Best Team, No Shot: Premier League Check-In

Manchester City are the best team in the Premier League, and I don’t think they have any shot at winning it.

On the field, there’s no argument. City are 5-0, the only perfect record left, with 15 points through five games after a 5-3 win over Sunderland before the international break. Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki have turned into a real problem for everybody else. It’s City’s title to lose.

Off the field, there’s a cloud the size of Manchester. On Sept. 25, an independent commission found City guilty on 114 of the 115 charges, and the club lodged its appeal on Oct. 1. No sanction has been announced yet, but one well-known football finance academic has floated something in the range of 40 to 60 points if the most serious charges stick. My take: City lose a bunch of points. They might be the best team in the country all season and still finish behind someone, because of something that happened in an accountant’s office. We could talk about City’s finances until we’re all blue in the face (sky blue, specifically), so let’s move on.

Arsenal have some tidying up to do

The defending champions are second on 12 points, and their 3-0 loss at Brighton on Sept. 19 was their heaviest league defeat in three years. Arsenal’s defense has been really good for a long time, and it has not been there the way it was last season. They’re also going to need more offense from a group of very highly paid midfielders and forwards.

Arsenal are always looking for new pieces, and this summer’s pieces went into the middle and the back: Bruno Guimarães from Newcastle, Ezri Konsa from Aston Villa, Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge, plus making Piero Hincapié’s move permanent. No marquee striker. It’ll be interesting to see if that comes back to bite them.

Speaking of Brighton: they looked really good. Third place, 10 points and the best goal difference in the league.

Big money, no results

It’s always interesting (not cool, but interesting) to watch Chelsea go out and spend a bunch of money as a big-market team and then not be able to do anything with it. They lost 3-0 at Brentford in their last match, Brentford’s first home win over Chelsea since 1938, and they’re winless in three league games with 12 goals conceded in five. Xabi Alonso has a lot of work to do.

Then there’s Tottenham, who are a dumpster fire. Spurs outspent Real Madrid this summer. They are last in the league with two points, they haven’t won a league game, and they didn’t score their first league goal until they were already down 3-0 to Aston Villa in their fifth match. They nearly went down last season. How bad is that organization right now? Bad enough that “outspent Real Madrid” and “bottom of the table” are in the same sentence.

The promoted three

Promotion is always difficult. Coventry, back in the top flight after 25 years, drew about the most brutal opening you could script (Arsenal away on opening night, then City) and didn’t score in its first four games. Its first Premier League goal since 2001 finally came at Nottingham Forest, and it was enough for a 1-0 win. The schedule is still brutal, so we’ll see.

Hull have had their moment, for sure. They were unbeaten through four before losing at Newcastle and sit eighth. Ipswich are 11th.

The bottom of the table: Tottenham and Fulham on two points, Bournemouth and Coventry on three.

Up next

The league comes back this weekend, and City go to Anfield to face a Liverpool team that’s sixth and six points worse off than this time last year. Arsenal host Leeds, Spurs visit Manchester United, Chelsea host Bournemouth, and Coventry host Newcastle on Monday.

City will walk into Anfield as the best team in England. Whether they’re still that in May depends less on Liverpool than on a three-person appeals panel.