been a Premier League team for all but four of its 33 seasons. That’s more than Manchester City and only one fewer than Aston Villa or Newcastle. Only the Never Relegated Six plus Man City are on longer current streaks of pure Barclays than the Hammers.

They are absolutely a big Premier League club to be in such serious relegation peril, but could we yet reel an even bigger fish into those murky waters?

The recent significant improvements at Leeds, Forest and yes even a little bit at West Ham are tantalising here.

The key question becomes ‘Do West Ham look capable of 40 points?’ And the answer is yes. They might not get them, but they absolutely could. And your Forests and Leedses are absolutely doing enough right now to suggest they can.

That leaves the bumblef*ck big clubs in real danger of sleepwalking into actual trouble. There are two of them currently dozing in 11th and 12th playing largely sh*t football and with 22 points to their names.

They should be fine. Of course they should be fine. But either of them absolutely might not be. Both Spurs and Newcastle currently appear blissfully unaware of the potential horrors that could await in the second half of the season if they carry on as they absent-mindedly are.

Particularly arrogant of Spurs, who managed only 38 points last season and are playing worse now than they were at this stage last season under a manager with absolutely no apparent real plan. Say what you like about the tenets of Angeball, at least it’s an ethos.

But even if we don’t in fact get one of those two involved, the fact the most likely alternative right now appears to be a proper scrap between West Ham, Leeds and Forest should really be enough for anyone.

The cake-and-eat-it delights of getting both a real relegation battle and a Derby botherer

And to continue our relegation-based gluttony, how good to simultaneously boast a Proper Relegation Battle (or at the very, very least an undignified squabble over 18th) while a bit lower down also having the excitement of a genuine threat to Derby’s grip on the most infamous – and among the most difficult to beat even if you were actively trying – records in Premier League history?

Both their historic low points tally of 11 and somehow at almost half-season distance also their record of one solitary win that season are in play thanks to Wolves’ long-term strategy of continuously hollowing out their squad depth finally and catastrophically catching up with them.

Anyone can beat anyone apart from the team who literally cannot beat anyone

And even if/when Wolves do win a game, that’s also fine because it will (probably) confirm that the Premier League really is a league Where Anyone Can Beat Anyone.

We don’t mean that in a woolly, general vibe sense either. It will be actually true. Two things this weekend sent us down this rabbit-hole; watching rock-bottom Wolves give leaders and title favourites Arsenal a tremendous game at the Emirates, and then Forest giving Spurs a 3-0 paddling at the City Ground the next day.

That last result completed a wonderfully neat little Circle of Parity involving that pair and Everton that runs thus: Spurs beat Everton 3-0, Everton beat Forest 3-0, Forest beat Spurs 3-0.

Obviously our stupid brain then wondered just how close the 19 teams who have managed to beat anybody this season were to a 19-team Circle of Parity. Albeit without the added fun of correct scorelines.

To our absolute but exhausted delight we discovered that already, before half-distance, there is a 19-team Circle of Parity in this season’s Premier League.

Deep breath.

Newcastle beat Manchester City… who beat Leeds… who beat Chelsea… who beat Tottenham… who beat West Ham… who beat Burnley… who beat Sunderland… who beat Bournemouth… who beat Brighton… who beat Nottingham Forest… who beat Liverpool… who beat Everton… who beat Manchester United… who beat Crystal Palace… who beat Fulham… who beat Brentford… who beat Aston Villa… who beat Arsenal… who swallowed a fly beat Newcastle.

Sunderland outperforming all three of last year’s promoted clubs combined

A team that probably shouldn’t even have got promoted – they finished 24 points behind Leeds and Burnley and even 14 behind Sheffield United having ended the regular season in horror form – now absolutely ripping it up in the Premier League? Wonderful.

