EPL Monday: Sergio Agüero Injury Overshadows Title Race; Nine Important Players for Holiday Period

Let’s never forgot that sports are a business/entertainment first and foremost. If you have functioning brain, then you really can’t come up with a way to justify the Premier League’s continual insanity of playing about 27 games in the month of December around the holidays for television purposes. In fairness, there are only five games for all 20 clubs between Tuesday and Jan. 1.

Admittedly, I’m not sure what a reasonable amount of games a professional soccer player should be expected to feature in for a given season (something I tried in vain to hypothesize before the World Cup). For a rough benchmark, let’s say 28-30 or so league games and an additional 8-10 Cup/European games is a fair expectation for an average field player, bar significant injury. Some players are superhuman, able to play 90 minutes on a Saturday and turn around and log another 90 Tuesday in the Champions League, while others barely last 15 minutes before their ligaments turn to dust. During the 2013-14 season the only field players to appear in all 38 games were: Steven Caulker, Ahmed Elmohamady, Mile Jedinak, Adam Lallana, Mark Noble, Leon Osman and Steve Sidwell. (The previous two seasons eight and seven field players appeared in all 38 games, ironically the historically frail Robin van Persie did it both times, scoring 56 goals between Arsenal and Manchester United.)

Injuries and squad depth are a definite issue in all soccer, first and foremost the EPL. Via the site, Injury League, 95 players in the league are currently dealing with some type of injury, ranging from the ever-vague “knock” to major ligament damage/surgery.  Believe it or not, Newcastle United tops the list with 10 current injured trailed by nine apiece for Arsenal and Manchester United. Keeping a team reasonably healthy over a 10-month grind is sometimes half the battle in the EPL.

Jose Mourinho doesn’t rotate very much for Chelsea unless he has to do so via injury or suspension. The Blues will have games in the Champions League and EPL going forward, so its depth figures to be tested. Via The Daily Mail, Chelsea co-lead the Premier League with Southampton for the most ‘ever-present’ player who’ve started all 15 matches: Thibaut Courtois, Cesc Fabregas, John Terry, Eden Hazard, Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic.

Of course this weekend Chelsea suffered its first defeat of the season Saturday to Newcastle (Alan Pardew is a football genius!) and there is now a three point gap with Manchester City atop the table.

I hesitate to list City fully in a race for the title, though, after Sergio Agüero limped off with a ligament injury in his knee two minutes into its win over Everton later Saturday. Officially he’s out for City’s Champions League game in Rome in the midweek, beyond that he could be gone for a while — there are some reports Monday he could be back by early January. In 15 games, the Argentine striker has scored 14 of City’s 32 goals. He’s arguably been even more important than Diego Costa to Chelsea and owns one of the best minutes-to-goal ratios in EPL history.

So with that in mind let’s highlight some players who’ll be important over the next month or so in the EPL when team depth is put to the test.

Eliaquim Mangala, Manchester City: Compared to its rivals, City didn’t spend lavishly in the summer. The club did open up the billfold to acquire Mangala from FC Porto after a protracted transfer saga. The Frenchman has appeared in seven games for the club, including Saturday’s win vs. Everton when he luckily avoided a straight red card for a lunging, karate kick to the back of Samuel Eto’o. Instead Mangala’s disciplinary record stands at one red and two yellows. City need him to stay on the field, since club captain Vincent Kompany has dealt with hamstring issues throughout the season, missing three league games. City still have Martin Demichelis as a third center back, but Manuel Pellegrini doesn’t want to get much further down the depth chart.

Frank Lampard, Manchester City: There’s brewing drama with Manchester City and MLS over Lampard, shockingly. Lampard is a designated player for New York City FC, owned by Manchester City, which begins play in March. The way he’s played in England, the parent club might extend the loan, which is well within the team’s rights. If Agüero is sidelined for any significant period of time, which seems likely as of this writing Monday morning, City could use some of Lampard’s patented (deflected) goals to pick up the slack.

