EPL Monday: Logic, Wormholes and Potential EPL Parity

Logic and following sports rarely walk hand-in-hand. The laws of physics or science or whatever often don’t apply when it comes to our rooting  interests. If a sentient being landed on Earth via an inter-galaxy wormhole and, for some reason, all it wanted to do on its new planet was follow sports how would you adequately explain to this being that, for example, the underdog is beloved in the NCAA Basketball Tournament, whereas the people running NCAA football do all within their power to ensure the national champion comes from the smallest pool possible every season?

After the 11th round of games in the English/Barclay’s Premier League I’m beginning to wonder what a cosmic traveler experiencing the league for the first time would think. It might go a little something like this …

— “Why do humans on these screens keep saying this league doesn’t make sense, Mike?”
— “See Klaatu, you have to understand that historically clubs like Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal are quote-unquote bigger than most others, so they tend to occupy the top spots in the league table. Manchester City won the league last year and spend a lot of money, so uhhh, ummm, us Earthicans all expect them to be good.”
— “Yes I see, but you also told me that the teams comprising this quote-unquote Premier League spent over one billion of your earth dollars combined on new players in what you call the quote-unquote summer. Shouldn’t these teams be better as a result?”
— “Hey, are you mocking me with this quote-unquote stuff.”
— “We do not have this concept you call quote-unquote humor on my home world.”
— “Some would say the same about me, quote me on that.”

Apologies for that dumb dialogue. I saw Interstellar this weekend and had astrophysics, well clunky science fiction dialogue on the brain. To repeat, we’re still a long way away from May. 11 games do not a season make, but we go into the final international break of 2014 with the EPL table looking like so:

The reason the nascent table looks so surprising is that you have to go back to the 2002-03 season when a club other than Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United or Tottenham finished among the top four spots — the places to qualify for the financial windfall that is the Champions League. Even that’s a little misleading since Everton did it once (2004-05) and Tottenham did it twice, sort of (2009-10, 2011-12 — but Spurs missed out on the Champions League via Chelsea winning it the previous season).

In the previous 10 EPL seasons five clubs have accounted for 37 of the 40 top four finishes.

Given how all the traditional power clubs — Chelsea the sole exception this season — continue to struggle there is no sense breaking down with a weekly “what’s wrong with Arsenal/City/United/Liverpool/Tottenham/Everton” post. An interplanetary black hole is probably as feasible an explanation as any for Newcastle United, which went from fans ready to run Alan Pardew out of town to two points from a Champions League spot in less than a month.

Again, let’s get back to logic. The EPL for the last decade or so has spent countless hours telling anyone within earshot that it’s the best league in the world. EPL Chief Exec Richard Scudamore and his cronies could easily make that argument circa 2008 when Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea comprised three of the four Champions League semifinalists. Soccer is cyclical and this week we saw all four English Champions League participants struggle, highlighted by Manchester City’s loss at home to CSKA Moscow, Chelsea drawing Maribor and Arsenal coughing up a 3-0 lead at home to Anderlecht.

Six English teams participated in the Champions or Europa League last week — Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham and Everton. When EPL play resumed over the weekend, of those six, only Chelsea won and it happened to play Liverpool at Anfield. The extra games and needing your first-team squad to bounce back with three days or less rest is a possible reason why we can see a team like Swansea rally with a pair of late goals to beat Arsenal 2-1 on Sunday. (Granted in this particular instance it helped that the Gunners patchwork starting lineup that inclued Nacho Monreal forced to play center back.)

[RELATED: Diego Costa Ripped His Shirt, Scored Game-Winner vs. Liverpool]

Another purely empirical observation is there is no longer as much of a fear factor across the Premier League, Chelsea aside. We saw the veneer of Manchester United diminished last season with the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson, however teams coming back to snatch points away from Arsenal is hardly a new revelation. The instances where a club in the Premier League sees a match on the calendar and figures it has zero chance to get a result are becoming fewer and far between.

Less empirical is money. The EPL’s advantage over the rest of the world is schmoes like me will get up on Saturday and Sunday at the butt crack of dawn to watch games and bleat on about it on social media. In turn the league, like Jean Ralphio once upon a time on Parks & Rec is flush with television cash. If a club can stick around a few seasons and pocket the EPL television money, which last year saw the clubs split up $2.6 billion, it should be able to attract better players and improve. Logical, right?

Take Bafétimbi Gomis, scorer of the game-winner for Swansea vs. Arsenal as an example. The French international was willing to let his contract expire with Lyon to make a free transfer to Swansea — a Welsh team that up until 2011 had never played in the Premier League. Even a relegation candidate like QPR was able to pluck Dutch international Leroy Fer from Norwich City (relegated from the EPL in May) or grab Chilean international Mauricio Isla on-loan from Juventus. Oh right, one-time Barcelona supposed wunderkind Bojan Krkic is now toiling away for unfancied Stoke City and scoring quality goals against Tottenham.

