Status quo reigns in opening week of Premier League
LONDON (Reuters) – There will no seismic shifts in the balance of the world’s richest soccer competition if the first weekend of the new Premier League season is anything to go by.
Last season’s top five all won, most of them comfortably; none of the three promoted sides managed a victory and no-one beat a team who finished above them in 2017-18.
It all made Leicester City’s 5,0001 title triumph in 2016 seem more unreal than ever.
Since then the same six clubs have finished at the top for two years running and they are widely expected to do so again. Had Arsenal not found itself playing champion Manchester City in its first game under new manager Unai Emery, it might well have been a clean sweep for those half-dozen sides as the Premier League returned to action.
As it was, City was straightforward 2-0 winners in London to Emery’s disappointment, following Liverpool’s 4-0 romp over West Ham United earlier on Sunday.
On Saturday, Chelsea, also under new management in Italian Maurizio Sarri, was an easy winner by 3-0 away to one of the relegation favorites Huddersfield Town, and Tottenham Hotspur, runner-up two years ago and third last time, won 2-1 at Newcastle United.
The opening act on Friday was Manchester United’s 2-1 victory at home to Leicester.
The newcomers to the big time were shown what a task they face. Cardiff City, with the shortest odds for relegation, lost 2-0 at Bournemouth, which is still regarded as a small club with its stadium capacity of under 12,000 yet has just spent a record fee of 25 million pounds ($31.92 million) on one player, the Colombian midfielder Jefferson Lerma.
Fulham, owned by the Pakistani-American Shahid Khan, who wants to buy Wembley Stadium, became the first newly promoted club to spend more than 100 million pounds in a close-season, but found itself beaten at home by London rival Crystal Palace.
Wolverhampton Wanderers were the only one of the promoted trio to score a goal or earn a point, drawing 2-2 at home to Everton, which played with 10 men for the last 50 minutes.
The consolation for all the former Championship clubs is that they are guaranteed about 100 million pounds for one year in the top tier.
Ambitious pair Fulham and Wolves were among the biggest five net spenders during the close-season, but not even their most optimistic supporters will expect them to finish high in the table that counts – where the names at the top are likely to be the familiar ones again.