Choosing your favourite Premier League Club

The football viewership in India has been increasing rapidly over the last decade. The statistics also support this fact. According to many broadcasters, Football had 155 million viewers in India in 2010 compared to Cricket which had 176 million. More and more people are getting introduced to football every year, the most notable being the upper middle classes. Avid fans of football in India pick up football from various different sources. Some start playing it and then move onto watching it just because they want to watch the sport which they play. Few people gather their initial pieces of information from certain football-simulator games like FIFA, PES etc. and then catch the bug. Some folks are bitten by the bug when they watch a premier International tournament like the World Cup or the Euro’s. There are others who just accidentally stop by football and are hooked onto it and the rest simply bow down to peer pressure.

After you have been bitten by the bug of football, the next major step is following any major European League. The Premier League obviously leads all the other leagues in this respect because of its heavy India-specific marketing, the convenient times at which its matches are aired and the presence of clubs which are household names like Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and most recently Manchester City. Though the La Liga has started giving competition to the Premier League in recent years because of the recent successes of the Spanish International team at major competitions, world-beating Barcelona‘s beautiful style of play, the presence of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, whose names are known even to laymen who do not know anything about football, it is safe to assume that Premier League is the most popular League in India.

Most people who start watching the Premier League often pick a favourite club, because swearing your allegiance to a certain club adds to the fun of watching football. You share in the joys and sorrows of the club. You feel happy when your favourite club wins (You earn the bragging rights as well!) and a certain pain when your favourite loses. Another reason is that you can get into arguments with your peers about which is the better club and the arguments are settled by the clubs on the field. People choose their favourite club based on various factors, most prominent among them being the performance of the club, the number of titles it wins, the style of play, the history of the club, the presence of world-class players, the philosophy of the club and its manager etc. In this article, I will try to examine five major Premier League sides namely Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and at the end of this article, you can decide which club to support.

Manchester United

Surely the most consistent Premier League club, “The Red Devils” boast of 19 titles and have not finished out of the top 3 for almost 20 years now. Manchester United has veteran players like Robin Van Persie (in picture above), Wayne Rooney, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs among its ranks. It also has a number of highly talented young players like Tom Cleverley, Phil Jones, Javier Hernandez. The Manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, has been holding this position since 26 years and is considered to be a managerial genius. He is said to have overlooked the careers of great players like Eric Cantona, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney etc. at this club. He has never allowed the club to falter at the highest level.

Despite all this, Manchester United had a trophy-less season last year and many pundits had even declared last season’s squad to be the “weakest Manchester United squad ever”. It had even bowed out of the Champions League in the group stages itself and conceded the Premier League title to its cross town rivals Manchester City. Another con is the absence of FA Cup titles since 2004. However this season, it is sitting atop the Premier League and has also reached the UEFA Champions League knockout stages. Pundits often cite its defensive problems, problems on the wing and its tendency to win matches through comebacks rather than dominating the opposition from start to finish.

Manchester City

The “Citizens” are a recent phenomenon and therefore have no history to boast about, their Premier League title last year coming after a span of 44 years. However, they have the maximum squad depth and seem to have surplus players for every position. They boast of a legion of superstars like Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez, Vincent Kompany, David Silva, Samir Nasri, Yaya Toure, Kolo Toure etc. Even players who warm the benches of Man City like Edin Dzeko, Mario Balotelli etc. are good enough to play in the first teams of many top sides. The takeover of City by its rich Abu Dhabi-based owner Sheikh Mansour in 2008 led to a flurry of spending in the club and many high profile signings arrived. The results went on improving year after year, from 5th to 3rd and culminating in the Premier League title win.

Many romantics cite the 2 goals in stoppage time that City scored against QPR to win the Premier League last year to be fit enough for a Hollywood movie climax. Many people accuse Manchester City and its owners of having bought the Premier League title, but trophies are trophies nonetheless. The negative aspects of Manchester City is its failure in European Competitions where it has been eliminated twice in the group stages. Critics point out that Manchester City have the strength to butcher weak Premier League opposition but lack the chemistry in the squad to beat quality opposition in the Champions League. It has also been plagued by inconsistency in this year’s Premier league.

Arsenal

Arsenal is often cited as the English equivalent of F.C Barcelona because of the similarity of its style of play with Barcelona. An Arsenal team in full flow is often a sight to watch. Arsenal has the distinction of making it to the knockout stages of the UEFA Champions League for the last 13 years. “The Gunners” boast of players like Lukas Podolski, Santi Cazorla, Mikel Arteta, Thomas Vermaelen, Per Mertesacker etc. Its manager Arsene Wenger has a reputation of spotting young talent and nurturing them. Arsenal has a galaxy of young players like Jack Wilshere, Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain and Theo Walcott. Arsenal had its glory spell in the days of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp etc. Arsenal has the record of being the first club to go an entire season unbeaten in the Premier League. However after its FA Cup Win in 2005, Arsenal has gone trophy-less since 7 seasons. It has also fallen from the position of title contending club to a club which just fights for the Champions League Spots (wants a top 4 finish).

Its manager Arsene Wenger has often been criticized for his stubbornness in sticking to the possession-oriented football that Arsenal play. He has often been criticized for signing unproven youngsters and exercising extreme caution in the transfer market. Arsenal is also victim to its top players being poached by other clubs. The notable examples include Robin Van Persie, Cesc Fabergas, Samir Nasri, Alexander Song, Gael Clichy and Kolo Toure.

Chelsea

Chelsea, the holding champions of Europe are a London club which owes most of its history to the time after its present owner Roman Abramovich took over. They have 4 PL titles, 3 of them won after 2003. Chelsea won its Holy Grail, “The UEFA Champions League”, last season after humbling the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich. They gained automatic qualification to this season’s Champions League despite finishing 6th in last year’s table. Chelsea lost its enigmatic striker Didier Drogba last year to Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua. However, Chelsea still boasts of stalwarts like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole etc. Last summer, its then Manager Roberto Di Matteo bought a plethora of young talent like Oscar, Marko Marin and Eden Hazard. It also has Juan Mata, the Spanish playmaker. Chelsea is known to play well in Cup competitions, evident by the fact that they have won 4 out of the last 6 FA Cup’s. Last season, Chelsea was faring very poorly in the Premier League, but a new managerial appointment in the form of Roberto Di Matteo changed everything and Chelsea won the UEFA Champions League and the FA Cup.

This season, Chelsea began by losing the Community Shield and the UEFA Super Cup but it had a very good start to the Premier League but somewhere down the line it started losing and earned the unenviable position of being the first Champions League holder to be kicked out of the Champions League group stages. Its Premier League position dropped and all this resulted in the sacking of its manager, Roberto Di Matteo. It also lost the Club World Cup to Corinthians. Chelsea owner Abramovich is criticized by many for sacking managers at will, which pundits state creates a lot of unstability as no manager is allowed to implement his ideas.

Liverpool

Liverpool is the club which probably has the greatest history among the English Clubs. It holds 18 titles and is the English team with the most European Championships with 5, rivalled only by Real Madrid (9) and A.C Milan (7). However, Liverpool witnessed a period of decline from the 2009-2010 season when it finished 7th and has not been competing in the UEFA Champions League ever since. Liverpool does have good players like Steven Gerrard and Luis Suarez but has not been able to compete in the PL. It did win the Capitol One Cup last year and reached the FA Cup finals, but its performances in the Premier League have been found wanting.

So folks, I hope that by now you have selected your favourite Premier League club. Happy Supporting!