Premier League lacking top players

LONDON – There is no pleasing some people. When Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United were dominating the Premier League, English football was called predictable.

Going into this weekend’s fixtures there was a top five of Arsenal, Leicester City, Manchester City, Tottenham and Crystal Palace. Now, the unpredictable Premier League is hailed as the worst in its 23-year history.

There are, of course, lies, damn lies and statistics and while Spain, unsurprisingly, has the most clubs in the later stages of the Champions League and Europa League — seven — England and Germany are one behind with six, ahead of Italy’s five.

Not too shabby by Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City, but while the trio fly the English flag in the Champions League, they are far from the forces they were a few years ago.

Between 2005 and 2012 English clubs, including Manchester United and Liverpool, dominated the tournament. Since then, they have been also-rans to the elite of Spain, Germany and Italy and it will be a similar story this season.

Apart from Mesut Ozil, none of the best players in the world play in the Premier League. It is hard to think of too many, if any, of the second tier of the world’s top players plying their trade in English football, goalkeepers apart. There has usually been a good sprinkling of true superstars in the Premier League — over the past 10 years Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Luis Suarez, Ashley Cole, Wayne Rooney (at his peak), Fernando Torres, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Michael Ballack and Xabi Alonso have graced the domestic game. The cupboard is worryingly bare these days.

Last February, the Premier League signed a new television deal worth £5 billion per year. These revenues will be distributed fairly evenly among clubs: the champions will receive around £150 million, and the worst performer £99 million.

This will make English football the most lucrative in the world, though the knock-on effect is more likely to be that middle to lower class clubs can afford to sign better players, making the Premier League even more competitive. However Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich will still attract the cream of the world’s crop.

A personal view is that this season’s Premier League is a welcome break from the traditional heavyweights slugging it out, with Leicester, Watford and Crystal Palace unexpected challengers at the top end of the table while Tottenham, under Mauricio Pochettino, cannot be ruled out of the title race. The Premier League remains the most exciting in the world, but the best football is played by representatives of Spain, Germany and France.

Tale of two rivals: If Manchester United allows Pep Guardiola to sign with the club, Sir Alex Ferguson called the noisy neighbor, Ed Woodward, the Old Trafford executive vice chairman, may find his job untenable.

That Woodward is running United as a successful, profitable business is not disputed. However, United fans see him as the man who appointed Louis van Gaal and who has overseen five transfer windows which have been, with the odd exception, failures.

While old quotes can always come back to haunt those in football, what Woodward said about van Gaal 18 months ago has inevitably been regurgitated.

“He’s got incredible energy and very importantly he likes attacking football. If you remember the Barcelona team (he managed) in the late 90s, who played incredible, attacking football, and those games we had against them in ’98-99, that’s the kind of football that Manchester United fans love. It’s part of our DNA.”

The belatedly welcome return to an attacking style in an exciting 0-0 draw against Chelsea gave the Dutchman some breathing space. United fans will accept a degree of failure, but not the turgid stuff they have mostly seen in the van Gaal era.

At best, a continuation of the Chelsea performance will keep the supporters happier, but there is a general acceptance that van Gaal must be replaced next summer. Too much has been spent on too little with minimal return.

Despite reports that Guardiola, who will leave Bayern Munich at the end of the season, is set to join Manchester City, the Catalan has agreed nothing with anybody and is notorious for changing his mind at the 11th hour. His main consideration will not be money. Guardiola is already very rich and whether he joins City, United, PSG or whoever, he will rightly be paid handsomely. Another million here or there won’t make any difference.

Despite City’s seemingly endless supply of transfer funds from its Middle East owner, United is not exactly a pauper, the Glazers having backed van Gaal to the tune of £250 million net.

So if financially there is no significant difference, what would sway Guardiola one way or the other?

He worked with City’s director of football Txiki Begiristain and chief executive Ferran Soriano at Barcelona though this may not necessarily be an advantage given that Guardiola has not always found it easy to have a close relationship with executives.

Given that City has the strongest squad in the Premier League, it should be cruising this unpredictable campaign. Without the injured Vincent Kompany the Blues lack a true leader, Yaya Toure, who has been the heartbeat of City in recent seasons, has lost his mojo, while Sergio Aguero is struggling with fitness. Joe Hart, Fernandinho, Bacary Sagna and Kevin de Bruyne have been the Blues’ most consistent players though they have not won an away game in the Premier League for 3½ months (not including Saturday’s match at Watford) and such travel sickness may cost them dearly.

“It’s having enough points to win the title that matters,” was Manuel Pellegrini’s inevitable response to his side’s troubles on the road. The Chilean is not receiving anything like the criticism directed at van Gaal, mainly because the popular view is that Pellegrini will be replaced by Guardiola next summer.

A done deal?

We shall see.

In terms of player personnel there is little to choose between the two Manchester clubs. What United has, and City knows it cannot compete in this respect, is a tradition and history unparalleled in English football. This is what Woodward will surely try to sell to Guardiola; the stumbling block would be the possibility that United will not be in the Champions League next season.

Champions League or not, United fans will expect Woodward to make up for the van Gaal appointment and only the capture of the world’s most wanted coach will appease the Old Trafford faithful.

The anatomy of a Premier League January transfer

The January transfer window is upon us - but is it worth splashing the cash mid-season? We tried to find a method amid the madness.

