un-editorial
“The Premier League is too predictable,” they used to say and quite rightly so. But this season has been slightly different than the past, which is why the Premier League is proving to be the best league in the world. Serie A has lost its magic and attendance has been poor despite Italy being the World Cup Champions, Real Madrid has relentless haunted Manchester United with their bid to get Cristiano Ronaldo – get the best player and, Real Madrid and La Liga will be number one.
By February, any of the four teams could be sitting pretty on top of the Premier League table. Forget the stories about the traditional two-horse race in the second half of the season, there are FOUR horses (five including Arsenal, and don’t get me started on Arsenal’s cockamamie season so far*) competing for the top spot now. And on the other business end, one of nine teams could potentially be at the bottom of the pile. NINE! That’s almost all the teams in the bottom half of the table. Blimey.
During the last batch of mid-week games, Aston Villa could have gone joint-top of the table (albeit if both the Villans and West Brom Albion won their games, huge wins), while Tottenham Hotspurs could have once more find themselves in the relegation zone. No one could have predicted that either teams would be facing these issues before the season started. Aston Villa has always been the under-achieving club, they could but they couldn’t, but this season has been relatively pleasing and Tottenham with that pre-season iron-hot form and with Harry Redknapp in the realm, no one could have imagined how well deep they would be in ’09.
With so much at stake at the top and 13 teams separated by eight points at the bottom, prior to the mid-week games, there was and still is everything to play for.
One more thing about the season so far, Kevin Keegan is Spanish and has a goatee. The balls on this manager, grande mucho! About time too.
*Although I still believe that Arsenal still have time to produce a good fight for the title this season, or at least get into the Champions League spots, but they just need to get their acts together and quick. Cesc Fabregas et al needs Champions League football, especially the Emirates’ finance department.
