Is there a Premier League title race again? Or will we decide soon enough that Chelsea are marching relentlessly to the title again, once they get back on track with another victory?
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When you step back to observe it, the short-termist attitude when it comes to the Premier League is really quite shocking. Some call for the heads of managers only a few games into the season, others write off players, managers and even whole teams as failures after only a couple of weeks. Manchester City were almost crowned champions just before their defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in October, now their manager is a fraud who has been found out by the pace of English football.
But whilst this is shocking, it’s also easily understandable. Social media’s importance to football has grown massively, to the point where videos lasting more than a minute are simply too long – even 30 seconds runs a serious risk.
So we, as fans and a football-interested community – are not wholly to blame. It’s not really our fault that life seems so fast-paced that three weeks seems like a lifetime. And that’s the problem here – each game seems more important than each game before, partly because we want to hype every game on TV as a big event, and partly because we get stuck in the present. The fact there is still half a season to go doesn’t really sink in. The games come too thick and too fast to take much notice of the games in the future.
Chelsea’s defeat at White Hart Lane on Wednesday shows that. The Premier League table is tight at the top. There are eight teams within 10 points of the top, and even though the idea that there is a genuine title race comes from the euphoric feeling after Tottenham’s victory, it’s not that one victory that saw a title race develop. There was a title race all along.
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Yes, victory for Chelsea would have put them in a commanding position, and yes, their defeat leaves them closer to the chasing pack. But that’s the entire point: if one game can cause such a big change in the title race, then there’s some good news for those who like twists and turns: there are 18 of them left.
As Pep Guardiola responded when he was asked whether or not Manchester City were back in the title race after their victory over Burnley, ‘if yesterday no, then why today?’ The answer is because we really don’t have a clue.
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