Football is a simple game, but sometimes it’s instructive to look to other sports for insight – Transfers, for example – which crystallises perfectly the difference between today’s teams.
So far this summer, Arsenal have spent in the region of £140m on five new additions, only one of whom, Ben White, is an automatic first pick. This makes some procedural sense: the kind of players able to improve things immediately aren’t really available to Arsenal, and with so many gaps in the squad, they’ve opted to diversify risk with a variety of punts. And it makes some practical sense too: Arsenal aren’t looking to be good now but in a year or two’s time, so need to nurture and develop talent with that in mind. The problem for Mikel Arteta, though, is that if he can’t teach his team how to score and fast, it won’t be his team it’ll be someone else’s.
Chelsea, on the other hand simply identified the sole weakness in their starting XI then tossed as much cash as it took to remedy it, signing one of the world’s finest strikers in a deal that’s as close to a slam-dunk as you can get. Thomas Tuchel doesn’t have any problems.
Well, no problems with his own team, anyway – what Tuchel has to navigate is a title race which has the potential to be the most competitive of recent times and maybe of all-time. Yes, that’s an absolutely ridiculous thing to type – it’s been a brutal morning on the Sunny D – but Chelsea, Liverpool, Leicester, Man United and Man City are all good enough to challenge, not just the best teams in England but among the best teams anywhere.
All that makes this an absolutely monstrous game for the second weekend of the season. Arteta has benefitted from the pandemic in some ways – a full, toxic Emirates would’ve made things hard for him last winter – but if Arsenal lose again, to despised rivals and in front of a first proper home crowd in 18 months, we can be sure that sentiments will be shared. Meantime, Chelsea know that because standards at the top are so high, the points tally it’ll take to be champions should be high too, leaving little room for up-slipping. As Celine Dion once noted, baby, this is serious.
Kick-off: 4.30pm BST
