EPL Monday: EPL or WWE? With the Weekly Drama Sometimes It's Hard to Tell

Soccer is weird.

In many ways its the most subjective sport out there. As a sports fan in America, if you want to watch professional football the only place to turn is the NFL. If you like baseball, basketball or hockey, yes, there are other viable professional leagues around the globe but MLB, the NBA and NHL are the undisputed best in their fields.

Soccer? That’s much trickier. Beauty, as the cliché goes, is in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps the passion displayed in the stadiums of the German Bundesliga attracts you. Maybe it’s the star power and technical play in Spain that gets you going. Maybe you have seven Zlatan Ibrahimovic posters adorning your walls and identify yourself as the world’s biggest PSG fan. Maybe you’re all-in on Liga MX. Who knows? Watch the leagues and players you like, there isn’t a right or a wrong answer despite what the soccer know-it-all at your office might say. There’s not an exact, scientific way to judge that one league is “better” or “worse” than another — a challenge of perception that continually dogs our American domestic league, MLS.

Often with soccer there is an aesthetic quality hovering over your interest. It’s not enough for a game to simply exist inside your screen for 90 minutes, it must also thrill and entertain. When it comes to this aspect of the sport, it’s hard to argue with what the Barclay’s Premier League churns out week-in, week-out.

This weekend it almost felt like the EPL was the WWE reading off a predetermined script:

• Mesut Özil is questioned all week following Arsenal’s loss to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League; he promptly scores his first goal of the season, leading the Gunners to three quick knockout goals in 192 seconds vs. Aston Villa.
• Manchester United looks like it might have turned a corner after flexing its financial might, ahead 3-1 on Leicester City … only to lose 5-3 in a utterly ridiculous turn of events.
• Chelsea is on its way to a 1-0 away win over Manchester City and an eight-point gap over last year’s title winners, only for Frank Lampard to score against his former club, stirring up all sorts of emotions when he’s clapped off the field by traveling Blues’ supporters.

There were also fan protests during Newcastle United’s draw with Hull City, Liverpool coughed up two goals in 10 minutes to lose on the road and enough happened to render Tottenham’s meek 1-0 defeat to West Brom an afterthought of afterthoughts.

Although you can’t make some of this stuff up and, quite honestly, this weekend didn’t seem all that out of the ordinary for the Premier League. Maybe I’m supposed to make a crack about “narratives” and whatnot, but these compelling, often crazy storylines happen with great regularity in the EPL. Could it be a chicken/egg scenario? Whatever it is, the drama wheels continue to churn — even moreso now that Chelsea’s grip on the league isn’t quite as insurmountable as it looked a week ago or with about 70 minutes gone at the Etihad.

But let’s remember, drama doesn’t always mean out-and-out great soccer — if that mythical combination of black-and-white Ferenc Puskas clips + 1960 Tottenham + 1990s Serie A + 2011 Barcelona — even exists. The Manchester City/Chelsea 1-1 draw was riveting, but it wasn’t exactly a supremely exciting game for pure soccer. Chalk that up to the Jose Mourinho mentality of playing it close to the vest on the road. Still, the Chelsea counterattack to set up Andre Schürrle’s goal, in the moment, was thrilling even if it was the Blues first shot on target. The occasional flashpoints, such as Pablo Zabaleta’s red card, kept it compelling television.

This air of excitement and drama is a big part of the reason why someone with the pedigree of Esteban Cambiasso, a Champions League winner at Inter Milan, is willing (and happy) to sign a free agent contract with unheralded Leicester City. Players, like fans, aren’t immune to the Premier League machine.

Indefensible:

As mentioned before, Manchester United lost 5-3 to Leicester City. The attention on social media quickly turned toward Manchester United’s limitations personnel-wise in defense and that the club needs to continue its spending on an elite central defender, because obviously five matches is more than enough time to sufficiently judge 20-year-old Tyler Blackett, right? (It’s worth noting two of the five Leicester goals came from penalties, one a debateable call against Rafael.)

Let’s just say that’s a little short-sighted even by 2014 standards. For one, the team did buy Argentine international Marcos Rojo, who can play centrally or in a wide role. He’s probably a better option than Chris Smalling, given the England international’s rapid decline the past two seasons. Secondly, elite/world class defenders are an increasingly rare commodity nowadays. There isn’t exactly a 22-year-old Rio Ferdinand out there to sign, or even a veteran mercenary-type like Jaap Stam. Pining for Manchester United to sign someone like Mat Hummels and expecting it to be an overnight cure-all is too simplistic.