Nemanja Matic, Chelsea: The Serbian defensive midfielder — dubbed Cesc Fabregas’ bodyguard — missed the Newcastle game due to yellow card accumulation. As noted above, Chelsea don’t rotate much and if you’ll recall when the Blues added Matic from Benfica in January it changed the entire midfield, allowing Jose Mourinho to play his beloved defensive brand of soccer. Granted Chelsea still have John Obi Mikel and Ramires in reserve to stand-in for Matic, but if Saturday is any indication the Blues aren’t the same without the presence of Matic.

Raheem Sterling, Liverpool: The most-maddening aspect of Liverpool’s 2014-15 campaign, thus far, is you could reasonably argue not a single player in Brendan Rodgers squad is having a “good” year. (Jordan Henderson, maybe?) And, assuredly, Liverpool’s scoreless draw with Sunderland over the weekend wasn’t good by any definition of the word. The lone highlight was probably this run by Sterling, unfortunately there wasn’t a Luis Suarez or Daniel Sturridge to finish it off.

Sterling is capable of this sort of brilliance, in spurts — ideally against tired defenders late in the game. How much he has left in the tank after 14 England appearances and 21 total in the 2014-15 season, is open to debate. In a perfect scenario Rodgers could afford to rest him, but …

Ander Herrera, Manchester United: So far in his Manchester United career Herrera’s been a capable enough “glue” player. He’s not usually going to do anything to hurt the team, but his impact will mostly go unremembered after a game. With Daley Blind and Angel Di Maria out, at least, for the short-term, Herrera is going to play a lot in the United midfield, likely more advanced since Michael Carrick and Marouane Fellaini meshed well enough vs. Hull City in the middle of the field. Again, Herrera doesn’t have to do all that much aside from putting in a solid 90 minutes, linking up the play and getting the ball to the feet of van Persie and Wayne Rooney in front of goal.

Andy Carroll, West Ham United: 50-odd years ago, Andy Carroll’s performance for West Ham vs. Swansea City would have prompted Ray Davies to re-write the lyrics to the “Village Green Preservation Society.” Two goals and an assist to set up Diafra Sakho is a nice day at the office for the long-injured English targetman. Goals (24) haven’t been a problem for Sam Allardyce’s club, as the third-place Irons only trail Chelsea and Manchester City in that department. Still, the 6-foot-3 battering ram is the kind of player who might thrive during the holiday period against cold, mentally fatigued defenders in no mood for aerial challenges at Upton Park.

Morgan Schneiderlin, Southampton: The French defensive midfielder is out with a hip issue for an undetermined length of time and now being linked in the transfer gossip to a January move (Arsenal?). With a healthy Scheiderlin, Southampton might hang around the top eight. Without him? Well considering the doom-and-gloom of the summer finishing 13th wouldn’t be so terrible. Southampton, which was second at the start of the month, is one of many teams which can’t afford many injuries over December due to limited first-team depth.

Santi Cazorla, Arsenal: The 29-year-old Spaniard has upped his game in recent weeks, helping pick of the slack due to various injuries and suspension in the Gunners lineup. Alexis Sanchez can’t do it all alone each week, Cazorla is trying to lessen the load. Arsenal will need goals in the coming weeks if they want to win since clean sheets figure to be in short supply.

Central Defender, Arsenal: Calum Chambers picked up two yellow cards in Arsenal’s 3-2 loss to Stoke City on Saturday, furthering the crisis in the Arsenal defense which is down to a handful of available players. Whomever Arsene Wenger picks to play in defense next weekend vs. Newcastle United should be a whole lot of fun … unless you’re a Gunners fan, that is. If only Nicklas Bendtner still called the Emirates home …

Goal of the Week:

Bojan + Stoke City … would you imagine that…

Stat of the Week:

Congrats, Gareth!

Vine of the Week:

Wilfried Zaha and Yannick Bolasie of Crystal Palace put on a dribbling show at White Hart Lane in a scoreless draw with Spurs.

Looking ahead:

The final group stage games of the Champions League are Tuesday and Wednesday. Liverpool plays FC Basel in an elimination game on Tuesday and follows that up with a trip to Old Trafford Sunday morning. Godspeed, Brendan.