Ask and Ye Shall Receive: A Normal Week of Barclays
The Premier League got off to a chaotic start to the season. The first five weeks unfolded with results as unpredictable as ever. Liverpool, last year’s dominant champions were beaten 7–2 by Aston Villa. Manchester United, who finished third in 2019/20, were hammered 6–1 by a Jose Mourinho side, who also put five past Southampton.
Chelsea, after having spent all the money buying all the forwards, drew two of their opening five games 3–3. Everton, mid table mediocrity defined were high-flying and playing the most exciting football in all the land with World Cup Golden Boot winner James Rodriguez the mastermind behind their fancy football.
Leeds United, back in the big time, were tearing it up and playing in some of the best league games the top division has seen in years, losing their first match 4–3 to Liverpool but winning their second game 4–3 to Fulham. Fulham! Just as bad as last time round… well, it can’t all be unpredictable can it?
There was even a match that was decided by a winner so late it came after the final whistle. We truly have been blessed by not a single week of “normal Barclays.”
“What is ‘normal’ Barclays?” you may ask. Well, to be quite honest, nobody really knows. But when the chaos is brewing and no one can tell what to expect next, the online football fan community will turn to the only thing they know to be constant: memes.
From 2001–2016, the company Barclays, in some way, was the title sponsor of the Premier League/Premiership. From 2007 onwards it was simply known as the Barclays Premier League.
Now, four years on from their partnership ending, they are still the title sponsor in the hearts and minds of confused and excited football fans. When the sport decides to turn everything on its head, we all look to the simpler time we all remember when Barclays was a word synonymous with a less chaotic period of English football.
The decision not to replace Barclays, in an attempt to follow the American model of a ‘clean’ image, has left a vacuum for who to blame for all the madness. Fans have reverted to Barclays, almost as if they never left us.
“One regular week of Barclays, that’s all we ask,” cries the text on the image, floating underneath Antonio Conte. The template originated from a 2017 match between Hull City and Chelsea. Ironically, Chelsea won 2–0 in a pretty drab and predictable game, one that would certainly have been classed as a “regular” result.
This season, among all the chaos, the image has been replaced and updated. Now it reads from the perspective of Marcelo Bielsa and his trusty translator.
“Un día normal de Barclays. Eso es todo lo que pido. Nunca ocurrirá,” supposedly says Bielsa.
Well, this weekend it did ocurrirá.
This was the weekend where all the grand narratives that we clung onto to try piece together the madness all fell apart and what we were left with was a series of largely uninteresting matches with somewhat predictable results.
Ok, West Ham did finally get a result against Manchester City at home. Their previous meetings at the London Stadium saw an aggregate score of 17–1. But Man City were at their absolute peak during this period of 2017–2019 and West Ham were… well, they were West Ham.
But Saturday’s 1–1 result followed the pattern that City just aren’t what they used to be and West Ham are improving under David Moyes. While not many would have suggested before the game that West Ham would definitely get a result, this was no shock either.
Liverpool got back to winning ways despite the absence of Virgil Van Dijk. They weren’t as comfortable as we’ve gotten used to, but they also didn’t concede seven either. Everything gradually started to make sense again.
Chelsea drawing a match 0–0 certainly was a change of pace, but their midweek 0–0 with Sevilla was very much a warning sign as Frank Lampard now looks to shore up the leaky defence. Meanwhile, Manchester United failing to break down a deep defensive block should come as a surprise to absolutely no one who has watched football in the last seven years.
Leicester City might not have won an away match against Arsenal in over 40 years, but a victory courtesy of a late Jamie Vardy winner is what most Gunners would have predicted at half time.
The English striker has scored 11 goals in 12 appearances against the side he almost signed for in 2016. If anyone was going to spoil Mikel Arteta’s Sunday evening, it was going to be Vardy.
Even Friday night’s match saw Aston Villa be brought back down to Earth pretty emphatically. They were the only remaining side to have a 100% winning record, but their 3–0 loss to Leeds was more in line with the kind of performances that are expected of a side that finished last season 17th and just narrowly avoided the drop.
However, despite a “normal” week of Premier League action, there are still signs of a promising campaign ahead. It simply cannot be as crazy as it was every week. Even the most ardent football fan would overdose on that, it’s not healthy.
But to see the likes of West Ham and Leicester still put it up to the big teams — yes, Leicester did finish last season ahead of Arsenal, but Arsenal are quite obviously a bigger club with bigger resources — is a hopeful sign of things continuing as they have been.
The chances of seeing an unlikely top four or top six still looks credible even after a series of more “regular” games.
If anything, the league needed a weekend like the one that just passed. Now there is a greater understanding of where everyone is. Liverpool and Man City are still the title favourites, Tottenham still have the most realistic chance of upsetting the order. But Everton, Leeds, Wolves, Leicester or any of the “other 14” — except you, Fulham — can still dream of bigger things to come.
The standard set by Liverpool and City in the last three seasons will not be needed to be met by anyone to achieve greatness. Leicester City blew us all away in 2016 when they won the league. Since then the league winning totals have been 93, 100, 98 and 99. Leicester earned 81.
The last time a league winner won fewer points was in the 2010/11 season when Man United reached 80 points. In fact, only nine times has a league winner earned under 85 points. Of those, five came in the 90’s. This season has every chance of being the magic number 10.
A lower points total for the champions most usually corresponds with a closer league table and a closer margin between first and second, and second and third. After the procession that was last season, the potential is there for a title race and we might even get an unexpected team or two in that fight.
With the big six all struggling with their own problems, the gap is now there for someone else to jump at the chance to break into the European places.
A league season is a marathon, not a sprint. Five games in was simply too early for punters to wonder if the craziness of those opening weeks was sustainable and symptomatic of new wider trends.
But fortunately, even when this league has an off-week in terms of pure entertainment, the ingredients are still there for an exciting season of many highs and lows. The chaos may have made way for some normality this week, but with the way everything has gone so far there is no reason to think the chaos isn’t too far around the next corner.
