Horncastle: the most Italian Premier League ever is about to begin
The seven sisters speak English now. They’re rich too. Super rich. Filthy stinking rich. But as Arsene Wenger argues “last season shows it’s not necessarily the club who invests the most that does the best.” Dreams can come true. Money can’t buy you everything. But it can buy you love. Donald Love in Sunderland’s case. And it can buy you success, Isaac Success if you are Watford.
Entering into effect this summer is the new TV rights deal. Worth £8.3bn, the Premier League is sport’s HBO. Instead of 10 episodes of Game of Thrones it brings you 380 games a season and writes its own script. There’s dilly ding, dilly dong. A spaghetti western in the north-west. Is Manchester really big enough for the both of Mourinho and Guardiola? There’s heavy metal football at Anfield and possibly Wenger’s last symphony at the Emirates. How to describe it all? What’s the right word? Ti ringrazio, Antonio because here it is: Agghiacciante.
Wenger believes the Premier League is now “a world championship of managers.” Almost all the best with the exception of King Carlo and Thomas Tuchel, Max Allegri and Luciano Spalletti, Unai Emery and Zinedine Zidane, Luis Enrique and Jorge Sampaoli, Roger Schmidt and El Loco Bielsa now work in the Premier League. They have followed the money and the spettacolo. “Allenare qui è calcisticamente divino,” Ranieri says. Football nirvana.
After embarrassing the big clubs last season, Sir Claudio knows they are determined not to allow it to happen again. United and City have spent £322m to get back to the top. Jose and Pep pushed each other beyond 100 points at Real Madrid and Barcelona. Conte managed the same with Juventus. Can City and Chelsea play at the intensity Pep and Conte expect with no winter break?
Can Liverpool do it consistently over a full season under Klopp? Last week epitomised the Reds. One minute they were beating Barcelona 4-0, the next they were losing 4-0 to Mainz. Mauricio Pochettino has demonstrated it can be done at Tottenham. Is this their year? Spurs are the most settled of all the contenders. As are North London rivals, Arsenal. But is the addition of Granit Xhaka and the transformation of Alexis Sanchez into a prima punta really enough to make them champions for the first time since 2004? Few are convinced.
One thing is certain: the level of the Premier League will be higher. For years it has been the most entertaining league to watch. However, in terms of quality it has not been the best. Just look at English performances in Europe. Chelsea were the last English club to win the Champions League in 2012 and they were a team of destiny. They got lucky. Their manager Roberto di Matteo is now in the second division in England, although there are other Champions League winners Rafa Benitez and Jaap Stam keeping him company.
The anticipated improvement in Europe is credited with the super managers, all of whom are foreign. The hype around them has caused some resentment among the few English coaches left in the league. Take Sean Dyche at newly promoted Burnley for example. “Why do you buy a branded pair of jeans [Prada/Gucci - Italian brands] rather than the other pair?” he asked. “Because you think they’re better, but they might not be.” Dyche’s attitude is a familiar one. Sam Allardyce, the new England manager, believed that if he were called Allardici instead of Allardyce, he would have coached Real Madrid and Barcelona, not Bolton and Sunderland.
Dyche is one of only three English managers in the Premier League [excluding Mike Phelan, Hull City’s caretaker]. The Italians outnumber them. Conte and Walter Mazzarri join Francesco Guidolin and Ranieri. The Watford players have found Mazzarri’s language skills, the introduction of ritiri and work on several different formations a culture shock. Guidolin meanwhile has lost his top scorer and long-serving captain at Swansea but finds Fernando Llorente and Borja Baston at the Liberty Stadium.
Those signings haven’t caught the eye like those of Pogba, Ibrahimovic and Mkhitaryan at Mino United or John Stones, Ilkay Gundogan and Leroy Sane at City, N’Golo Kante and Michy Batshuayi at Chelsea or Saido Mane and Giorginio Wijnaldum at Liverpool. That’s a lot of money. In fact, Premier League clubs have spent £819m this summer, an average of £40m per club. Just look at newly promoted Middlesborough. They have added Victor Valdes, the Bergamasco Bulldog Maarten de Roon, Ajax starlet Victor Fischer and Alvaro Negredo. We are not entering Zico at Udinese territory, but the depth and wealth of the league hasn’t been seen anywhere since Serie A in the 80s and 90s.
If, as Bilic says, the Premier League is Hollywood then there is only one thing left to do. it’s time to get your popcorn and sit back. The show is about to begin.
@JamesHorncastle
