The 2018-19 Premier League Season Thus Far

So we just finished up match week 13 and we are roughly 1/3 of the way through this 2018-19 season. Here are my 3 takeaways so far.

1. It’s a two team race between Manchester City and Liverpool.

Leroy Sane. Good enough to light up the Premier League, not good enough for the German World Cup sqaud…..

Photo Credit: Talking Baws

Both of these teams have been dominant this season and have yet to take an L in the Premier League. Both of these teams have also been incredible defensively, only allowing 5 goals each. And this can’t simply be linked to playing weak competition as City have played 3 of the other 4 top 5 teams and Liverpool have played all 4 top 5 teams already once. At this point though you would have to give the big edge to City down the stretch as they also lead the league goal scoring with 40 goals (The next closest is Chelsea and Arsenal with 28) and they’ve gotten themselves in this position without their best player Kevin De Bruyne who has been injured. Looks like we could well be on our way to another dominate season by City and Liverpool coming up short once again.

2. Manchester United are lucky to be sitting in 7th place.

Jose Mourinho checking how much time he has left as coach

Photo Credit: Sports Mole

I just can’t see anyway that Jose Mourinho gets through this season without getting fired. United are currently 6-3-4 with a goal differential of -1. United have scored 20 goals while conceding 21. This right here clearly shows you were their weakness is. Conceding 2 or 3 goals to Chelsea and Man City are expected but giving up 2 and 3 goals to teams like West Ham, Newcastle and Brighton just isn’t going to cut it. Mourinho complained all offseason about how the team needed to bring in some new defenders and he was correct, but at the same time you’ve been there for 3 seasons, Mourinho, and have spent over $400 million so really nobody to blame but yourself. United currently sit 7 pts out of the top 4 and would have to really turn it around to play Champions League next year.

3. Who will get the final 2 Champions League spots.

Tottenham Hotspurs

Photo Credit: The New York Times

The real race to watch going forward this season, unless City start to slip up, is going to be between Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham for the final 2 spots in the top 4. As of right now all 3 of these teams are separated by just 3 pts from one another with Tottenham leading the way with 30 pts and in 3rd place, Chelsea 2 pts behind and in 4th place and Arsenal sitting just 1 pt behind with 27 and in 5th place. The next team in the table is Everton with 22 pts and I don’t see any chance that they compete for one of the top 4 spots. The only other team I could see entering the fold would be United if they somehow figure out their defense.

Tottenham currently sit 10-0-3 with 2 of those losses coming by a single goal to Man City and Liverpool. Tottenham may have separate themselves with the big 3-1 win over Chelsea on Saturday but have another big match this coming weekend against Arsenal. Chelsea on the other hand looked to be the top team out of these 3 and maybe even able to compete for the title until their undefeated run was brought to an end by Tottenham yesterday and the wind was taken out of those sails. Lastly, Arsenal who started out the year with back to back losses now has the longest undefeated run in their last 11 matches. Again, next week’s match between Arsenal and Tottenham is going to be a big game in what should be a good fight between these 3 teams the rest of the season.