adminTHE Premier League table has an unusual look at the start of 2023 and not just because Arsenal are seven points clear of Manchester City at the top.
Brighton, Brentford and Fulham are in the top half of the table, representing an interesting power shift away from clubs who we think of as traditional challengers for the European places.
After some promising campaigns in which they threatened to usurp the established order, clubs such as Leicester City, West Ham, Everton and Wolves have fallen away. In many respects, this is a depressing result of the financial stratification of the league and the entrenched advantages enjoyed by the biggest clubs, but it is also due to mismanagement.
Brighton and Brentford in particular are testament to the virtues of a value-based, data-driven approach to recruitment that so-called bigger names would do well to learn from.
Everton’s scattergun recruitment put the wrong players on the wrong wages, Wolves’ reliance on a small pool of players linked to favourable agents has seen diminishing returns while West Ham have also struggled to integrate expensive summer signings.
One difficulty these clubs face is managing expectations. West Ham or Everton fans would accept a tough season or two when budgets were tight, but it’s hard to make sense of sitting 17th when you are one of European football’s biggest spenders.
As fruitless managerial appointments of Manuel Pellegrini, Carlo Ancelotti and Rafael Benitez attest, there is too much focus on keeping up appearances in order to ‘look’ like a big club.
Brighton and Brentford have a more measured and realistic outlook, and are reaping the rewards. – Telegraph Football
Online Reporter