Arriving in the Premier League must be a scary prospect. Exciting, sure, but bloody scary nonetheless, a bit like your first day at school. Or starting a new job. Or falling in love. Or, considering I’ve not even remotely thought this through, completely unlike any of these. Having personally never been promoted to the top flight of English football, I’m almost certainly not in the strongest position to judge. But stepping into such a competition must bring shocks to the system – the prefects and teachers are bigger and mostly hairier, the margins for error are considerably tighter and the potential for heartbreak is higher than ever before.
And I guess this is where my mixed bag of metaphors falls apart and spills its tenuous contents across the floor like so much rancid bin water. For while there are many people in the world who succeed at school, at work and at love, those footballing outfits who have been promoted to the top flight and stayed there are a scarce breed indeed, certainly in the Premier League era. Of the twenty teams seated at this seasons’ top table, only seven have been continuously stuffing their faces on BSkyB’s gluttonous bounty since it all began back in good old 1992. To this end, the state of the table as we enter the season’s second quarter makes for strange viewing. Check out that relegation zone! Look at the new guys struggling! Only they’re not, and what’s more you need to cast your eyes up to 14th place before you find a pair of ears with even a hint of wetness behind them.
Of this year's new intake, Blackpool have made the biggest waves. From their opening day shoeing of Wigan to the shock humbling of Liverpool , they’ve been the talk of the town (although having a rent-a-quote manager like Ian Holloway hasn’t exactly helped keep their profile low). West Brom , meanwhile, have gone about their task quietly but with no little style; their usual brand of tight football complemented with a sturdier backbone than evidenced during previous top-flight campaigns. Newcastle are the curio of the three; the early 6-0 trouncing of a Villa side in then-managerial limbo represents three-quarters of their meagre four point home haul thus far. Away from St James', however, it’s been a different story – victories at Everton and West Ham (as well as Stamford Bridge
In fact together these three sides represent a neat cross section of the type of teams regularly found entering the Premier League fray. Newcastle are the fallen giant rising to its feet again, specifically one who will always have a place in Premier League history thanks to the exploits of Robson, Keegan, Shearer and Venison. The Baggies, meanwhile, are the epitome of the ‘yo-yo club’, hop-scotching between the first and second tiers of the professional game. And then there’s Blackpool , the loveable, beating heart of a cockle-warming rags-to-riches narrative. And we all like one of those.
Like Newcastle (and in stark contrast to Anton Ferdinand), Blackpool have excelled on the road – three wins from six in fact, contrasting with just a solitary point earned on their own turf. Received wisdom states that newly promoted sides should turn their homes into fortresses while simply getting what they can on their travels. Yet whilst Ian Holloway erecting battlements and digging a moat around Bloomfield Road is an immensely satisfying (and not necessarily all that far-fetched) mental image, the opening two months have brought about a subversion of the norm in this respect, not least when you consider West Brom are the only team to walk away from Old Trafford with so much as a point in hand.
So why so handy on the road? Perhaps the expectation of stepping up a level in front of one's home crowd, and the nationwide media coverage it entails, has caused our new boys to freeze, only to thaw on their travels when most observers expect them to receive their fortnightly hiding. But form, like the unobtainable temptress, is a fickle beauty, and fixture lists are of course prone to throw up early-season anomalies. In which case, is there some deeper-routed explanation or two for these impressive first few furlongs?
Each team boasts a not-necessarily-young but equally hungry manager. Erstwhile coach and occasional caretaker Chris Hughton is thoughtful and reserved, meticulously and methodically circumnavigating Newcastle’s traditional route of bluster and heartache now that he's finally made the transition from band-member to front-man; a sort of Dave Grohl in management terms. Holloway certainly likes to bring the crazy, playing the put upon underdog with the exasperated face of a man pushing at an ocean, but it's fair to say that each of the Football League clubs he’s led has been the recipient of not just his home-spun sound-bites but also a refreshing brand of lateral thinking. And while it would undoubtedly be a turgid cliché to say Roberto Di Matteo brings a dash of continental flavouring to the party, there does seem to be a good mixture of sensible and saucy on the menu at the Hawthorns these days. With a playing career cut short by injury, those perched behind the home dugout must be able to almost taste his desire to succeed from the touchline.
On a broader scale, maybe some of the fear is evaporating. Last season Birmingham , Wolves and Burnley all donned their smartest casuals and strolled in bold as brass, with only the latter sent packing by the bouncers. Or perhaps, conversely, it's the problems of those around them. West Ham and Wigan , for example, are established sides in a deep malaise, situations offering not just hope but actual, tangible, look-it-up-on-Ceefax league positions to our newbies. Or maybe it's just, as usual, about the money. As the rich somehow manage to get richer and simultaneously further into the red (depending on which page of a club's finance report you read), does the current flurry of belt tightening and bottom line-scrutinising play into the hands of the have-nots?
When it comes to the bottom half of the table, you could posit our prudent times have let those slipping in the door believe they have as good a chance as anyone. Is the demand on established sides to invest, succeed and live up to the Premier League lifestyle – the lure, the lucre, the razzle and the dazzle – weighing too heavy on the old guard's shoulders? Where the promoted sides are concerned, with less expectation to succeed, so sure are the neutrals and the bookmakers of the impending doom of instant relegation, we might be witnessing a new willingness to simply go for broke. Money and pressure, or the lack of it, do strange things to the best of us.
~ Matt
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