Andrew
As the English top flight returns after a draining but hugely entertaining layoff to accommodate the World Cup, the Guardian looks at how the teams shape up going into the season’s second half.
The action kicks off with a bevy of Boxing Day fixtures that starts with a Tottenham visit to Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium and ends with a clash between log leaders Arsenal and West Ham tomorrow.
The title race
When Premier League festivities resume on Boxing Day, the smart money is on Arsenal and Manchester City slugging it out for the title until May in what could be a contest for the ages.
Leading their sides in a classic master-apprentice matchup is City’s near-peerless manager Pep Guardiola and his former assistant and now Arsenal number one, Mikel Arteta.
The tale of the tape thus far is fascinating. Arteta’s pretenders are the young thrusters who have a five-point lead, but could be without Gabriel Jesus until February.
Their goal count is 33, with 11 conceded, the division’s joint lowest, and in captain Martin Ødegaard (24), Bukayo Saka (21), Gabriel Martinelli (21), Ben White (25), Aaron Ramsdale (24) and William Saliba (21), Arsenal have an effervescent core being led by the vibrant Arteta.
Guardiola’s seasoned campaigners are reigning champions, have scored a division-high 40 and their 18-goal phenomenon Erling Haaland enjoyed six weeks off before returning to score against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup last week.
City have plundered four of the last five Premier League titles and Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish are some of their other headline acts.
In this World Cup-interrupted season, both sides have played 14 games but are yet to meet.
Keep February 15 and April 26 in the diary free for City’s visit to the Emirates and the reverse fixture to watch how each will hope to unpick the other, plus, of course, the riveting sideshow of two animated managers trying to maintain cool on the touchline.
Viewers of Arsenal’s All or Nothing, which took in last term, were offered an insight into Arteta’s at times left-field methods (a floating lightbulb featured in one team talk) and wholly likeable persona. They will be impressed at how his team have gone from the late-season collapse that ended in a fifth-place finish, featured in the Amazon documentary, to this season’s apparent real deal.
Arsenal’s sole reverse has been at Manchester United and they have dropped only two points since. City have two defeats on the card. November’s fractious 1-0 downing by Liverpool at Anfield in which Jürgen Klopp was sent off, and Brentford’s smash-and-grab 2-1 win at Etihad Stadium in their final outing before the Qatar 2022 cessation.
Five points is not a massive margin but it indicates an Arsenal side who are not going anywhere between now and the spring months when the championship is decided.
Newcastle United, a further two points behind City, and Tottenham (three), may believe they can still force themselves into the contest, but realistically this seems destined to unfold as a storybook toe-to-toe of two prizefighters: the side who were last England’s best in 2004 and the current holders.
Battle for the top four
Only three Premier League teams have broken the usual suspects’ vice-like grip on Champions League qualification in the past 20 years — Leicester, when winning the title in 2016, Everton in 2005 and Newcastle in 2003 (only the top three in England qualified when they finished fourth in 2001-2002).
It is St James’ Park that houses the biggest threat to the closed shop once again.
History may suggest otherwise, but on pre-World Cup form the odds must be firmly on Eddie Howe delivering a top-four finish in the first full season since the money started flowing in from Saudi Arabia.
Taking the title race as a shootout between Arsenal and Manchester City — and Newcastle may beg to differ given their winning streak before the break — six teams are left challenging for the remaining two Champions League spots, from Howe’s side in third to a plummeting Chelsea in eighth.
Newcastle, who resume their league campaign at Leicester on Boxing Day, have presented the strongest case for inclusion by far in a season when they have lost once in all competitions and won seven of eight league games prior to the World Cup.
There could be no clearer statement about their credentials than the performance that secured the 2-1 win at Tottenham. — Guardian.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter