Man City and Liverpool can celebrate special seasons... but the top-four battle was a pantomime of inadequacy
Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp were unanimous. Both described the Premier League campaign as a “special season”.
The points racked up by Manchester City and Liverpool appear to justify the claims: 98 and 97, the second and third-highest totals in history.
Guardiola also claimed that his repeating champions have “increased the standards” in the division. Only at Anfield. The battle between the top two has been compulsive viewing, but very few teams below them can look back with any sense of pride.
The so-called ‘big six’ turned out to be an illusion. There was very little big, or clever, about Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United. The battle for third and fourth places turned into a pantomime of inadequacy.
Cup runs in Europe paper over a multitude of cracks, but the domestic form of these four clubs was embarrassing.
Chelsea at least beat City and took a point off Liverpool. Arsenal and United managed to hold Klopp’s team to a draw. That is simply not good enough.
There has been turmoil at Stamford Bridge throughout Maurizio Sarri’s 10 months in charge. The new manager’s momentum faded too quickly, Eden Hazard is about to depart and even if an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport gets Fifa's transfer ban postponed or overturned, it’s hard to see where Sarri will get the players to make his template work.
Spurs entered the season unprepared. It was a dereliction of duty not to improve the squad in the summer. The good work of Mauricio Pochettino, the new stadium and qualification for the Champions League Final left Spurs fans smiling but the team are four points worse off in relation to the champions than they were a year ago.
Arsenal narrowed the gap with City by nine points compared to 12 months ago, but that still left them 28 adrift. Unai Emery was supposed to bring a fresh approach to the Gunners but the Emirates still has a late-Wenger era feel to it.
As for United, their performance has been shameful. Since Sir Alex Ferguson departed six years ago, the club have made increasingly comic and inept attempts to restore purpose and stability. They have not bottomed out yet.
Fall behind City and they will run away with it. Forget the points totals. They add up to poor performances from teams that should be City’s peers.
