Oh no…it's another Premier League preview! Title contenders (Part 1 of 2)

Premier League previews are springing everywhere, so I'll give it a try building on my last post about managers! This preview will be reviewed in the beginning of September, after the transfer deadline, as I still expect some game-changing market moves.

Chelsea – Champions with limp wings!

Watch several Chelsea matches and focus your attention on Eden Hazard, he is the best Premier League player so it should not be that bad! Key questions: where is he receiving the ball? How many opposing players does he have to face before entering a danger zone? Do the same exercise with Lionel Messi under Luis Enrique tenure! The point here is that Chelsea attacking system is so stiff and risk averse that the weight of creation is on Hazard shoulders since the first phase of construction. 

In a sense, Eden Hazard has to be Chelsea's Schrödinger Cat, especially while Diego Costa is spending time with Eva Carneiro in the medical department. The limp wings issue doesn't help the cause as Azpilicueta plays on the left while being right-footed and Ivanovic is a defensive minded right back (the best in the world if football was just defending). Enough of all this negativity, they are the champions and the favourites for the Premier League title, but why? Because they are by far the most solid Premier League side from a defensive and mental perspective! Jose Mourinho is a genius war strategist and he knows that this defensive stability differentiates them from the other rivals! Is it pretty? No, and it's also very risky, especially if they can't revive Falcão, as they will be completely dependent on two players: Hazard and Diego Costa.

Nonetheless, I believe they will buy an offensive minded left-back to improve the team offensive dynamic. Also, in the beginning of last season Chelsea proved to be capable of playing free-flowing attacking football (with Fabregas exceling!) so a lot can change during the season. All being said, I think they are fairly classified as top dog!

Man City – Do we really need to defend?

First of all, I admire Manuel Pellegrini! His football conception really makes the most technically gifted players shine: Riquelme (Villarreal), Isco (Malaga) and now Silva are good examples. They play a suffocating possession-style football and it’s not unusual to see them exchanging passes in the final-third of the pitch with the opposition defense inside their own goal area. 

The Citizens are the most dominant team in the Premier League and when things go their way they can really thrash the opposition. During the season, you´ll get some 5-0, 6-1 results for them which you won't get from Chelsea. Attacking-wise, they know it all as they can also hurt the opposition with fast transitions. That said, Pellegrini has a total disregard for the defensive organization of the team. The transfer window it´s still open, but the fact they bought Sterling and are associated with De Bruyne, when Martin Demichelis is a potential starter baffles me. I'm maybe being too harsh as Pellegrini defensive paradigm makes defenders look bad, but still, Demichelis is not a top player anymore. 

One can say that Pellegrini goes by the saying, “if you have the ball, you can´t concede” and truth be told, they can impose their possession game in the vast majority of Premier League matches but, when they play top European teams, in Champions League, their fragilities are exposed big time. I love trading those games, is a shame they only come 3 or 4 times per year! Still, if Bony can help Aguero transform their possession in more goals (which was a problem last year!) as a solution to compensate their defensive woes, they can be a very dangerous contender to dethrone Chelsea.

The fallacy of the great manager!

My second post will be about managers, namely what makes a great manager, an example of an overrated manager and why is this important when you trade!

The definition of consensual metrics to rank professionals, in a reasonable way, it´s a tough issue in several areas and football it’s not an exception. So, the easiest way to rate a manager is based on titles, but is it fair? Ok, silverware is the ultimate goal of every football club, so of course it must be one of the rating items, although it is clear that the chance of winning titles depends on the club you are managing. As an example, if you put the twenty best coaches in the world in the Premier League, there would be only one champion, there would still be three relegated teams and probably the same number of sackings as usual. So it is all a matter of perspective.

When I´m rating a manager from a trading perspective, and throughout the years I created a comprehensive database on that, I rate winning the national league as a higher achievement than winning cup competitions. The reasoning behind this, is the same as why I value a 38 game sample more than a 10 game one, as a trader; in one word: variance. As an example, Roberto di Matteo won the Champions League with Chelsea, is he a great manager? I don´t think so. For a manager with some experience, I also tend to look at past jobs and understanding what the club was before and after the arrival of said manager. An obvious success example that comes to mind is the legacy of Sir Alex Ferguson in Manchester United.

Finally, the most important aspects as a trader: the way the team is organized on the pitch, if it has a clear identity or if it adapts to the opposition and the team’s playing style. Why is this important as a trader? Football like other sports has a high unpredictability component, so the best you can do to prepare for a game is try to understand how it will be played, based on the playing styles of the managers. Practical and simple example: if you see Swansea being forced to play long balls as a consequence of a high pressure strategy from the opposition, it is a really bad sign for their chances as they have a very marked identity of playing a short passing game, which is very pleasing by the way! I must say I admire the vision of the Swansea board to choose managers: Roberto Martinez, Paulo Sousa, Brendan Rodgers and Michael Laudrup. Gary Monk was a player under all these coaches and seems to share the same ideas.

By the way, have a look at Fiorentina this season. They already had a good manager in Vincenzo Montella, but I rate Paulo Sousa very highly and I think he will become a top coach in the years to come. Watch Basel vs Real Madrid from last season if you want to know why! If you are lazy like me, the answer is: great football ideas, which if applied to a better set of players can turn into great things.

This leads me to speak about Carlo Ancelotti as the perfect example of what I call the fallacy of the great manager. As a disclaimer, I understand why he is always appointed to the top clubs as he has a lot of important qualities for this type of job: a gentleman, brilliant manager of egos, well-spoken, high-profile and of course 3 Champions League titles. The fact is that he is training top clubs (Juventus, Milan, Chelsea, PSG and Real Madrid) since 1999 and in a total of 16 seasons he won a total of 3 league titles. Furthermore, he always had at least the same and usually more financial means that the rival managers. On the pitch, it is not great either; as a recent example, in Real Madrid he could never impose a balanced possession style. Instead, he developed an unbalanced fast transitions system, which was able to demolish the small clubs (while often conceding goals) but always had trouble against similar or well-managed opposition. Of course if you join Ronaldo, Bale, Modric, Kroos/Xabi Alonso, Benzema and James Rodriguez/ Di Maria on the same pitch you will get magic moments often and that´s why they trashed Bayern, in the 2014 CL semi-final, with some trademark lethal offensive transitions! The bottom-line is: if you train top players you will always have a change of winning titles and that´s why some public opinion misconceptions arise when it comes to rate managers!