Slate them? We should be thanking the ‘Prem 3’ for the best title race ever...
i HaVE to confess, i’ve never known a title race generate so much hysteria so far from the end of the season.
It is mad. All this talk of bottle and pressure – and even frauds. Yes frauds. Just insane.
Variously, in the last few weeks, Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino have all been called frauds. For getting their teams – on merit – into the best title race in living memory.
Think about it. Think about what that means. Think how Pochettino was called a disaster a few weeks ago for losing a couple of games. Then a loser who has won nothing when Spurs went out of two cups. Now he’s a mastermind.
Same with Guardiola. Mayhem when they lost to Leicester and
Palace, meltdown at Newcastle. Total meltdown. Win two games on the bounce, though, and he’s a genius, while it’s Klopp who’s the fraud.
I can’t even tell you why it’s like this. In my memory, fans never really, seriously, started getting nervous or completely interested in the title race until Easter. Only then, when you were still involved, did you believe your team was a genuine contender.
Liverpool have lost one game all season. And yet a couple of draws are now seen as evidence they don’t have the stomach for a title fight.
Perhaps it’s something to do with social media, the fact that wild, extreme opinions, which used to be considered just that, now find support and volume to make it louder.
I’ve noticed how people like myself offering any suggestion of an opinion praising any particular team, is inevitably taken as an insult to another, rival team. And a cue for appalling personal abuse. Well, let me offer praise for a team – and brace myself for the inevitable response. This Manchester City squad is quite possibly the best I’ve ever seen in English football in terms of depth of quality.
Better than Manchester United in ’99, better than the Arsenal squad of 2003- 04? Definitely there is a case to be made. They could be the best of all time. After the 100 points of last season, they could
still get 98 points this time. Yet Liverpool have matched them stride for stride. They tore Bournemouth apart yesterday, knowing victory would put them back on top of the table.
To me, that’s not bottling, that’s showing immense quality and courage to take the fight to an unbelievable side and keeping it going for so long.
Same with Spurs, too. I can’t even begin to quantify the amount of credit they deserve.
In a season where their opponents just don’t lose, they have lost six... and yet after each defeat showed the character to bounce back and stay in the race. I don’t care what anyone says, that is bottle.
City won the title at a canter last season, because no other team was anywhere near good enough to be spoken of in the same breath.
At least we have a race this time, a three-way race for the first time in years and a proper fight. So next time you want to call a side bottlers, just think about what you’re saying. And here’s a couple of stats to help.
In 2003- 04, the invincible Arsenal team drew 12 matches, or dropped 24 points. That wouldn’t win them the title this season. In 1998-99, United’s treble-winning side drew 13 in the Premier League and lost three for 79 points... which may not even be enough for the top four this time. Things have changed. The gap between the top six and the rest has widened, meaning you have to win more matches.
That is the level these sides are at – and we should all rejoice in it – not succumb to the insanity which is making football a scary place to be with a tide of racism and abuse around the game.