“Oh, it’s good to have it back!” purrs Sky Sport’s Andy Gray over the first game of the new Premier League season, Tottenham vs. Manchester City. Something about the Scot’s delivery – part assertion, part reassurance – means he could be telling you Marlon Harewood is a decent shout at 6/1 for the golden boot and you would consider a five-pound flutter. This remark however needed no such persuasive power; after three bleak months for all but Spanish and New Zealand football fans, the real show has started.
Despite the perennial clichés (‘it’s a funny old game’, ‘you never can tell in football’, ‘still early doors yet’) the opening day results are furiously scrutinised by overactive fans and pundits alike, more in a flurry of child-like excitement at the PL’s return you sense, than because of real conviction of opinion. But are performances at this early stage a premonition of things to come or simply a case the summer hangover being run off? Most fans will sagely point out minute qualities or flaws that they assure will become the bricks on which success is built or from which ambitions crumble, yet as the dust settles on Gameweek One, what can actually be deduced from the opening results?
The opening at White Hart Lane was the best indication of both the opening-day excitement and the off-field distractions that make any predictions in the middle of August spurious. Spurs were buzzing after their season last year and the Champions League looming tantalizingly round the corner; Man City’s players looked discombobulated having only just emerged from the club’s frantically spinning revolving transfer door – which if anything, will spin faster as a 50 man squad is filtered through £200 million’s worth of new talent – were only communicating by reading each others names off the backs of their shirts. Half the multimillion pound bric-a-brac squad will have to decide whether being surplus to requirements is something better enjoyed on your arse for £70,000 a week in Manchester, or whether actually getting your game is worth going back to minimum wage in the Championship or SPL. Tough times.
The only real conclusion I drew was that both sides will play worse this season and win. The home team played with energy and excitement but after a bright first half seemed to be more focused on Young Boys on Tuesday rather than their Mancunian opposition. The visitors meanwhile relied on the stalwart (in City terms anyway) centre-half partnership of Kolo Toure and Vincent Company augmenting Joe Hart’s gung-ho goalkeeping, leaping around enjoying himself in the sun and riding his luck bit on the way a well-deserved clean sheet. A similar stalemate between Arsenal and Liverpool is reminiscent of a scenario played out multiple times in South Africa – two teams who wanted to not lose more than they wanted to win – and one that, hopefully, will not characterise prospective Champions League 2011 candidates throughout the season.
No such worries for teams vying not to be playing in the Championship next year. Blackpool hitting four past Wigan briefly put them top of the table, but even the omniscient Andy Gray using Jedi mind-tricks would struggle to convince anyone but Ian Holloway that they are going straight back down. Remember when Burnley beat Man United at Turfmoor last season? Their ‘fortress’ wasn’t so impenetrable when West Ham, Wolves, Wigan and Portsmouth won there. Or when Hull were Champions League contenders in October after winning at the Emirates and White Hart Lane? They then lost eight out of their last ten matches and only stayed up because the teams below them were worse, a luxury they were not afforded two seasons in a row. While it’s brilliant that Blackpool can hammer a team on the opening day, Holloway’s promise to play football (because “mountain-climbers take risks”) draws ominous comparisons with Tony Mowbray’s West Brom team of two years ago, who tried to pass like Arsenal but defended like, well, West Brom. It’s all well and good being the underdogs in sunny September, but when you’re away at Blackburn in darkest February you sense the most of the novelty will have worn off (though Holloway’s sound bites remain evergreen).
Aston Villa’s comfortable win over West Ham could be a misleadingly optimistic start to what promises to be a very difficult season for the Brummies. Having a caretaker manager, who if he really wanted the job would have asked for it by now, can only upset the rhythm of a squad who thrived off repetition. For the second season in a row the club’s outstanding English midfielder has been sold to Man City, the money hasn’t been reinvested prudently (or at all in Milner’s case), and now the Irish maverick who masterminded Villa’s ascendancy has upped sticks. Cue the disruption of a teamsheet carved in stone – including arguably the best centre-back pairing in the league last year, Jimmy Collins and Richard Dunne – with fringe players like Curtis Davis entering stage right, players who have yet to realise that the reason they didn’t play much last year is not because the manager didn’t like them, but because they spent more time whining and blinging themselves up than they did getting their heads down and training.
So while Villa won on the opening day but will most likely struggle, Everton lost but still look promising to push on as the perennial dark horses for a top four finish. Mikel Arteta, apart from learning ‘God Save the Queen’ in case Fabio comes calling, has pledged his future to Goodison and will continue to spearhead a formidable midfield there, for the foreseeable future anyway. Arsenal hammered Everton last year yet Moyes’ men still only just missed out on denying Liverpool the last Europa League spot; an uncharacteristic error from Timmy Howard is not nearly enough to suggest that they can't go one step further this year.
Two results that very few would argue flattered to deceive involved the champions and the runners up, Manchester United and Chelsea. Nine goals without reply between them, continuity of personality on and off the pitch over the summer, and an uninspiring World Cup across both squads mean a resignation has sunk in among much of the footballing world that the ‘big two’ will remain unassailable for another season at least. But a little birdie with a thick Scottish accent told me that Marlon Harewood’s going to bag thirty this season so lets see how things pan out.
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