As entertaining as the Premier League is in real life, sometimes it’s nice to take a trip into the realm of fantasy and book some changes in management we’d like to see happen.
There are enough of the big teams in England that could use a little shakeup, so why not do a few hypothetical firings and hirings?
The first man we’re handing a pink slip to is Mauricio Pochettino. It’s no secret that the Argentine has his eyes on bigger and better things, having been linked with Manchester United and Real Madrid in the past year – one of which we’ll get to in a minute.
Spurs have been struggling and either need a roster overhaul or change at top. Well, if you hire the very-available Jose Mourinho, you’d probably get both. The Special One is known to turn over the roster of any new club he lands a gig at, but it’ll entertaining to see Mourinho try to pry some money out of Daniel Levy’s coffers. That would be an absolute treat for the tabloids.
As for Pochettino, seeing him take over for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is a move that we can definitely seeing happen sooner rather than later.
While the Norwegian is a club legend, he clearly isn’t up for the job at a top club like United. His record since his hot start with the team earlier this year is awful and has the once-great club just two points out of the relegation zone – and that’s including the point it somehow took off Liverpool.
Pochettino is the type of manager to install a good culture at a place like United, which has been struggling to find a real identity since Sir Alex Ferguson retired. Even Mourinho couldn’t lead it back to glory and famously flamed out. It would be interesting to see what Pochettino could with a bit more money to spend.
How about Arsenal, where fans aren’t exactly 100% thrilled with Unai Emery, but he has been doing a pretty good job this season. So, who would be the most-entertaining person to replace him? Well, we’ve already setup Mourinho in North London at Spurs, so why not bring back the legend himself, Arsene Wenger? But, we’ll add a twist: Wenger will be technical director while grooming Thierry Henry as manager. We’d put the ex-manager in a role that he’s very well-suited for while bringing a club legend back to lead the team, similar to what’s happening at Chelsea.
As for the Blues, we’re actually going to keep Frank Lampard in charge, but give him a little help. Fellow Chelsea legend John Terry will be coming aboard to help out with the defence, which has been the big hindrance towards the team’s growth.
As for Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, the only suggestion we’d have the league’s two best managers is that they swap roles. How would Klopp deal with a bench as deep as City’s? And how much would Pep love to have a world-class defender like Virgil Van Dijk to anchor his back line with amazing full backs to carry the ball forward?
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Marcos Alonso hasn’t been the same offensive force as he was the past few seasons, but he can still get into the right spots when he wants to.
The Chelsea left back started the season on the bench, but has worked his way into Lampard’s lineup the past five games. This week, he scored the game’s only goal against Newcastle, his first of the season, and picked up the clean sheet.
Considering how attack-minded the Blues have become under the new boss, we could see the Spaniard on the scoresheet more often.
AROUND THE LEAGUE
It seems incredibly fitting that it was Manchester United being the one to finally end rival Liverpool’s 100% record. Of course the Red Devils would get up for a game against the Reds and finally show some life in the first half of the game while holding on just enough for the point in the second. Can United build off of this? That’s the big question that we’ll get answered soon enough … Since the start of last season, Liverpool has scored 28 goals in the final 15 minutes of matches, more than any other side in the Premier League … Everton broke its four-game losing streak, but it really needs to get its act together in the short term because some pain awaits in December. The Toffees fixture list for the month start with this gauntlet: Leicester, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man United and Arsenal. Ouch … Harry Kane to United? Considering the turmoil at Spurs and United’s need for a striker, wouldn’t it be a great fit? … Spurs were at it again, needing a Dele Alli equalizer to secure a point against lowly Watford. How much longer can this “top six†side shrink? … That Manchester City kit looked ridiculous. I’m not sure how anybody could concentrate on the game with players running around wearing those get-ups … City started the game with no recognized centre backs, lining up a back three of Fernandinho, Benjamin Mendy and Joao Cancelo. Some of that is due to injury woes and some due to resting players for Champions League … You have to feel terrible for any fantasy owner that had a captain-vice captain combo of Sergio Aguero and Mohamed Salah this week. That zero from your two big guns really stings … One of the reasons that Leicester City is sitting third right now is its surprising defence and tackling. Heading into this week’s games, Leicester actually had the top two tacklers in the league: Ricardo Pereira and Wilfred Ndidi both were at 35.
THE LAST WORD
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but that is certainly not the case with VAR.
After the week off for the international break, VAR was back in full force, providing more misery and making some calls more controversial than they had to be.
The worst offence was likely Gerard Deulofeu being taken down in the box and not get a call, but it seemed every game had one or two incidents that should have or shouldn’t have been overturned.
As one pundit put it, it seems like VAR is always looking for ways to rule out goals instead of trying to help out attackers. It was figured that the addition of reviews would lead to more penalties and scoring from the spot, but that hasn’t been the case.
We’re not sure how the system should be fixed, but VAR is looking worse and worse by the week. This was supposed to be something that helped the game, but it’s only hindering the enjoyment of it now.