And by now realistically what is all that different between Tottenham and Stoke or any of the league’s 20 clubs — or at least the teams established in the division for a year or two? Most club seem to follow the same model of buying players, throwing them together and hoping its manager can make it work. Manchester City or Chelsea might be able to spend more, farm its younger players out around the globe to its new network or feeder clubs, but the two teams are still buying players from abroad just like a West Ham or a Swansea, albeit the bigger teams are shopping at a premium market vs. the regular grocery store.

Most EPL clubs would rather buy a 24-year-old brought up in an academy and worked through a club in the Netherlands or France or Germany or Spain or wherever than develop the player itself. This, in part, can explain some of the choppy play in the EPL in recent years since very few teams have a distinct, soccer philosophy ingrained in its players from an early age, such as we see at a club like Barcelona for example.

Elite players, yes, still want to play for clubs in the Champions League but that next tier of professionals are willing to take the plunge and sign up for a non-elite EPL team since England is the place to be right now. European performances would show these  mish-mashed teams — think the Dwight Howard Los Angeles Lakers team — aren’t exactly the greatest, most cohesive soccer teams ever assembled, but in the Premier League it’s okay. Games in the EPL feel increasingly like they boil down to small moments, where a brief few seconds of skill can earn you three points.

Chelsea have all sorts of game-changers, most notably Eden Hazard and Diego Costa, who has 10 goals already since signing from Atletico Madrid. The Blues spent in the summer, too, but didn’t need to change the system they had in place, as Cesc Fabregas and Costa served as like-for-like upgrades over Frank Lampard and Fernando Torres, respectively. Most everyone else in the league, however, bought players and is still — three months after the fact — trying to build cohesive teams on the fly, allowing others to creep up the table in the early stages.

All this said, I’m going to drop a swerve on Klaatu or whomever else is still reading this and admit that odds are the top four will still be some variant of the five teams we are used to seeing which goes against the logic of what we’ve seen the first 11 games. The blind guess going forward is whether or not teams like Southampton (which has played an easy schedule) will regress to the historical mean or will Arsenal/Manchester United/Liverpool eventually get their act together and rise to their historical place?

Jose Being Jose

Chelsea looks like it could moonwalk to the title in May, the way the rest of the division is playing. Jose Mourinho isn’t biting at the prompts from the English media following the 2-1 win at Liverpool on Saturday, which Chelsea displayed all the grace of a bull in a china shop — not that style points matter when it comes to taking all three points. The Special One only went as far as to say his team is the unofficial “Autumn Champs” and said that — despite everyone assuming the Blues will win the title — says there is far to much to play for. From the Guardian:

"“In other leagues you might say that,” he said. “In Germany or Spain or Portugal, where only two or three teams can win, if one of them goes 15 points behind it would be too much to make up. But this is England. You can lose points in every match."

The more interesting thing to watch is Mourinho vs. various National Team managers around the globe. Last month he and Spain manager Vincente Del Bosque traded barbs over the use of Diego Costa. Saturday Mourinho said he risked playing Cesc Fabregas and Ramires with injuries that have since ruled them out of International duty.

Perhaps players piling up excessive wear-and-tear and or injuries from international games will be the only way the Blues express gets derailed.

Goal of the Week:

Gylfi Sigurðsson’s free kick edges out Ayoze Perez’s picture perfect backheel, barely.

Stat of the Week:

I’m unsure how religious Manuel Pellegrini is, but the Manchester City manager might want to offer some tribute to the soccer gods to ensure Sergio Agüero stays healthy. City would dip further into the “crisis” side of ledger without his goals, as he bailed the club out to salvage a 2-2 draw at QPR Saturday. Edin Dzeko might be out until December, so City will hold their breath Agüero makes it through Argentina’s friendlies with Croatia and Portugal unscathed.

Smart play of the Week:

“Veteran experience” might be one of the the sports media’s most-tired cliches, but in the case of Tim Howard Sunday it was quite apt when he totally faked out Sunderland’s Steven Fletcher, falling over on top of the ball — but not handling it — in Everton’s 1-1 draw.

Brilliant officiating of the week:

Guess who got the yellow card here, Ramires (blue) or Raheem Sterling (red). Yep, it was Sterling.

Odds & Ends:

Manchester United beat Crystal Palace 1-0 at Old Trafford. It was encouraging to see Robin van Persie much more active, although he didn’t score. How Louis van Gaal manages to keep Angel Di Maria fresh around the crowded holiday fixture portion of the schedule will be key, as will any contributions from Juan Mata who came off the bench to score the winner Saturday. … American keeper Brad Guzan earned high marks, keeping a clean sheet in Aston Villa’s scoreless draw with West Ham. … Jurgen Klinsmann watched Tottenham/Stoke at his former stomping grounds, White Hart Lane. Hopefully he didn’t boo.

Looking Ahead:

The final international break of 2014 is upon us. When Premier League play resumes on Nov. 22 we’re treated to Manchester United/Arsenal and,, fortunately, it’s the late Saturday kickoff, too.