If you’ve suffered a bad season, perhaps the best thing about football is the fact that you can turn your thoughts to next season very quickly. If you’ve had a good year, the opposite is true: there isn’t much time to celebrate before the next campaign begins.
Thoughts even turn to next season before the current one is even up.
Manchester United’s entire campaign boils down to one game in a little over a week’s time when they face Ajax in the Europa League final in Stockholm. Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal’s seasons will also all come down to the final week of the season as they look to gain a top four place, though the Gunners do have an FA Cup final on the horizon, too. Most of these goals, though are more for next season than this one: that is, qualification for the Champions League.
This season looks like it may well have been a watershed moment in the history of the Premier League. The influx of money from the worldwide TV rights deal has ensured that all 20 Premier League clubs are among the richest in the world, and although that would appear to be an unsustainable position, English football is surely in a position to construct a period of dominance.
More importantly, though, it has helped the rich get richer within the Premier League itself. Seven clubs now look to have a stranglehold on the European places, and there simply isn’t enough silverware to go around, making the cup competitions seem more and more out of reach for the smaller clubs.
In effect, there is a group fighting for the trophies and another, larger group fighting for the minor placings. That might all change, but it looks likely there’ll be a stranglehold for a few more years at least.
What that should mean in practice, though, is that those top clubs should be looking to gain whatever advantage they can. This season, Chelsea sort of ran away with the title, and Tottenham too had a comfortable gap between themselves and the rest of the top six. But it does seem clear that the others will be better next season, putting up more of a fight.
And yet, no one seems too keen to play spoiler against their rivals.
Take Manchester United, for example. Jose Mourinho swears than injuries and fixture congestion has meant his side have had to play Premier League games without the appetite to actually win them. And yet, had they taken their last few league games more seriously, they could have finished in the top four and won the Europa League. It’s a result which would have changed nothing for United – they’d have been in the Champions League either way – but it would have knocked an extra title challenger (Liverpool, Manchester City or Arsenal) into the Europa League for next season, thus foisting extra games and long trips on them.
By the same token, the rest of the Premier League – Chelsea and Spurs included – should very much hope that it’s Arsenal, and not Liverpool, who grab the last Champions League spot.
It’s still possible that it’s City who will drop into the Europa League placings by the end of the season, but they simply need four points from their final two games to ensure they make the top four. Liverpool, too, are in a strong position with only relegated Middlesbrough standing between them and a Champions League berth.
And yet, the rest of the league should hope that the Gunners grab the spot, for one good reason: the summer.
Over the last few years, Liverpool have had to lower their expectations in the transfer market, but this summer, with Champions League football and a charismatic manager with quite a bit of clout when it comes to attracting players to play for him, the Reds could become a force to be reckoned with in the Premier League. There’s certainly scope for the rest of the league to be a little worried.
Arsenal, on the other hand, have finished in the Champions League spots for the last 20 years. They are one of the richest clubs in the land, and could certainly afford the astronomical wages and transfer fees their rivals pay, and yet their recruitment is always a source of frustration for everyone – even neutrals and rivals must get frustrated at just how repetitive the Arsenal transfer window debacle is every summer.
It’s not outlandish to suggest, then, that the players who Arsenal will target this summer won’t change if the Gunners fail to make the Champions League. Finishing in the top four won’t make a difference to Arsene Wenger’s chances of signing the players he wants, even if they aren’t the sorts of signings Arsenal fans want to see.
Liverpool, on the other hand, would get a huge boost in the transfer market from Champions League status. Players who have been out of reach for the past few years might suddenly become serious possibilities as Champions League football and a big-name manager are serious draws.
That’s not to say that the Anfield club won’t waste their chance. Their last qualification for the Champions League was marked by the signings of Rickie Lambert and Mario Balotelli as well as the farcical fielding of a weakened team against Real Madrid in the Bernabeu, of all places.
Next season, the top six clubs will all believe their side has a chance of winning the league title in what should be – on paper at least – the tightest title race in Europe. Things don’t always pan out that way, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the league shouldn’t be hoping for any advantage that leaves their opponents weaker than they are.
That means everyone should be praying for Arsenal to end the weekend in a top four place, not Liverpool.