With seemingly so little separating the top six heading into the 2017-18 English Premier League season, these are the players from those teams whose performance or lack thereof will be what settles the finishing position of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham.
Arsenal: Alexandre Lacazette
Should Arsenal hold onto Alexis Sanchez amid interest from giants such as PSG, the last season has shown that even at his peak he alone doesn’t push Arsenal into being a genuine title threat.
The Gunners relied far too heavily on him and even Mesut Ozil to a lesser extent; however, the big money signing of French striker Olivier Giroud could be the spark that Arsenal has lacked in the last 12 months.
Giroud is a perfectly serviceable striker and has certainly proven himself at the Gunners, but he managed to net only 12 goals in the 2016-17 season and 16 the season before when he featured in all 38 games. If attempting to genuinely challenge for the title, Arsenal need a 20-plus goal frontman, and Giroud isn’t it.
Inserting Lacazette into the number 9 role and allowing Ozil and Sanchez to play behind him all of a sudden injects an element of pace into the attack that they lacked with Giroud. Furthermore, while the French first division is often considered weaker than other top European leagues, Lacazette still scored 28 goals in 30 appearances last season, which is a phenomenal strike rate regardless of the opposition.
Moreover, the age-old saying that you can only beat whats’ in front of you surely has to be employed in this scenario. Thus should this French dynamo fire in the vastly different environment of the Premier League, then Sanchez could be returned to his more natural wing position and a world class front three could be born.
Chelsea: Eden Hazard
Antonio Conte’s men are coming off the back of a dominant season-long performance, and Eden Hazard was crucial in the turnaround from 10th the previous season to champions.
I think the new main man Alvaro Morata will have a similar output to that of out-of-favour striker Diego Costa, and the performance of one, if not the, best players in the league will play a larger role than whoever lines up at striker for Conte.
The juxtaposition of the last two Premier League seasons highlights the clear connection between Hazard’s own performance and the overall success of the team. In the 2015-16 season, for example, he found the back of the net only four times and assisted on a further four occasions compared with 15 goals and five assists in the most recent season.
A lot of credit for the success of last season has gone to PFA player of the yeah N’Golo Kante and Conte’s own tactics; however, the explosive game-changing effect of Eden Hazard is undeniably crucial in scoring and winning games. He is a crucial cog in the machine the is Chelsea, and when he’s at his best, so are Chelsea.
(Image: Darren Walsh/Chelsea via AP Images)
Liverpool: Sadio Mané
It was tough choosing between Mané and Philippe Coutinho for the Liverpool player that could be the difference this season, but ultimately I believe that Mané is the one that has the potential to take his own performance to the next level.
After completing the €20 million ($AU30 million) transfer, plaudits questioned whether he could replicate his Southampton performances on a larger and more publicly scrutinised level. The answer to that was that he could, and in fact almost identically – he had 13 goals for Liverpool compared to 11 at Southampton and five assists compared to six.
He was crucial in Liverpool’s intense attacking threat, and while this certainly wasn’t their issue in 2016-17, should he be able to take his game to the next step, then he could lead the likes of Coutinho, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Georginio Wijnaldum to be a devastating force.
Unplayable on his day but, put simply, Sadio Mané has sheer skill and talent that, if tapped into on a more consistent level, could result in a genuine title threat from the Scousers.
Special mention must also be given to defensive midfielder Emre Can as well, because should he continue to develop as he has the past two seasons, he could become the general that the Kop need to sure up the defensive side of their game.
Manchester City: Ederson
Picking ex-Benfica keeper Ederson is the most controversial of my decisions. Despite not being without error in the first few preseason games, should Ederson perform as well as his €22 million ($AU32 million) price tag suggests, he may well be the difference between first and fifth for the 2013-14 champions.
Having spent more than most countries on defence over the last 18 months, he will have a sound group in front of him, and should he continue his form from Benfica – 18 clean sheets in 27 matches – the back end of Manchester City will look like a formidable wall to deal with for any attacker.
Aside from Ederson’s own ability, I believe the goalkeeper to be particularly crucial due to the differing effects Claudio Bravo had last year and ex-keeper Joe Hart had in the 2013-14 campaign. City only defeated runners-up Liverpool and third-placed Chelsea by two points, and it was highlighted on Match of the Day that throughout the season Hart had made several big-impact saves that turned losses into draws and draws into wins. While small wins at the time, they ultimately are what created the tiny gap at the end of the season.
The unsuccessful Claudio Bravo last season was often criticised for the comical mistakes he made, but the reality is that while they may seem funny at the time, these mistakes cost them valuable points, and should the new season be closer than the last, having a goalkeeper who consistently stands up is essential.
By all accounts I believe that Ederson well and truly has the capabilities to do this and to help City to a more successful campaign than their most recent.
(Image: enviro warrior / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0)
Manchester United: Henrikh Mkhitaryan
The first Armenian in the Premier League came across to Manchester with high praise following him after his best season at the Bundesliga runners-up included 11 goals and a whopping 20 assists.
Unfortunately he wasn’t given an enormous amount of match time under Jose Mourinho last season – roughly half that of the previous season in Germany – and finished with a measly four goals and one assist.
On paper it may look like he just isn’t cut out for the physicality of English football, but I believe he was let down by an underperforming team and perhaps even a manager not giving him the right opportunity to flourish.
The high profile players, such as Paul Pogba and Romelu Lukaku, will no doubt be heaped with pressure, but despite Pogba’s price he had a perfectly good campaign and should recreate it this season, meaning he won’t give them that edge they’ve been lacking.
Similarly United had the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic last season, who finished with 17 goals in only 28 games, and while – hopefully for Manchester United fans – Lukaku surpasses this, I can’t see him in his first season exceeding the presence of Ibrahimovic.
Thus I believe the gem that is Mkhitaryan has the class and capability to shine and be the linking man between the midfield and the attack for the Red Devils, catapulting them back to being the force they were under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Tottenham: Harry Kane
It’s taken him an extra two seasons to prove he’s not just a one-season wonder, and by scoring an incredible 29 goals in 30 games Harry Kane is now undisputedly a world-class forward.
After a busy transfer window for their main competitors, there is no shortage of elite strikers in the Premier League. Lukaku, Morata and Lacazette have been the biggest pickups for their clubs this season, and thus pundits have argued over who will be the most successful out of the three. However, what I contend is that while those very talented players may each crack into the 20s, it is English talisman Harry Kane that has the capabilities to reach 30 goals, a feat not achieved since Luis Suarez in 2013-14, provided he stays fit.
Should Kane reach this landmark or get close to it again, as he did last season, it may finally be enough to get the Spurs to the level of champions that they have been building towards the last couple of seasons.
Tottenham is well positioned with the current crop of players coming through, and the difference between an average and excellent Harry Kane season in my mind will be the difference between a fourth and a first-place finish for the 2015-16 runners-up.
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