The certainty of high summer is in the rearview mirror and confidence in you preseason predictions falls faster than the leaves of the trees.
So, as the Premier League braces itself for two rounds of play over the next seven days, here are seven hot takes the ‘experts’ might want to revisit before they’re colder than a dime kettle.
The take: Manchester United is bad
When United bad – that deflating opening day defeat to Brighton, the 4-0 thrashing at Brentford and a humiliating derby defeat at Manchester City – they were very bad, but those lows were very few.
The real story is United go into this week’s games, with Newcastle and Tottenham having won five of the last six and are just a point outside the top four.
Erik ten Hag has successfully integrated new acquisitions – Anthony has three goals in three starts, Lisandro Martinez is approaching cult status and casemir was at times on the brink of supremacy against Everton – while largely spreading the psychodramas around it Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire.
There have been false dawns before, but Manchester United, with an unusual glow of competence and a rare lack of drama, is not bad at all.
The take: Liverpool can win the quadruple
Last season by one point on the title and second in the Champions League, Liverpool had to settle for ‘just’ winning the FA Cup and League Cup last season.
When they beat Manchester City in the Community Shield it felt important, but that was a game where Trent Alexander-Arnold excelled and Erling Haaland struggled. First impressions can be deceiving.
Liverpool now languishes in tenth place, the injury that sidelined Alexander-Arnold feels like a blessed relief for the right-back – and he is far from the only player among his best.
Confidence will be boosted by Rangers’ 7-1 thrashing, but when Liverpool host City on Sunday, faith and anticipation in both sides will likely be a world away from where they were when they last shook hands.
The take: Arsenal is not real
This one hurts. For some, including this writer, the jury remains out Arsenal until road closures are announced for the open-top bus parade.
But even I have to admit that the Gunners’ quick start has gone past the flash-in-the-pan phase. Young, lively and fearless, Artetas Arsenal look strong in every position and although they lack experience, successive wins over Tottenham and Liverpool have given them a justifiable confidence in their new status as potential title challengers.
Sunday’s drive up the M1 into the feverish atmosphere of Elland Road is the kind of visit that often ended in tears under Arsene Wenger, but this incarnation of Arsenal is made of tougher material.
The take: Aleksandar Mitrovic can’t do it in the Premier League
Come on, we’ve all taken this stale take out of the fridge in the summer, sniffed it, and popped it in the microwave to warm it up.
The problem is that by the time you heard the pings, the great Serb had snatched six goals in his first six Eredivisie matches – twice as many as he had managed to play in the entire 2020-21 season, the last time Fulham graced the top flight.
After 26 championship goals in 2019-20, that modest return fueled the belief that Mitro was a flat-track bully who couldn’t do it at the highest level, a theory that survived even after scoring an incredible 43 goals in 44 league games last season.
But dosed on faith and a huge portion of football on the forefoot under Marco Silva, Mitrovica has kept up the pace and will hope to shake off an ankle injury when Bournemouth visit tomorrow.
The take: Everton will be relegation candidate
The Toffees scraped survival with one game left last season, then attacked relegated Burnley to close the gaps in their squad. unfavorable.
With Frank Lampard yet to convince in his third managerial role, optimism was not abundant in the blue half of Merseyside, especially after one point from three games.
But Everton rallied with an unbeaten run of six games before taking on Manchester United last Sunday.
James Tarkowski and Conor Coady have brought priceless Premier League nos to the backline, Alex Iwobi has reincarnated as a reasonable impression of Lampard in his splendor. Amadou Onana radiates strong Patrick Vieira vibes.
Some introspection is needed in Liverpool, but for once it’s not in Goodison Park. Very strange.
The take: Bournemouth is doomed
A deluge of spending on the January deadline helped propel the Cherries back into the Premier League, but a lack of comparable summer investment meant most of us assumed they wouldn’t stay there. We were not alone.
Another 9-0 defeat at Liverpool at the end of August Bournemouth without a point from four games without goals and 18 conceded.
In the aftermath, boss Scott Parker said ‘we are ill-equipped at this level’ and when it came to the manager, owner Maxim Demin agreed and fired him four days later.
Perhaps we should rethink our rating, with caretaker boss Gary O’Neil on a five-game unbeaten run for winable matches with Fulham and Southampton.
Either O’Neil, a man with no senior management experience, is the new Pep Guardiola or these Cherries might have some juice after all.
The take: Haaland will find the Premier League a tough step
No one seriously thought that Erling Haaland would be last season’s Romelu Lukaku, but amid the hype associated with his arrival from Dortmund, there was a lot of skepticism.
Timo Werner had shown that a prolific Bundesliga scorer was no guarantee of success in the Premier League, while Haaland’s old club mate Jadon Sancho struggled at Manchester United.
Then there was a bad miss in that Community Shield defeat.
Well, since then the Norwegian destroyer has scored 15 goals in nine league games for Manchester City – including hat-tricks in three consecutive home games.
His omnipotence is so great that when you were lying on the bench mid-week before the Copenhagen game, you still half expected him to grab a few.
LAKE : Gary Lineker claims he knows two Premier League footballers who were about to come out
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