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What’s Next for the Premier League’s Perennial Contenders?
- Updated: May 5, 2016
Leicester City are champions of England. An odd occurrence, but they have 12 months to celebrate. Meanwhile, the Premier League’s remaining clubs have already started thinking about how to unseat them.
The way English football changes from this point is that every club should think: “This year can be our year.” Leicester’s improbable run displays any side—regardless of history or expectation—can be title contenders, supposing they execute over a 38-game season.
It was always that way, but the Foxes are proof of possibility.
Perhaps this begins a turning point in Premier League football, where television money and prize winnings create enough parity that the established order is no longer relevant.
One must imagine, however, that England’s top six clubs over the past decade, will not stand idle as their European places—and reputations—are threatened by upstart and/or previously stagnant outfits.
The league’s middle class (West Ham United, Everton, Southampton, etc.) are just as capable as—if not more so—Leicester to win trophies, should they deem the task plausible.
After 2015/16, there is little reason to think the upcoming summer will not be filled with owners spending millions on that presumption.
Clubs in the best position to spend, though, are indeed the usual suspects. What should they have learned from this season, and what might the summer hold for the would-be “top six” teams?
It seems worth an enquiry.
Arsenal
What Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger failed to realise, along with just about everyone else, was how far the presumed title contenders were going to fall.
Petr Cech was a great signing, but goalkeeping was not Arsenal’s biggest issue. Surely it was their inability to consistently score goals from centre-forward.
Spending £42.5 million on Mesut Ozil and £30 million on Alexis Sanchez in 2013 and 2014 respectively, massive investment towards a world-class striker should have been the Frenchman’s mission.
His faith in Olivier Giroud as a lone …
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