EPL Monday: Are You Not Entertained?

The English Premier League is a lot like Coca Cola — both have their formulas down.

Take this weekend’s showdown between Chelsea and Arsenal at Stamford Bridge. All week, the build up to the game centered on managers Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger, stemming from comments earlier this year when the Chelsea boss called his Arsenal counterpart a “specialist in failure.” Lo and behold, barely 20 minutes into the match a wild challenge by Gary Cahill on Alexis Sanchez prompted the French manager to push Mourinho in the technical area.

Granted this little tiff wasn’t on the level of Mourinho scrapping with Pep Guardiola when he managed Real Madrid but it was enough to get everyone around the globe watching into a tizzy. Whatever Wenger’s intentional during the shoving he might as well have gone full Russell Crowe and yelled out, “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!” Either that or he should have gone all-in and swung a haymaker at Mourinho to break the soccer Internet completely.

Wenger and Mourinho don’t like each other — nothing new.

Let’s face it, often these sort of flashpoints of near-scripted insanity overshadow the actual games themselves in the Premier League. Chelsea’s 2-0 win over Arsenal was mostly ho-hum and predictable. The Blues are simply a better team 1-11 than Arsenal at the moment. There’s nothing all that compelling or sexy about that, but it’s the truth.

The Wenger-Mourinho spat did overshadow two worthwhile points from the match. The first, once again the EPL doesn’t seem to have a firm plan to deal with concussions or head safety. Keeper Thibaut Courtois collided with Sanchez, taking a knock to the head. He was down on the ground and dazed, but stayed in the match for another 10 minutes before being replaced by Petr Cech.

It took a visible cut and noticeable blood around the ear for the Belgium to be taken out o the game and sent to a hospital as a precaution. When asked Mourinho basically gave a no comment, deferring to the club’s medical staff. Mourinho isn’t a doctor so he’s not exactly qualified to diagnose concussions and said as much afterward.The good news here is Courtois appears to be okay and will meet up with the Belgium squad on international duty. Even so, the way soccer handles possible head injuries remains disturbing.

The other interesting note after this match is Wenger once again played the financial card following the loss:

"“As well, at the end of the day, they have a financial power and they used it in a very efficient way when they had the chances.”Their individual players who can make the difference made the difference — Hazard and Costa.”"

Yes, over the last five years the financial might of Roman Abramovich helped Chelsea spend about 40 percent more on players than Arsenal, which was comparatively frugal during its first few years after moving into the Emirates Stadium. The difference in the summer 2014 transfer window was negligible with Chelsea shelling out $145 million for players compared to Arsenal’s $131.

Realistically, Wenger complaining about Chelsea’s ability to spend is in line with someone driving a BMW complaining that their neighbor has the one with a newer rear spoiler attached.

A better way to look at it? This summer Chelsea spent around $48 million on a Barcelona player, Cesc Fabregas, while Arsenal spent $56 million on his former teammate Alexis Sanchez. Fabregas, an ex-Arsenal player, is arguably the EPL’s best player through the first seven matches, solidifying Chelsea’s midfield and setting up Diego Costa’s clinching-goal Sunday with an inch-perfect 40-yard pass. And, yes, he is the exact player missing from the Gunners midfield.

Late in the game one of Arsenal’s summer signings, Danny Welbeck, wiped out Fabregas with a two-foot challenge but avoided a red card.

The dirty little secret is that the EPL needs stuff like Wenger shoving Mourinho to drive up the drama and keep people interested since each passing week it looks like Chelsea winning the title becomes more of a formality.

Dave Saves

The perception of Manchester United keeper David de Gea serves as a nice microcosm of sports in the 21st century. The Spaniard — still only 23 — came to England in 2011. The move has since proven to be one of the shrewder bits of business toward the end of the Sir Alex Ferguson era. Of course it wasn’t always that way. Running a Google search on “David De Gea howler” yields pages of results. Here’s one link from 2011 that contains United overcoming “another goalkeeping error” right in the first sentence of the lede.

If memory serves de Gea’s early problems at United were down to punching away balls, rather than smothering them, which resulted in some easy goals from short-range on the rebound. De Gea even got dropped a few times on occasion.

