EPL TALK: No title win for Liverpool or Chelsea this season
Reds and Blues chaos at Stamford Bridge will make for great pantomime, but not trophies come next May
MAYBE Manchester City represent Oppenheimer. It’s all about the building of an industrial complex, whatever the financial and ethical cost. And Arsenal could yet make a decent Barbie, the pretty things reinvented for a more challenging era.
But Chelsea and Liverpool are a British seaside pantomime, with huge casts, colourful costumes and knockabout performances that are as clumsy as they are captivating. And we’re totally here for it, a bit of farce to go with all that earnest English Premier League seriousness.
Who doesn’t love a pantomime? We’ve got the Reds and the Blues falling around on stage, indulging in midfield slapstick for the audience’s amusement as we provide the choral accompaniment. Chelsea and Liverpool can win the title? Oh no, they can’t!
Not a chance, not with that gaping hole in front of Liverpool’s back four, that missing person in Chelsea’s attack and that American owner treating the Blues like Elon Musk’s Twitter. Throw money at the problem and keep changing established names until something sticks.
But it’s not sticking, is it? Mauricio Pochettino is a credible figure and will bring some calm around the fraying edges of Stamford Bridge, but he’s still essentially playing Commissioner Gordon to Todd Boehly’s Joker. Some men just want to watch the world burn. Some men just want to spend almost £1 billion in a year and up with a centre-back at left-back and a left back at left-wing and no elite striker up front.
It’s anarchy in the UK. Never mind the Sex Pistols, here come the American investment bankers. Let’s take a look at their latest hits. Levi Colwill is a Chelsea graduate and a centre-back. He featured on the left-side of a trio and was expected to support Ben Chilwell, who essentially operated as a left-winger. Mo Salah danced through both in the first-half.
Meanwhile, Boehly, Chelsea’s owner and resident anarchist, is poised to pinch Moisés Caicedo from Liverpool’s clutches, stealing the defensive midfielder away from Brighton for a British transfer record fee of £115 million. The Reds desperately need Caicedo. The Blues merely want him, which is reason enough for the giggling Boehly to play Richie Rich again.
Presumably, another striker will follow. Nicolas Jackson currently occupies that role, a promising 22-year-old Senegalese striker who’s not so much the finished article as he is a placeholder for the next Boehly trinket.
Chelsea’s transfer escapades recall Michael Jackson’s purchases in his eccentric heyday. Will he buy a theme park? Will he buy another defensive midfielder? Will he buy a female chimpanzee for Bubbles? Will he buy a striker before the window closes? Will he buy a bizarre menagerie of exotic specimens? (That one could apply to Jackson or Boehly.)
Erratic affair highlights longstanding weaknesses
Nobody knows when the merry-go-round for megalomaniacs will stop. The numbers are already being made up as the money men go along. Cotton, oil and opium were once the great commodities of the world, with data and AI taking over in the 21st Century. But the real power appears to reside with those who control the flow of defensive midfielders. Managers and scouts are in the field right now, panning for Caicedo and Roméo Lavia. Boehly may still buy both, just because he can, the eternal rebel with a cause of self-interest.
But if the Reds fail to sign Lavia, then they might as well patrol their midfield in clown cars.
The art of slapstick comedy lies in the build-up. We know the banana skin is there, but the suspense comes from not knowing when it will strike. The genius comes from making us look elsewhere. Liverpool delivered a masterclass against Chelsea yesterday. The banana skin was the gap left behind by the exits of Jordan Henderson and Fabinho, but Alexis Mac Allister’s initial excellence had us looking elsewhere.
Look at that lovely pass to Salah for Liverpool’s opener! Look at Mac Allister's quarterbacking at the base of a three-man midfield! Look at the way he… Oh, God, where did that hole come from? Where is Trent Alexander-Arnold? Where’s Caicedo when you need him? Why is everyone laughing?
It’s the banana skin that keeps on giving – usually soft goals to the opposition.
A terrific stat on ESPN highlights the 100 tackles and 376 contested duels that Caicedo made for Brighton last season. At Liverpool, Fabinho chipped in with 65 and 253. Henderson added another 32 and 131. Caicedo is expected to cost £115 million for the Blues. He would’ve been priceless for the Reds.
As always, there are mitigating factors. Both sides are engaged in a period of dramatic transition. Just four of Chelsea’s first XI survived from their opening fixture last season. Liverpool had six, but a brand new midfield. There will be kinks. Further transfer activity is expected and Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp are old hands when it comes to rebuilds.
But the breathless, erratic affair at Stamford Bridge had the madcap feel of a school play as opposed to the slick Broadway productions being put on at the Etihad and the Emirates. Manchester City and Arsenal have their own concerns, but a balanced squad isn’t one of them.
Pochettino’s favoured possession game ensured Chelsea ended with a solid 65 per cent possession, but lacked a cutting edge up top. While Mac Allister had the air of a Renaissance artist who wanted nothing more than to be left alone to daub pretty pictures, but kept being interrupted to sweep up the studio. It’s not really his game (and it’s still not quite Alexander-Arnold’s either. Liverpool’s familiar paradox endures.)
A new EPL season always comes with a little chaos, but the Reds and the Blues are still addressing longstanding weaknesses within their line-ups. They put on a terrific show, just not the kind that typically ends with a trophy parade.
The Reds and the Blues are still addressing longstanding weaknesses within their line-ups. They put on a terrific show, just not the kind that typically ends with a trophy parade.
Neil Humphreys is an award-winning football writer and a best-selling author, who has covered the English Premier League since 2000 and has written 28 books.
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