An understrength Man Utd demolish Leeds. I suspect this season may not throw up much drama at the top of the table...Apple fanboy's hopes of a comeuppance for the 'greedy six' is almost certainly a forlorn one. Though, it's still quite possible Man City will fail yet again in Europe. And that would be very funny.
The financial disparities are widening. It's still possible to punch above one's financial weight by being smart, but it's never been harder to do so. Man City are also smart - and they have practically bottomless wealth on top of that.
I was just talking over Arsenal with a (depressed) Gooner friend of mine today and I'm not sure what the fans should be hoping for right now. They can't compete financially anymore with the league contenders but they are in no danger of slipping out of the top half of the league either. The Champions league is at least two seasons away under even the most optimistic assessments, and that would rely on other clubs imploding. Maybe Cup runs? Of course, the club can continue to make a lot of money and raise prices even while winning nothing - such is the state of things.
Arteta may take the fall should results stay mediocre but that would be somewhat of a red herring in my opinion. Like Chelsea, Arsenal gave a young ex-player a shot at managing. Arteta, like Frank Lampard, will probably emerge rather bruised from the encounter. Lampard had a massively talented squad but couldn't deliver results fast enough for a very short-termist, greedy club. And he made the sort of mistakes you'd expect a relatively experience manager to make. That sort of thing is not tolerated at Chelsea, as Lampard well knows form his playing days. Arteta has a different, and arguably harder problem - a big club but still suffering from the ghost of late-stage Wenger, a quesitonable director of football, and a very patchy recruitment program. He's been dealt a bad hand, so it't hard to judge him if he ultimately fails. If he succeeds, it will have been from a position of considerable disadvantage.
On the other hand, there are plenty of indications that the ownership see Arteta as a reasonably effective lightning rod insulating them from criticism about mediocre results. So they may stick with him for some time. At least until the 'Kroenke Out' calls reach a certain decibel level.