Fast forward to last year and de Gea was United’s best player in the lost David Moyes season.

The presence of new signing Angel Di Maria means de Gea won’t be the nominal “best” at Old Trafford this year, but for all the transitions required to rework the club, keeper isn’t one of them. De Gea saved a Leighton Baines penalty right before halftime on Sunday and then made an unreal stop on Bryan Oviedo in sec0nd-half stoppage time to preserve the 2-1 win.

Granted it’s not always the case, but de Gea’s rise is a good reason to remember — as crazy as it sounds — to exhibit some patience as a sports fan every now and again.  See, they love him in Northwest England now:

Oh Mario…

Liverpool picked up a much-needed 2-1 win vs. West Brom Saturday. Adam Lallana looked to be 100 percent, showing off the form from his Southampton days. Jordan Henderson put together the all-around performance that has many Reds fans clamoring for him to be Steven Gerrard’s successor as captain at Anfield. And yet, all many people want to talk about is Mario Balotelli and his lack of goals in a red shirt.

The Italian striker started on the bench after Brendan Rodgers talked about him needing to score more goals in the build up to Saturday. The stats aren’t pretty. Balotelli’s tallied over 60 shots, but scored only one goal in his last 21 EPL appearances dating back to his Manchester City days … which isn’t exactly relevant to 2014 but people still bring it up.

No, Balotelli hasn’t hit the ground running at Liverpool, compounded by an injury to Daniel Sturridge, but the criticism is mostly unfair and exacerbated because of his larger than life persona, which prompts everyone to have an opinion upon him. This is one of the risks that comes with Balotelli. A fairer way to asses it is that Balotelli is like any striker — when they score you think they play great, when they don’t they’re bums.

The better question to ask if if there is still a place in modern soccer for strikers who do little more than score to impact matches? Robin van Persie’s impact on matches tends to come down to whether or not he scores, granted the Dutchman’s prolific form in 2012-13 led Manchester United to the EPL title.

And, let’s not forget Balotelli was criticized for dropping too deep vs. FC Basel in the Champions League, so apparently he can’t win.

Actually the only way Balotelli can win is to turn at least some of his bulk shots from outside of the box into goals. Either that or take higher-percentage shots. Zero goals with 23 shots and only 30 percent on target for Liverpool isn’t good, but it’s highlighted is because its Balotelli compared to say, Shane Long, who is also scoreless for his new club, Southampton, since a summer transfer or Diafra Sakho who now has four goals in five games for his new club, West Ham.

Stat of the Week:

Everton dropped to 17th in the table following the loss to Manchester United. The Toffess have conceded the most goals in the league. Things are going so poorly, even Leighton Baines is missing penalties. As much as I enjoyed Roberto Martinez’s punditry for ESPN during the World Cup he needs to make some adjustments, soon.

Goal of the Week:

Ross Wallace 96th minute equalizer vs. Leicester City is likely going to be the 2013-14 season-highlight for Burnley.

Perfect:

Odds & Ends:

Tottenham lodged another 1-0 win, this time Sunday vs. Stoke. Take away the 3-0 drubbing from Liverpool and that’s only four goals allowed in the other six matches by Spurs. … West Brom doesn’t receive many plaudits in America, but Saido Berahino is very good. … Hull City beat Crystal Palace 2-0. More interesting is club owner Assem Allam continuing to say he’ll sell the team if he’s not allowed to change its name to “Hull Tigers,” which would (apparently) provide better global marketing potential. Is the name “Tigers” unique and the ticket for Hull to nudging Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid, etc. from atop the global perch? … Ian Darke and David Pleat provided the commentary on NBCSN during the late Sunday West Ham-QPR match. … Unlike the aforementioned Balotelli, few voices criticized Manchester United and or Falcao or his failure to score for his new club. The Colombian went four matches until breaking his drought Sunday vs. Everton. … Saturday served as another reminder as David Silva goes, as goes Manchester City. The Spanish international shined in a late 2-0 win at Aston Villa.

Looking ahead:

The second-to-last international break of 2014 arrives this week, so there aren’t any EPL games until the following weekend. The best game on the horizon is Manchester City-Tottenham. Of course the bigger thing to watch is which players pick up injuries away playing for their country.