First things first: you’re (almost certainly) going to pay the odds in January. If you need something, everyone knows it. If opponents know you are in need they will overcharge because selling will in turn leave them short.

Fulham and Leicester are among the teams to break their transfer record in recent years – on Kostas Mitroglou and Andrej Kramaric, respectively – with remarkably poor results. Between them, those two forwards – costing a combined £20 million – have three Premier League goals in a year and a half in England.

Then there was the infamous January of 2011. Liverpool spent £58m on Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez and cashed in £50m when Fernando Torres moved to Chelsea. Suarez eventually became a brilliant signing but took a while to settle; the path from Eredivisie to Premier League is well-trodden and players usually need a while to find their feet.

The fee for Torres was arguably the most outlandish ever and proved to be a terrible misjudgement on Chelsea’s part, while Carroll was signed on the back of his first spell of Premier League form rather than top flight pedigree (more on that below).

£50m proved to be just a little over the odds

Juan Mata, Wilfried Bony, Juan Cuadrado and Chris Samba are just four more overpriced January transfers – who had decidedly mixed success – and could probably have been lured for cheaper in the summer. None had such immediate effect that their hefty winter fees could really be justified.

There are of course some outliers in the likes of Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho, both of whom were steals for Liverpool but bargains of that calibre are risks that happened to pay off.

Verdict: Be ready to pay over the odds, so only buy if you need to

Age

Essentially, buying too young in January rarely works. The pressure for an immediate impact is often simply too great and even the new-found idea of purchasing and then loaning straight back can end up failing.

Wilfried Zaha signed for Manchester United in January 2013, swiftly lost the support of his adoring Crystal Palace fans for the second half of the season and then failed to make any kind of impression at Old Trafford, instead farmed out to Cardiff on loan. He is now back at Palace probably regretting ever leaving.

Zaha ended up on loan at Cardiff

Kevin De Bruyne moved from Genk to Chelsea in January 2012 before going straight back on loan but has ended up at Manchester City via Werder Bremen and Wolfsburg. Chelsea barely showed any real belief in him.

The sheer level of expectation weighs heavy on youngsters and insufficient time to settle can be problematic. Dele Alli has become a success at Spurs but signing him in January was just to ensured he was tied down. He is a rarity in that he was signed to the Premier League from the lower divisions and has taken to it quickly. Generally, youngsters struggle.

Verdict: If you want to improve the first team, don’t bother with youth in January

Form

Form is temporary; class is permanent, as the adage goes. Nowhere else in football can form be as misleading and deceiving as in the effect it has on fees in the January transfer window.

For example, there is no doubting that Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez are both very good players but the fact that Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri now reckons ‘nobody can buy them’ in the winter window because ‘they don’t have the money’ is frankly ridiculous.

Mahrez's form has led to talk of an inflated fee

There would be no sense in Leicester selling their prized assets midway through the season but there is also every chance that neither player will go on to be a consistent performer worth in the region of the £40m fee that has been bandied about.

Similarly, Carroll may have been worth £35m to the Newcastle side for whom he was scoring freely, but he was worth nothing like that to Liverpool. The fact that he was in form affected his price tag.

Harry Kane has been allocated a similar price tag but he is still yet to prove that last season wasn’t just a purple patch. Nothing can disrupt a run of form like the weight of a hefty transfer fee.

Verdict: Beware. Form at one club is no guarantee of class at another.

Experience

It is rare for a player with no experience of life, football and pressure in England to take to the Premier League with ease when joining in January.

Mo Salah, Edin Dzeko, Suarez, Mitroglu and Kramaric are just a few that struggled for the rest of the season after their moves. They grew into their roles with varying success, but the fact remains that it is exceptionally difficult to adapt to both a new team and a new league mid-season.

Cisse fit straight in on Tyneside

The likes of Nikica Jelavic, Papiss Demba Cisse – who scored 13 goals in 14 games in his first six months at St James’ Park – and Arsenal’s Nacho Monreal and Gabriel show that it can be done but the success stories are far less frequent than those who struggle.

Sturridge, Gary Cahill, Darren Bent and Louis Saha, all with Premier League experience, have made recent January moves and had an effect straight away.

Verdict: Premier League experience preferable

Compatibility

Andy Carroll suited Newcastle; he did not suit Liverpool. Wilfried Bony was worth his weight in gold to Swansea; he is only a bit-part player for City. Wilf Zaha was a key Crystal Palace player but wasn’t the right fit at Old Trafford.

Carroll was not suited to Liverpool's style of play

Compatibility will always be a key consideration, but desperation in January can cause clubs to disregard the need for a player that fits their system rather than just looking to sign someone who is thriving at another club.

Verdict: Do your research

Nationality

There is very little in terms of a pattern here. Often English players do well, but there are striking anomalies, while Frenchmen tend to settle well perhaps thanks to a similar climate and a short journey home when they want it, but again that is by no means without exception. South Americans also fare rather well for the most part and eastern Europeans have trouble.

Verdict: Cross your fingers and hope for the best

Daniel Sturridge: an instant hit at Anfield

So, there are a few pointers to take into account when considering your January transfer targets but it is also worth bearing in mind that deals at this time of year are riddled with even more risk than normal.

Signings can provide much-needed reinforcement and depth but there remains a greater possibility than in the summer that players will fall by the wayside. Proceed into January with plenty of caution.