The Age of Efficiency

At the highest level football in this country seems to be established in a period of radical and recognisable change. Gone are the days when spectacular success was a product of the beautiful game, exemplified by the sublime attacking football of Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal Invincibles or the powerful swashbuckling style of a rampant Manchester United. For all their bitter rivalry and their professed mutual hatred, until recently these two great clubs had much in common – not least their shared domination of the English premiership to the despair and frustration of all their competitors.

Now it is abundantly clear that this season neither of these clubs will be crowned premiership champions. In addition, in the space of a single week Arsenal have suffered the pain of elimination from both the F.A. and Carling Cup competitions, leaving only the hope of this year’s Champions League and the pressing need to ensure qualification for the next, while Manchester United, already embarrassed by being out of Europe, cling to the possibility of success in the two cups. For clubs such as this it is not enough and the pain will be exacerbated not merely by an awareness of who has supplanted them, but what and how.

With the emergence of Chelsea, launched and sustained by a seemingly bottomless pit of money courtesy of Roman Abramovic and charged by the confidence and organisational powers of the Special One, an entirely new era is upon us – the Age of Efficiency, the Time of The Terminator, chilling in its power, massive in its apparent indestructibility. You have to admire it, but you cannot warm to it. It is awesome, but ultimately unexciting – which is why you are left yearning for the heady days of the Entertainers, of Arsenal and Manchester United at the top of their game.

It is difficult to predict how long it will be before those days return, but while Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson are in charge it may safely be assumed that neither Arsenal nor Manchester United will abandon their principles in favour of mind-numbing pragmatism.

In the meantime it is Chelsea and a resurgent Liverpool, who are looking a little too ‘Chelsea-like’ for comfort. Not to mention the good of the game.