Five games to go: The Premier League’s unpredictable season turns again | Soccer

It was supposed to be Arsenal’s title. For 200 days it looked like it would be.

But on Wednesday night, Erling Haaland scored his 35th goal of the season after five minutes at Turf Moor, and Manchester City went top of the Premier League for the first time since October. Arsenal’s 200-day lead was gone, just like that, to a side that looked like they had run out of steam three weeks ago.

I am a Manchester United supporter. I have no dog in this fight. So honestly, watching this title race from the sidelines has been one of the most entertaining things the Premier League has produced in years. Not because football has always been brilliant. Because it really didn’t. But because absolutely nothing went as anyone expected.

Arsenal were supposed to win it!

The title felt finished. Football journalists were already writing the “Arsenal end the wait” pieces and submitting them for publication on whichever Sunday it became official.

Then Bournemouth beat them at home. Then they lost at the Etihad against goals from Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland. Then City beat Burnley last night, and Arsenal’s 200-day spell at the top was over. Now they have no draw advantage. If the two clubs finish level on points, goal difference and goals scored, City will win the title because they have won more points in the head-to-head games this season. Arsenal hold none of the cards. It’s a case of who blinks first, and I think Arsenal will blink.

Mikel Arteta took Arsenal close, and he deserves credit for that. But his performative coaching on the sidelines, his shrinking “tricks” in training, they point to a man who feels the pressure. He’s so worked up, I think that translates to the field.

The Chelsea Disaster…

While the title race was the main event, Chelsea produced the most truly extraordinary sideshow in Premier League history. Three managers in 16 months. About 2 billion pounds ($2.7 billion) spent on players. Seventh in the table. And my personal favorite stat of the entire season: five consecutive league games without scoring, the first time that has happened for Chelsea since 1912.

Their most recent manager, Liam Rosenior, was fired this week. He was in the job for 106 days on a six-and-a-half-year contract. He is perhaps best remembered for a news conference in January where he explained that the word “management,” split in two, gives you “man” and “age,” and that management therefore means “aging men.” I aged very quickly. He is now 41 and unemployed.

The week he was sacked, Chelsea’s parent company published accounts showing operating losses of 689 million pounds ($930 million) over three years. That’s a loss of 629,000 pounds ($850,000) every day. For three years. At a football club that Brighton can’t beat.

There is a serious point buried in the Chelsea comedy. Spending money without a coherent plan is not a strategy. The clubs that have disrupted the established order this season, Bournemouth above all, have done so through organization and intelligence. Bournemouth have sold their five best players for a combined 250 million pounds ($338 million) in 18 months. Their manager Andoni Iraola has adapted, rebuilt and is still on course to finish in the top half while playing some of the most attractive football in the country. Bournemouth beat Arsenal at the Emirates. They beat Liverpool at Anfield. Chelsea spent many times their budget and could finish below them.

When did it turn?

If I had to pick one result that changed everything, it would be Southampton beating Arsenal in the FA Cup quarter-finals. Southampton were relegated the previous season.

That did not in itself cost Arsenal the title. But that was the first moment where you looked at Arsenal and thought: Something is not quite right here. The calmness, the faith, the ability to handle big moments and it wavered. Once that swing is visible, every subsequent result is filtered by it. The loss at home in Bournemouth felt worse because of Southampton. The City defeat felt worse because of Bournemouth. And now with five games to go and City top on goal difference, the whole thing looks like a slow unraveling that began on that day.

Five to go!

City have Everton away, Brentford at home, Bournemouth away, Crystal Palace at home and Villa at home on the final day. Arsenal have Newcastle at home, Fulham at home, West Ham away, Burnley at home and Crystal Palace away on the final day when they face a club whose best player, Eberechi Eze, left for Arsenal in the summer and will return to the stadium where his career was made.

Arsenal also have the Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid to progress. City has no European football. They are rested, they are focused and Haaland has 35 goals this season with five games to play.

I said at the start of this that Arsenal were going to bottle it up. I said that in February when they were nine points ahead, and people weren’t particularly happy about it. I stand by that. The momentum, the draw, the build-up of the games and I think the mentality – everything points to City.

But I’ve been watching this league for 30 years, and I’ve learned one thing above all else: The Premier League will find a way to surprise you. The season that seemed decided in December is never decided in December. The team that looks unbeatable in April sometimes loses to Bournemouth on a wet Tuesday night and never quite recovers.

It happened to Arsenal. Maybe it happens with City too.

Five games. All to play for. Come back and tell me I was wrong.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial position.