Defending in the modern game is more about cover and coaching in a lot of ways than strictly personnel. Louis van Gaal was able to coax a third place finish from the Dutch at the World Cup relying on Ron Vlaar, Bruno Indi Martins and Stefan De Vrij — none of whom will ever be mistaken for the aforementioned Stam. And if you bring in so many new players late in the window and field an attack-first team with Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie, Falcao and Angel Di Maria all in the starting lineup (and later Juan Mata), there are going to be some holes inside your defensive third. It’s not as if Ander Herrera and Daley Blind have played together much. Expecting them to know each other’s patterns after about a week of training is foolish.

Also indefensible? Locking Rooney into the starting XI. Good thing he signed on to become club ambassador for the next 25 years, right? Of course, he is the captain and yelling at teammates sets a good example.

Same, sad story:

In the first half of Liverpool’s disheartening 3-1 loss to West Ham, summer signing Dejan Lovren knocked heads with teammate Mamadou Sakho. The Croatian defender looked dazed and received treatment. Eventually he returned to the match with a head wrap and finished the game.

Concussion safety became an issue during the World Cup, at least American fans watching the tournament via social media seemed concerned — or apparently more concerned than many of the powers that be who run world and club soccer.

Considering I’m a) not a doctor and b) wasn’t at Upton Park, I have no idea whether or not Lovren was concussed. It wasn’t discussed much after that game. Many fans and media members on Twitter speculated Lovren was “dazed” but we really do not know the extent of the injury watching from our couch. The oddest aspect of all this is I ran a Google news search for “Dejan Lovren concussion” and nothing reported from the postgame came up — which is disturbing. The match report on The Guardian website didn’t even mention the incident, going to show how much these type of minor incidents are looked at as nothing out of the ordinary during a soccer game.

What’s sad is this is still an issue. Granted, there’s a fine line between traditional macho toughness associated with sport and being an alarmist. When it comes to head injuries, doesn’t it make sense to err on the side of caution? The sport doesn’t need repeats of the images we’ve seen in the last year such as Hugo Lloris getting kneed square in the head and remaining in goal for Tottenham or Germany waiting a few minutes before realizing Christoph Kramer had no business continuing on during the World Cup final, as he stumbled around dazed for the entire world to see.

Sometimes we fail to realize in the heat of the moment many players and coaches aren’t necessarIly going to think about the well-being of an athlete’s long-term brain health. Either soccer’s governing bodies need to take this out of the players and coaches hands completely — as the EPL is trying do with on-site doctors now being given the final say if a player remains in the game — or some sort of compromise needs to be made. One of FIFA’s top medical guys wants three-minute breaks in play to assess head injuries. Many managers, unfortunately, are going to be loathe to remove a player in the first half of a game when they’re limited to three substitutions.

Another possible solution? If an independent medical professional (i.e., not employed by either team) deems a player cannot continue due to a head injury, he can be subbed out without counting toward the substitute limit. If coaches want to complain that others will manipulate the system in order to get some fresh legs on the field, so be it. It’s a small price to pay to avoid potentially much worse situations if the sport’s governing bodies continue to drag their feet.

Stat of the Week:

Finding context from blanket soccer stats remains a work in progress. As we know a goalkeeper’s worth isn’t necessarily judged by his aggregate number of saves made. In-and-of itself, what does making a even save mean? Not all saves are created equal, either. (Also: that stat was tweeted during Everton’s loss to Crystal Palace, which scored another goal in its road win at Goodison Park.)

Howard’s eight saves compared to 13 goals allowed though five matches is more an indictment on Everton’s team than one player, but at the same time even if you’re wearing red, white and blue-colored glasses you can’t ignore it either. Everton manager Roberto Martinez needs to figure out a system that works involving veterans Sylvain Distin, Phil Jagielka and 20-year old John Stones. It could be argued Everton hasn’t figured out a way to cope with the loss of Ross Barkley, too.

Goal of the Week:

Honors go to Di Maria for his chip vs. Leicester. I’m not sure you could even pull that off in-stride in a video game.

Odds and Ends:

Take some time to read David Conn’s piece on super-agent Jorge Mendes. … Papiss Cisse dedicated both his goals vs. Hull City to teammate Jonas Gutierrez who announced last week he has testicular cancer. … First-place Chelsea is six points clear of Manchester City, but three in front of Southampton and Aston Villa — just like everyone drew it up. … Through five matches, seven teams only have one win, whereas 10 teams have two losses. In other words, Chelsea aside, everyone is off to a slow-ish start. Arsenal, the week’s big gainers, are now only four points off the pace. … This Liverpool recap + graphics is better than anything I could say about the match.

Looking ahead:

The Premier League resumes Saturday with a little game called the Merseyside Derby at Anfield. Expect a long week of Liverpool fans questioning Brendan Rodgers’ rotation policies and more-and-more murmurs about Steven Gerrard’s status as an automatic starter. Saturday also brings us Arsenal/Tottenham, so two massive rivalry games on the same day.

[Photos via Getty]