Posted on August 9th, 2022 for The Top Flight
There is no greater reset button than the start of a brand new football season.
But for a handful of top flight teams, opening weekend of the 2022/23 Premier League season turned out to be anything but a reset. For some, it was just an exact continuation of the exact same problems that had plagued some of these teams just a few months prior.
Here is a shortlist of teams from Matchday 1 that if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve guessed the current month was May of 2022 instead of August….
Manchester United
Let’s start with the most obvious one.
After some pretty decent pre-season results and word getting around that new manager, Erik ten Hag, was adding much needed structure and discipline to his Red Devils squad, Manchester United supporters arrived at Old Trafford on Sunday full of hope.
However, that hope was quickly crushed by the weight of old misery as the same problems of last season quickly came back to haunt United in their 1-2 loss to Graham Potter’s Brighton & Hove Albion.
An overall lack of quality, poor performances in the midfield, losing possession too often, and frantic scrambles to play catch up probably made most of those same supporters wish they had just stayed home.
United began to look somewhat convincing after cutting Brighton’s lead in half in the 68th minute, throwing every Red body on the ball and throwing tactics out the window, but the point is that it should not have to get to that in order for United to look sharp.
The intensity should be there from the get-go and Sunday’s loss will now only ask more questions out of the new manager.
Aston Villa
Nobody hustled at the beginning of the summer transfer window better than Aston Villa did.
Steven Gerrard made it clear he was going to be ambitious and needed new faces added to his team, and new faces did he sure get.
This weekend showed, however, that hustle and bustle doesn’t always lead to results that are expected. Maybe Villa fans (and anyone who paid attention to transfer business) had slightly high expectations from all the excitement the club had created during the summer, but a 2-0 loss away to newly-promoted Bournemouth was certainly not what anyone had in mind.
The frustrating thing about Villa is that there is plenty of promising talent and experience among their ranks, unfortunately, figuring out which players work out and where to put them has turned into a jigsaw that Gerrard has shown no headway in solving, so far.
Add that to the club’s recent unexpected announcement of long-standing club captain Tyrone Mings being stripped of his captaincy, and then being an unused sub in Saturday's loss, only sparked more heat on social media from the Villa fanbase.
Tensions that the club could probably do without at the moment.
Chelsea
Does anyone else notice how it seems to be a repetitive pattern of Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea to struggle when they are not supposed to struggle or is it just me?
Once again, Chelsea continued their fashion of going against a team that they were supposed to obliterate, but instead, barely scraped by and just barely took home three points in their 0-1 win away against Everton at Goodison Park.
Yes, a win is a win and a goal is a goal, but how did Chelsea only manage one goal against a side that pretty much lacks everything Chelsea has, (no offense Everton) and that said goal only came from a penalty. Yes, it was a very cool-headed Jorginho penalty, but still.
There are too many specific names on Chelsea’s roster for them not to be scoring more consistently or just more in general. Timo Werner is supposedly on his way out, but that still leaves a good handful of others, namely Havertz, Mount, and Pulisic to be more than willing to step up and attack.
The Roman Abramovich controversy has cleared and the Romelu Lukaku drama is gone, so the team should now be able to refocus on going back to basics, which is going back to playing good football.
The Merseyside Teams
It honestly could’ve been a lot worse for Everton going up against Chelsea on Saturday, and props to them for holding firm.
But their continued lack of creativity upfront and Dominic Calvert-Lewin once again being ruled out due to injury will be the death of this current team, and possibly Frank Lampard’s job, if the club continues to do nothing about bringing in a new striker.
However, the atmosphere at Goodison Park remained sensational, so if there’s one good thing to be carried over from last season, at least it’s that.
Everton’s neighbors, however, did not have as pleasant of an afternoon during their visit to Craven Cottage in London.
Liverpool could only muster a draw against newly-appointed Fulham, the final score being 2-2. All the energy and momentum the Reds could’ve carried from their 3-1 victory against Manchester City in the Community Shield was nowhere to be seen in this match, resorting back to looking just as lethargic as they did at the end of last season’s campaign.
If Liverpool are tired now, how do they expect to survive a few months from now, post-World Cup?
And on a final note, tale as old as time, Jurgen Klopp provided us with another brilliant response from his long list of excuses:
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