As this season began, it seemed a new phrase had entered the English football lexicon. Troy Deeney suggested that Watford could “do a Leicester City”. Andros Townsend said likewise of Crystal Palace. According to Jamie Vardy, there was “no reason” why Leicester could not win back-to-back Premier League titles. The inspirational lesson was that anything was possible now. The glass ceiling had been smashed. Amazing was to be the new normal.
That always seemed a spectacular underestimation of just how exceptional last season was — both in the miserable underperformance of so many of the bigger, richer clubs and the enormity of Leicester’s achievement in becoming the team who capitalised. It was the crazily illogical conclusion of a period in which all of the Premier League’s wealthy elite were, to varying degrees, rebuilding. This season always looked like being different and, sure enough, as we approach the halfway stage, it appears as though normal service has been resumed.
It is not just that Leicester are thrashing around in 15th place, performing as though last season’s title triumph were a trick of the mind, or even that the top six teams are, as so often in the Premier League era, the six with the biggest budgets (though not in the same order). No, it is more the feeling that the Leicester-led uprising is over. Southampton, West Bromwich Albion, Bournemouth, Stoke City and Watford could all claim to be having a go, along with Everton, but a six-point gap has opened up between Manchester United in sixth place and Southampton in seventh and it is hard to escape the feeling that the glass ceiling, smashed to smithereens by Leicester, has not just been restored but reinforced.
Between them, the “Big Six” of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have lost 15 Premier League matches in the first 17 rounds. Look at the corresponding figures over previous seasons — 28 in 2015/16, 23 in 2014/15 and 2013/14, 22 in 2012/13, 17 in 2011/12 — and it adds to that feeling of an elite who lost their way for a time, whether due to too much or too little stability, and who now, emboldened by managers such as Antonio Conte, Jürgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho, as well as by some colossal expenditure in the transfer market, are rediscovering their mojo.
Neither is it simply the number of defeats. Chelsea’s two so far have come against Liverpool and Arsenal; Manchester City’s three against Tottenham, Chelsea and a briefly rejuvenated Leicester; Arsenal’s three against Liverpool, Everton and Manchester City; Manchester United’s three against Manchester City, Watford and Chelsea; Tottenham’s two against Chelsea and Manchester United.
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The only real oddities are Liverpool, whose only defeats have come against Burnley and Bournemouth in matches that left Klopp shaking his head in disbelief. This time last season West Ham United alone had beaten Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City; Manchester United had lost to Swansea City, Bournemouth and Norwich City. This season, for the most part, it is only in the head-to-head matches between them that the “Big Six” clubs are being beaten.
Go back two years and, after 17 matches, West Ham and Southampton were in the top five, ahead of Arsenal, having won nine matches apiece. Right now Southampton, as the best of the rest, have only six wins. Their five matches against the elite, in advance of Tottenham’s visit to St Mary’s on Boxing Day, have yielded two points, a 1-1 draw away to Manchester City and a 0-0 draw at home to Liverpool. Claude Puel’s team are organised, competitive, spirited and have a smattering of talented players who the bigger clubs will no doubt be keeping an eye on, but this is not like two seasons ago, when they were outwitting the elite on the pitch as well as off it.
It is not really surprising. Much was made last season of the ability of the other Premier League clubs, enriched by that vast broadcast deal, to make signings that were previously beyond them. It is true, but being able to attract Álvaro Negredo or Xherdan Shaqiri is not the same as being able to buy a cluster of players of that quality, as Liverpool and Tottenham can, let alone being able to spend £150 million this summer, as both Manchester clubs did.
We can all see flaws aplenty in those bigger teams — particularly among some of the defences — but this is a far stronger “Big Six” than last season, as indeed it had to be. Last term Arsenal claimed second place but failed to get close to Leicester; Tottenham put up a decent fight but faltered badly in the final two months; Manchester City under Manuel Pellegrini were almost as miserable as Manchester United were under Louis van Gaal; Liverpool, in the early stages of life under Klopp, flitted between the sublime and the ridiculous; the less said of last season’s Chelsea, the better.
Chelsea and Liverpool have been galvanised by Conte and Klopp respectively. The improvements of the Manchester clubs have not been as dramatic as was first expected, or indeed as it appeared over the first month of the season, but Guardiola and Mourinho have begun to make a stronger impact now. Arsenal, events of the past week notwithstanding, look stronger for the additions of Shkodran Mustafi and Granit Xhaka, and the resurgence of Alexis Sánchez, now clear of injury.
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Tottenham have found this season tougher, enduring Champions League frustration as well as an injury to Harry Kane, but they too seem to have begun to turn a corner since a joyless autumn. Indeed, they have four more points than they did at this stage of last season.
It promises to be a formidable battle for Champions League qualification, as well as for the title if anyone can eat into the commanding lead that Chelsea have built up over recent weeks, but beyond the elite, it promises to be a forlorn, familiar scramble for seventh place. Nobody will be “doing a Leicester” this season or indeed any time soon. As the year draws towards a close, that success should be seen for the sporting miracle it was.