First things first, they (although we must acknowledge Wolves’ selfless assist here) have already pretty much guaranteed we won’t be seeing the three promoted teams go straight back down which is a hugely welcome development. And if the three promoted teams do now all go down, then, well, we’re in for a truly astonishing second half of the season anyway so that’s also fine.

More likely, though, is that Sunderland continuing knocking about in the rarefied top-half air they currently breathe. Even if they don’t in fact end up level on points with Liverpool and separated only on goals scored when the music finally stops in May.

There are all sorts of ambitions you could reasonably have for the remainder of Sunderland’s season. They could definitely qualify for Europe, for instance, which would be a spectacular bit of work.

Our goal for them is, inevitably, more mischief-based. We want them to reach 59 points. Why 59? Because it’s the sum total the three promoted teams Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton managed last season.

At present speed and course, Sunderland get 61 points. We are watching.

Aston Villa’s ridiculous season arc

After five games of the season, Aston Villa had three points and had just managed their first goal of the campaign after a nevertheless disappointing 1-1 draw against 10-man Sunderland.

It looked for all the world like last season’s Champions League near-miss after getting f*cked over at Old Trafford on the final day had ruined them. That something fundamental had been broken.

That slow start to the season came on the back of a difficult summer, where Villa were unable to do the business they wanted to do and were hamstrung to a large extent by their continued flirtation with the very edges of the PSR regulations. Even now, it still feels like something quite bad is being stored up for the future there.

But never mind all that now. Because since those five games in which Villa managed three points and one measly goal, they’ve scored 24 in a further 11. And rather ludicrously won 10 of them.

Their late winner against Arsenal prompted absolute cinema in the reactions of the Gunners, but it was also one of the most significant three-point swings of the season, one swing of Emi Buendia’s right foot turning a six-point gap to Arsenal to a three-point gap.

Villa have even since then passed up the traditional opportunity for such over-achieving clubs to chucklef*ck their way back out of a title race the moment they unexpectedly find themselves in it.

A trip to West Ham in which they found themselves behind in the first minute and trailing again by half-time looked to be going entirely to that script, but no. The run continues. Where will it end? When will it end? What if it never ends? Is there a plan in place for that? Has anyone put a plan in place for that? Guys? GUYS?

Managergeddon

Look, it’s not necessarily that we want managers sacked but the whole game is more fun when a) lots of them are sacked and/or b) lots of them are under extreme pressure. Especially if they’re at big clubs. And so far at least four of the managers at the six biggest clubs have come under scrutiny, while Eddie Howe surely must be due a spell under the spotlight soon, and even Unai Emery was a Sack Race steamer at one point during Villa’s horrendous start.

We’ve even managed to have Marco Silva at the head of the Sack Race market this season, and we just assumed he and Fulham would be together forever.

Forest have already binned two managers this season, and there’s still every chance West Ham end up going down the same road. At which point Nuno Espirito Santo will have lost two jobs in the same season.

Talking of Nuno, Spurs once again appear on course to have to sack another new manager before he’s unpacked all the boxes in his office.

And Liverpool could absolutely find themselves in a spot where they have to move on from the manager who won the title last season.

All that and we haven’t even got rid of a single Victim of His Own Success promoted manager yet. There must always be one.

General late drama and nonsense

Look, we’re not going to pretend every game has been a classic, but there have been high levels of general nonsense this season, as befits a league where Anyone Can Beat Anyone. In the last couple of weeks we’ve had spectacularly dramatic 4-3, 5-4, 4-4 and 3-3 scorelines.

We’ve had more 3-2s – the absolute baseline outcome for an ‘x-goal thriller’ – than you can shake a stick at.

There have been multiple games already this season where one apparently result-shifting late injury-time goal has been countered by another even later result-shifting injury-time goal.

There have been 457 goals scored in the Premier League this season, and 130 – almost 30 per cent – have come after the 75th minute. And 51 of those 130 have come after the 90th minute. That’s, on average, three doses of injury-time drama (albeit actual drama of injury-time goals may vary) per 10-game matchday.