Arsenal in, Liverpool and Chelsea out: the Premier League window of opportunity
Trying to parse out how the wheel keeps turning.
As of writing this, Arsenal are five points clear at the top of the Premier League with a game in hand. Since Arsène Wenger retired in 2018, they have finished fifth, eighth, eighth and fifth.
Arsenal have entered their window of opportunity.
Unless you’re incredibly wealthy, you can’t be at the top all the time. Only one team has challenged for the title every season over the past five years, and they’re exempt from having to pick and choose their moments. The rest have to plan to peak at specific times and eras. Newcastle might potentially change this, but that’s a conversation for another day. For now, let’s look at the so-called “top six” and see how they’re doing around their windows of opportunity.
Stats are from FBRef.
Arsenal: entering their window
Here’s Arsenal’s average age weighted by minutes played since 2016:
16/17: 26.9
17/18: 26.8
18/19: 26.7
19/20: 25.8
20/21: 25.9
21/22: 24.4
22/23: 24.9
Arsenal blew their last window of opportunity. It was the team built around Mesut Özil, Alexis Sánchez and Santi Cazorla. Over a calendar year, Arsenal actually had the most points in the league in 2013 and 2015, but they never quite managed to do the same across a proper season. After that point, Arsenal made some poor decisions, and it took time to clear out some of those ageing players who weren’t contributing.
But look at them now. Under Mikel Arteta and sporting director Edu, both hired in 2019, there was a clear pivot. Arsenal recognised they could not compete immediately and took a shift towards signing players in their early twenties, with the view that Arteta was the sort of coach who could improve them. Players like Gabriel Magalhães (signed at age 22), Aaron Ramsdale (23), Ben White (23), Martin Ødegaard (22) and Gabriel Jesus (25) were signed early in their peak years. Yes, there were some older additions, as well as some academy talents, but the reshaping of the squad was clearly aimed at peaking in the next few years. Honestly, Arsenal are probably at least a season early, which makes the future very exciting for this team.
Manchester City: the eternal window
Call it money, call it Pep Guardiola’s brilliance, call it whatever you want. Man City don’t have to worry about this. After some teething problems in his first season, Guardiola’s City “got good” in 2017/18, and since have never finished below second place. Second is a bad season now for City. While players like Kevin De Bruyne (31), Riyad Mahrez (31), Ilkay Gündoğan (32) and Kyle Walker (32) probably have their best years behind them, the likes of Erling Haaland (22), Phil Foden (22), Julián Álvarez (22) and Rúben Dias (25) should keep them competitive for a long time. City have found the secret sauce for staying competitive forever. Just don’t ask them what it is.
Manchester United: not quite there yet
This probably won’t be popular with Man Utd fans, but I still think they have some work to do before really challenging the current top two. They’re much improved from last season, but their numbers look much closer to “top four contenders” than “title challengers” right now. They should qualify for the Champions League barring a late collapse, which will obviously help the team improve. The bedrock of their significant improvement from last season has been the central midfield of Casemiro and Christian Eriksen. Both are new signings, but they’re not going to see big improvements at age 30. Eriksen already looks a little lightweight for that position, and it could become a much bigger problem if Casemiro starts to lose a step. They have a number of very good pieces right now, but more work needs to be done before they’re really competitive for the league title. The Glazers are selling the club, and the new owners should prioritise players around ages 22-25, just coming into their peak over the next few years.
Tottenham: time to rebuild
Everyone knows Tottenham’s last window was under Mauricio Pochettino. That side came close to winning the league title and got as far as the Champions League final. It’s become fashionable to dismiss that team as they “didn’t win anything”, but they really did massively overachieve compared to resources. You’ll hear no criticisms from me on that Spurs side.
Five players are still regularly starting from that team (Harry Kane, Hugo Lloris, Eric Dier, Son Heung-min and Ben Davies). All are 29 or older. The other frequent starters have a mix of age profiles, with Dejan Kulusevski (22) and Cristian Romero (24) potentially very good players in the long term. But the broader picture is that their average age weighted by minutes is the second highest in the league. Spurs were frequently described as young and vibrant under Pochettino. They’re not now, and haven’t been for some time. If Tottenham start righting the ship, the truth is the team will look pretty different by the time they’re ready to compete at the top again.
Liverpool: reached the end
Liverpool are old. But you knew that.
It’s happened really quickly, but age has set in at Anfield. And this isn’t particularly unusual. The core of players bought around 2017 and 2018 were signed to win trophies over a few years before declining. It’s a whole lot easier to stomach the decline when Liverpool did actually win major honours, in comparison to a Tottenham side that never quite got there. Liverpool won their first league title in 30 years. The price being paid is this decline phase.
Still, I think the club have been a little too enamoured with that successful core of players. Only two regular starters from the title-winning 2019-20 season (Gini Wijnaldum and Sadio Mané) have left the club. It’s a very difficult sell to the fans, but there should have been more squad turnover in the last couple of years. Liverpool let things get both old and stale.
The refresh has already started. We can argue about the quality of those signings, but Darwin Núñez, Cody Gakpo and Ibrahima Konaté (all currently 23) are at the right end of the age spectrum. It’s important that Liverpool stick the course on this and resist the temptation to spend on established stars after a poor season. There aren’t shortcuts here, and Liverpool have to do the hard work of getting back to the top the long way around.
Chelsea: what went wrong?
Chelsea’s last really successful core was in the mid-2010s, with José Mourinho and Antonio Conte each winning a league title. That team inevitably wound down, with Eden Hazard and co leaving the club or ageing out of usefulness. The job, then, was to build a new side built around younger signings and academy players.
And they did it! Chelsea won the Champions League in 2021 playing a fresh team full of exciting younger players along with solid experienced pros. It looked like Chelsea were about to start a new golden era. And then it all blew up.
Everywhere you look in that team, important players are either suffering from injury problems or badly out of form. It’s all sort of imploded really quickly in an alarming way. The response has in part been driven by the change of ownership, but Chelsea have decided to change everything rather than salvage this team. That means we’re going to see a pretty different-looking Chelsea in a few years.
The January spending on Benoît Badiashile (21), David Datro Fofana (20), Andrey Santos (18), Mykhailo Mudryk (22) and Noni Madueke (20) makes it clear: Chelsea are going young. Really young. It’s going to be a long time before that team takes shape, and it’s a little more of a high-risk-high-reward strategy.
Chelsea are trying to build something. I just don’t think anyone, Graham Potter and Todd Boehly included, know what it is yet. I feel confident it’ll take some time to shake out where Chelsea is going.
It wasn’t that long ago that people insisted Liverpool and Manchester City were so far ahead of everyone else to make the chasing pack pointless. It’s easy to point to Liverpool’s struggles and say that they made the wrong choices and signed bad players. There’s certainly some of that, but it’s also the natural ebb and flow of trying to compete on a vaguely normal budget. There are going to be ups and downs.
As Arsenal have become more successful, their players will inevitably start earning in line with their new status as some of the league’s biggest stars. They’ve got a very good age profile, so I wouldn’t worry too much, but there will likely be some tightening of what they can do in the transfer market. On the flip side, as Chelsea work off some bad contracts to older players, they should find themselves able to really turn over the squad. This is the status quo right now, but things will inevitably shift over time. Some churn is positive for the league. Arsenal fans should absolutely enjoy things right now and live in the moment.
Good piece, Grace. If I was an Arsenal fan I'd already be worried about how many plates they'll still have spinning in 3 years, but that's just the way my brain works. I hope they sustain this, but it's a fascinating process either way.