Road Blues

By Jonathan Gault 

          

Back in August, most observers saw this year’s Premier League as a three-horse race between Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea, three clubs who have combined to win the last nine championships. United stumbled out of the gate, losing three of its first five matches, but have been trending upward recently, taking 13 points from its last five matches – more than any other club in that span.

The other two preseason favorites have faced a more serious problem: when they travel away from home, they suddenly morph into bottom-of-the table clubs. Between them, Chelsea and Manchester City have played 11 away games this season. If you add up their points from those fixtures, it comes to nine points. If you put that team up against everyone else in the Premier League, it would be in 18th place right now – right above Sunderland and Crystal Palace.

Nigel Roddis/REUTERS

This would be a larger problem if the two teams hadn’t been so utterly dominant at home. They’ve combined to take 31 of a possible 33 points from home fixtures, and such a hybrid club would be eight points clear at the top right now. But it’s still a major issue. Chelsea sits in fourth with 21 points while City is eighth with 19. Teams simply do not win titles playing relegation-level football away from home.

Chelsea will have to turn things around quickly – after the international break, it plays four away games in 15 days, three of them in the Premier League. Meanwhile, City provided the latest entry in its diary of away futility, registering its fourth road defeat of the season, 1-0 to Sunderland.

The Black Cats continued their resurgence under new manager Gus Poyet to take the victory, but this was more about City’s loss. Amazingly, the Blues have now lost this fixture by the same scoreline four seasons in a row, and they were unlucky to do so on Sunday. Even without David Silva, who may be out for up to a month with a calf injury, City dominated in almost every statistical category, holding 63 percent possession, attempting 14 corners to Sunderland’s zero and outshooting the Black Cats, 24-5 (per FourFourTwo’s Stats Zone). But Phil Bardsley’s early strike was enough to give Sunderland its biggest win of the season, though its dreadful start means that it’s still three points from safety at the moment.

Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the weekend’s biggest fixture. Manchester United and Arsenal met on Sunday at Old Trafford for the first time in the post-Ferguson era and United emerged 1-0 winners thanks to a suffocating defensive performance and a 26th-minute header from Robin van Persie. The Gunners may have held 60 percent of the possession, but United made them work for it, pressuring Arsenal’s dribblers all over the pitch and limiting chances in the attacking third. It takes a fit team to maintain that approach against Arsenal for all 90 minutes, but the Red Devils were up to the challenge, and the result was that dangerous players such as Olivier Giroud, Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Ozil and Santi Cazorla rarely had room to work around the United penalty area.

Arsenal did seem the more likely to score for the last 20 minutes – as is to be expected when a team is trailing 1-0 against a team of comparable ability – but United held on to move into fifth after its biggest win of the season.

Arsenal will be disappointed with the result, but it came at the end of a tough nine-day period, following wins over Liverpool on Nov. 2 and away to Borussia Dortmund on Nov. 6. Heading into the international break, Arsenal still leads the Premier League by two points over Liverpool, but the title race remains wide open, with eight teams separated by six points at the top.

It doesn’t get any easier for the Gunners, either. Next up: Southampton at home, where a win for the surprising Saints could send them top (!) of the Premier League.