The Premier League is Back!

The German Bundesliga has returned, La Liga in Spain and Serie A in Italy have announced their intentions to start again, and now...THE PREMIER LEAGUE IS COMING BACK. 

On May 28, the Premier League clubs had a meeting to discuss further their plans to return to action and finish the season which was suspended on March 13 due to COVID-19. Coming out of that meeting, it has been announced that play will resume on Wednesday, June 17. 

Teams have been able to return to practice in small groups with many sanitary procedures in place over the past couple of weeks. On May 27, the clubs decided to approve moving to “Phase 2” of practicing which allows for contact training to resume. It seemed only a matter of time before the league would be able to resume, and that decision has now been made.

Testing of players and club staff has occurred multiple times since the return to practice. 2,752 tests have been administered and only 12 of those were positive for COVID-19. Those people have been able to immediately quarantine while the rest of players and staff continue to resume training. 

As training continues, clubs will now have their focus set directly on June 17 where Man City vs Arsenal and Sheffield United vs Aston Villa will kick off (see what I did there?) the resumption of the season. More games will commence the following weekend (June 20-21). 

Details are still emerging about how often games will occur and when the season will finish, but what we know for sure is that the Premier League will resume and finish out its season!

Premier League Table

The Premier League is composed of 20 teams with each team playing every other team twice, once home and once away. Teams have between nine and ten games remaining to finish the season. Many storylines and races have been brewing over the course of the past couple months during the pause in play.

First of all, Liverpool. The Reds are one of the most recognizable teams across the world in the Premier League, but they haven’t won a league title in 30 years. Last season, they finished an agonizing one point behind the champions Manchester City.

But this season, Liverpool’s focus is directly on the Premier League trophy, and they’ve only lost one game all season. They are on pace for a record-setting amount of points in the Premier League and they could win the league earlier than anyone has ever won it before. And again, they are looking to win their first league title in 30 years.

Liverpool fans were almost disappointed (if you could even say that) at how well the team was doing. The dominance of the team essentially removed any sort of drama or questions from the title race. However, COVID-19 changed all that.

Liverpool have now been waiting anxiously the last two months to see if the season would be able to finish at all, and if they would be able to claim the title they are so close to. As top European leagues like the French Ligue 1 and the Dutch Eredivisie decided to just cancel the season, rumors grew that the same thing would happen in England. Rather than worry about a team a couple points behind Liverpool in the table, fans had to worry that COVID-19 would wipe out their team’s golden opportunity to win the title they have longed for.

Now, with the league set to resume, Liverpool can focus solely on this title that they are so close to. Second place Manchester City can achieve only a maximum of 87 points. With Liverpool sitting at 82, they only need to win 2 of their last 9 games to win the title. Any loss or draw by Manchester City lowers that magic number even more for them.

These first few days of resumed play will be monumental. Manchester City play against a very formidable opponent in Arsenal who could likely cause City to drop points. If this is the case, all eyes will be on the city of Liverpool. Liverpool will play their bitte cross-park rivals (the teams are literally separated by only a park) Everton with a chance to clinch the Premier League. And if they don’t then, there will be plenty more opportunities for them to do so.

Distance Between Anfield (Liverpool) and Goodison Park (Everton)

One of the beauties of soccer is that every team has something to fight for. The title is all but wrapped up, but there are still many battles to pay close attention to. 

Each season, the top four teams in the Premier League automatically make it into the UEFA Champions League-- the competition to determine the best team in Europe each year. Not only does the competition hold much prestige, but it also brings a tremendous amount of money to the teams involved.

As of now, Manchester City, Leicester City, and Chelsea are in the prime spots to qualify. Creeping behind them are Manchester United, Wolves, and Sheffield United. Still in it with a slight chance are teams like Tottenham and Arsenal.

Just in this group of the teams, there are so many different storylines to pay attention to...way too many to try to hit on right now. However, here a couple of the top ones.

Leicester City are everyone’s feel-good team. They won the Premier League in 2016, coming into that season at 5,000-1 odds to win the title (that’s worse odds than your chances of being struck by lightning). They’ve been a mid-table team since then, but they’ve had another remarkable season this year. Before the shutdown, they were struggling due to injuries and squad depth issues. Will they be able to hang on to their spot when play resumes?

Manchester United are a mess. They’ve been a mess since the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson retired as manager in 2013. Their ownsernsip is in shambles and their play on the field this season has been inconsistent, but that may even be a compliment. However, they’ve found their form as of late and are right behind Chelsea for that fourth spot. 

Sheffield United are this year’s version of 2016 Leicester City. While they aren’t challenging for the title, they are in a great spot to secure European soccer next year. This comes after just being promoted to the Premier League this year, and only signing a few players to help them this season. To give some perspective, the other 2 teams who were promoted (Aston Villa and Norwich City) are sitting at 19th and 20th.  

They have an exciting style of play and have given fits to all of the top teams. They are sitting a few points off of fourth right now, but there is no reason why we won’t see them fighting for that spot until the last match of the season.

Way at the other end of the table, there’s a battle to avoid relegation that’s just as worth watching. In the Premier League each year, the bottom three teams at the end of the season get sent down to the the second-tier league in England (the EFL Championship). These teams are replaced the next season by the top teams from the Championship (this year it was Sheffield, Aston Villa, and Norwich). 

Norwich City and Aston Villa are likely going to be relegated back to the Championship, but they still have fighting chances to stay up. The big battle is the fight to remain out of the 18th spot for the teams currently sitting in 15th through 18th. Only of these 4 teams will fall, but they’ll all need to be in their best form all season if they want to make sure it’s not them.

Brighton and Bournemouth are typically in a position like this, and we will see how they handle the pressure. Watford are playing for their third manager just in this one season, but they also are the only team to beat Liverpool. West Ham United typically have high aspirations each year but end up finishing mid-table. This year has gone horribly wrong for them, and relegation could see their club fall into a financial spiral. 

So now, it’s time for you to pick a team to ride with for the rest of the season. Over the course of the next couple weeks I’ll try to help you in this process, but it’s time to start thinking. Do you want to side with the underdog, a financial giant, or a team hanging off the edge of a cliff? It’s completely up to you!

Hopefully as more European leagues return to action, we can see American sports league using them as models for how they can return safely as well. Right now the NHL is starting to make steps and the NBA seems close, so things definitely seem promising. Just as the virus hit Europe a couple weeks before reaching America, it appears that the sports world will follow that same trend.

But no matter what, there’s one thing that is for certain-- THE PREMIER LEAGUE IS BACK!!!