How Chelsea and Man Utd's poor signings handed Man City the Premier League title
Stefan Bienkowski
- 15 Jan 2022 18:20 GMT
- 4 min read
Manchester City marched to a somewhat unprecedented 13 points clear at the top of the Premier League table on Saturday.
Indeed, the 1-0 victory all but confirmed another league title for Pep Guardiola’s side while effectively knocking Thomas Tuchel’s defeated team out of any proposed title race.
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However, while City have certainly set a remarkable pace in the English top-flight this season, their success has also come about through the demise of their domestic rivals.
Chelsea - and Manchester United - have both made poor moves in the transfer window this season and it’s cost them dearly on the pitch.
Tuchel on BT Sport: "Lukaku sometimes needs to do the service, he is included in this, he had many ball losses in very promising circumstances, he had a huge chance. Of course we want to serve him, but he is part of the team, and the performance up front, we can do much better."
— Nizaar Kinsella (@NizaarKinsella) January 15, 2022
Chelsea bought the wrong striker
If Chelsea needed to improve one position after last season it was undoubtedly in attack. And, unfortunately, the club didn’t exactly do that.
Despite having a number of exciting young strikers to pick from like Erling Haalandd and Dusan Vlahovic, Chelsea instead decided to drop €115 million on a striker that had already proved himself to be a liability at the top end of the Premier League.
The excuses made for Lukaku are pretty tiresome. It’s ok to say he isn’t playing well. You don’t have to look for some great tactical mystery #cfc
— Jacob Steinberg (@JacobSteinberg) January 15, 2022
Indeed, Romelu Lukaku is certainly not a bad player, but nor is he a fitting candidate for Chelsea’s record-breaking transfer fee. Which has been made perfectly clear from the striker’s eight goals in 22 appearances this season.
Had Chelsea spent that astronomical fee on one of the other strikers, Tuchel’s side would be in a far better position and most likely far closer to Man City in the league table.
Man Utd keep wasting their fortunes
On paper, Man Utd did everything right in the summer transfer window. The club signed a new central defender in Raphael Varane, a top-class winger in Jadon Sancho and even brought goalscoring legend Cristiano Ronaldo back to the club. But, somewhat surprisingly, none of it has really worked.
Despite being an outstanding player for Real Madrid for a number of years, Varane has struggled to get going at Old Trafford because of a number of injuries. And, despite a flurry of goals in the Champions League, Ronaldo has managed just eight goals in the Premier League this season.
Combined goals and assists across all competitions this season:
Jarrod Bowen - 18
James Maddison - 14
Phil Foden - 13
Mason Mount - 13
Raheem Sterling - 12
Emile Smith Rowe - 11
Bukayo Saka - 11
Conor Gallagher - 10
Jack Grealish - 6
Marcus Rashford - 4
Jadon Sancho - 2 pic.twitter.com/buXHYXQbKx— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) January 13, 2022
Most bizarrely, Sancho arrived at the club in the summer and was effectively ignored by former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer either through his inability to perform in training or because the Old Trafford manager simply had no need for the €85m signing.
Couple all of that with the clear fact that Man Utd desperately needed another central midfielder far more than either of those three players and it just goes to show how far off the club are from clear and effective work in the transfer window. Despite spending €140m in the summer window, Man Utd’s team got worse.
