Seldom have the top sides been so incompetent
Only they did the best job possible with the resources at their disposal, and even Alan Pardew will have some cause for regret if Newcastle’s heavy defeat to Wigan turns out to be the match that cost them Champions League football.
Manchester City will doubtless take great pride in winning their first title for 44 years, but frankly they should have had it wrapped up weeks ago.
Despite outspending all their rivals, they are only likely to become champions thanks to an astonishing April choke by Manchester United, undoubtedly the most unexpected in the 20-year history of the Premier League.
City are the best team in this league, but the impression is they have scraped to victory against a mediocre field, and lack the authority exuded by great champions of the past: the United teams of 1999 or 2008, Arsenal of 1998 or 2004, the Chelsea of 2005 or even 2010.
The team arguably only found its true identity in the closing weeks of the season, and that happened by accident, after circumstances conspired to force Roberto Mancini to use Carlos Tevez instead of Mario Balotelli.
The limitations of a transitional Manchester United team had been exposed by their 6-1 defeat to City and their early Champions League exit in Basel, but with Paul Scholes back in harness they had fought their way back into a position where everyone expected them to win the title on autopilot. As Arsene Wenger put it: “when the horse smells the stable, it’s difficult to stop him.”
Alex Ferguson’s cautious approach in the match against City last week at Eastlands was criticised by some United fans who were frustrated at their side’s failure to register a shot on target, but it was a sensible ploy by Ferguson, who knows United don’t currently have the players to take the game to City on their own turf. He hoped to keep it tight and turn the psychological pressure on City to his side’s advantage; the fact it didn’t work doesn’t mean it was a bad plan.
The regret for Ferguson and his players will be that for all City’s dominance in the derby matches, United still would probably have won this league had they taken two points rather than one from matches against Wigan and Everton.
At least United can console themselves with the fact that choke-wise, they’re in some good company. Lionel Messi’s 72 goals so far for Barcelona is already a world record, yet Barcelona’s season was defined by his failure to score when it counted most, in the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea.
Behind the top two, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea have all at times disgraced themselves. Arsenal lost 8-2 to Man United, Spurs 1-5 to City, Chelsea 3-5 to Arsenal. Each side has had chances to secure the Champions League qualification spots they’re all chasing, only to throw away points in baffling circumstances, and each club faces a summer of rebuilding.
The theme of Premier League incompetence that took shape early in the season was supported by the failures in Europe of United, City and Arsenal, until Chelsea’s progress to the final seemed to offer evidence to the contrary. But Chelsea may have run out of luck when Messi’s penalty hit Petr Cech’s crossbar. With a long list of banned players including Ramires, the only Chelsea midfielder who can run, it is hard to imagine them stopping Bayern winning the cup in front of their own fans in Munich.
The Premier League sells itself as a competition where anything can happen, and for most of its existence it has been anything but. This year the league has come closer to its marketing ideal, with many bizarre scorelines and dramatic reversals. But in a league where anything actually can happen, unexpected events lose their power to surprise. The novelty of chaos soon wears off. The league has seldom been more exciting, yet that may be because the top sides have seldom been more incompetent.
