Of the 73,738 benighted souls who pitched up at Old Trafford on Sunday for the Manchester derby – presumably even some, mostly City supporters, from Manchester – how many reckoned they’d got value for money? This was a dire game, devoid of energy, skill and flair. The most exciting thing was probably a low-key sit-in at the end to protest at United’s seat pricing. Even the term ‘derby’ was rubbish: as far as I could see, only one player of note – City’s Phil Foden – was Mancunian. Which is still more than the number of regular starting players from Merseyside in the recent Merseyside ‘derby’.
The Premier League likes to boast that it’s the greatest show on Earth. Well if so, it had better make sure there is actually something to put on show. Brentford’s 0-0 draw with Chelsea was, by all accounts, a total bore and scarcely worthy of a place at that great cathedral of sport, the Gtech Community Stadium.
Part of the problem this season is that the closing weeks of the league have been reduced to a tedious Liver-pool victory parade that diminished Fulham’s doughty win last weekend to a mildly diverting curiosity.
Meanwhile, injuries to entertainers such as City’s Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne, not to mention a resurgent FA Cup and a mouth-watering Champions League, have made what has been going on behind the runaway leaders in the title ‘race’ only mildly more interesting than dogs fighting over a rubber bone.
Forest have been fabulous of course, as have Bournemouth (sometimes) and even Brighton and Fulham. But this still feels like a drab Premier League, partly because Chelsea, Spurs and Manchester United have been largely dreadful. This, in turn, means the table feels slightly bonkers: big clubs struggling and small clubs not knowing they’re small. Anyone can beat anyone.
City, long English football’s glittering centrepiece, have been a shadow of themselves. I would have said it was always worth watching any City game for the sheer pleasure of seeing De Bruyne spraying meticulous 60-yard passes with jaw-dropping precision. Now he’s going too. Sad, though maybe not before time, judging by his flat showing against United.
And it’s not just the top of the table that’s sorted. The two teams going down with the already doomed Southampton will be – almost certainly – Ipswich and Leicester. They are the three clubs who were promoted from the Championship last season. And repeat ad nauseam: top three and bottom three just swap places. So the Prem becomes essentially a 17-team league. And without jeopardy, sport is pretty meaningless.
If you want to put on a show, it’s quite difficult if the game stops every ten minutes for a lengthy deliberation
At the same time, over-intricate playing from the back has become predictable and frankly boring, while technology has killed spontaneous celebration. If you do want to put on a show, it’s quite difficult if the game stops every ten minutes for a lengthy, painful deliberation about whether Marc Cucurella’s hair played Bryan Mbeumo onside. A great football match should be 90 minutes of nonstop action. These days, thanks to the pedantic practice of ‘let’s look for something illegal that happened two minutes before the goal’, a game can run to nearly two hours of stop-start frustration. Will semi-automated offsides, due this weekend, help? I very much hope so.
The police are getting younger, part 94: Luke Littler became the world darts champion at 17; then Kiwi Sam Ruthe became the youngest person to run a four-minute mile last month at the age of 15; now a 14-year-old from Poland, Michal Szubarczyk, could become the youngest to qualify for the World Snooker Championship. What next? A nannies’ pen at the Crucible?
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