As far as celebrations to mark 100 not out go, Chelsea’s defeat at home to Crystal Palace went according to plan about as much as organizing a surprise party for a great-grandmother reaching a century, only for her to die of shock upon being greeted with party poppers at the venue.

Given Alan Pardew had overseen nine victories from Palace’s 11 away games prior to their trip across the capital, shock value should have been in short supply for Mourinho’s 100th league game at Stamford Bridge. In the previous 99, he had tasted defeat just once, to Sunderland in April 2014. Throughout a managerial career that has spanned significant stints at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid, he has lost just five of 192 home league matches combined.

Such records give licence to a view that this is merely a temporary blot on the most decorated of landscapes, a sorry footnote that has seen Chelsea make the worst start to a title defence since Blackburn in 1995—Kenny Dalglish’s side went on to finish seventh after picking up three points from their opening four matches—but a footnote nonetheless for a better chapter still to be written.

The immaculate start Manchester City have made has amplified how significantly Chelsea have fallen short, but that Mourinho felt compelled to reassure the watching world that slipping eight points behind the leaders before August is out does not signal the end of a title tilt suggests it has crossed his mind.

“In the Premier League I don’t say game over because last season we had seven points to the second and in one month we lost the seven points. On January 1 we were on the same points as the second,” said Mourinho, relayed by James Benge of the Evening Standard. 

“This is the Premier League and I think it’s getting more difficult than before. The reality is that we had a bad start. Four points in four matches is a very bad start.”

It’s the measure of the man that one worries when he is magnanimous, yet there was something slightly unnerving about the manner in which a second defeat of the season was met with such reasoned good grace. Albeit with the odd caveat in tow.

Let us pause for a moment and consider that this is a grown man who once, according to the Daily Mail (h/t Reuters), hid in a laundry basket so he could escape a UEFA ban and deliver a team talk to his side for a Champions League clash with Bayern Munich. Regardless of whether the story is apocryphal, the point is it’s not hard to image him ordering one of his subordinates to place towels over his head to avoid detection. Just mentally picture the scene. This is how far he’ll go to gain an advantage. 

Part of what makes Mourinho a serial winner is that, like Sir Alex Ferguson, he’s a horrible, embittered loser.

He’d rather blame the doctor (versus Swansea, 2015), floodlights (QPR, 2014), buses (West Ham United, 2014), eggs (in a row with Roman Abramovich about how to make omelettes/transfer policy), fans (after “only 300” Madrid fans made the short trip to Rayo Vallecano), referees (take your pick) and the media (Jamie Carragher and Graeme Souness after the Paris Saint-Germain game last season) than accept the root of his side’s respective problems may lie closer to home.

Stupefaction was replaced with acceptance on Saturday. Other than a half-hearted groan about a penalty that wasn’t awarded for a shirt pull on Kurt Zouma, Mourinho was effusive in his praise of both Pardew and Palace.

“Thoughts? The first thought is for Palace. They come with everything. Team ready, players ready, fans ready, fantastic spirit. I prefer to go in this order because the most important thing [in the result] was Palace,” he said, reported by Simon Rice of the Independent. 

Mourinho is right. First thoughts should belong to Palace. This was not a smash-and-grab job. Palace went toe-to-toe and traded blows to leave the champions bloodied. No balaclavas were required; this was three points earned rather than stolen.

Trademark counter-attacks, long-since intoxicating studies in power and pace, proved enthralling once again. The rangy Wilfried Zaha, Bakary Sako and Yannick Bolasie, who came on as a second-half substitute after returning from compassionate leave, all left their respective marks to give Chelsea’s back four the appearance of sailors on shore leave, replete with the familiar punch drunk look that has characterized their season to date. 

Bolasie’s showboating when Branislav Ivanovic closed him down with all the enthusiasm of a vegan in a butchers will have made Mourinho’s blood boil. 

The additional poise provided by Yohan Cabaye since his club-record move from Paris Saint Germain has oft been commented upon, but the form of Jason Puncheon alongside him in Palace’s midfield has been at least the equal of the Frenchman.

On Saturday, he frequently outshone Cesc Fabregas. Quick of mind as he is of feet, Puncheon’s wit in possession was in marked contrast to the Chelsea man’s more prosaic and pedestrian promptings. Fabregas, whose lack of defensive wherewithal in a holding role appears to be having an adverse effect on an overcompensating Nemanja Matic, who was hauled off after 73 minutes to be replaced by teenager Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

Fabregas was a leading suspect when Mourinho spoke of a frustration at only being able to make three substitutions. The hapless Ivanovic was another. As was the ineffective Eden Hazard. 

When so many top class players are performing so substandardly, the question has to be asked if there are bigger issues afoot? With a back four that has conceded almost half as many home league goals in two matches as they did in the whole of last season at Stamford Bridge (nine), a midfield that lacks both bite and cohesion, wide men that look leggy and a striker that seems to have stolen all of the fight left in his team-mates to become a one-man wrecking ball, eight points currently looks a sizeable gap to make up. 

“Two or three of them, their individual performance were far from good. I blame myself for not changing one of them. I kept him in the game for 90 minutes and when I made the third change I realised I needed a fourth,” lamented Mourinho, per Sam Mokbel of the Mail on Sunday.  

Rare is it that Mourinho chooses to criticize his own players. Again, though, he was willing to break self-imposed protocol as his charges left for home with the proverbial flea in their collective ear.

He added:

If a player is not performing there are two ways to look at it. The first one is I trust so much the player that I will wait for the improvement. You wait, wait and wait and maybe it comes or doesn’t come. Or even while you are trusting the players arrives a moment when you think I have to change. And I can go both ways.

Mourinho’s portent words recall a scene in Seinfeld when Jerry ruminates on the machinations of a parting of ways.

“Breaking up is like knocking over a Coke machine. You can’t do it in one push; you gotta rock it back and forth a few times and then it goes over.”

One suspects several of Chelsea’s players may not enjoy the forthcoming international break as much as they’d have liked. Certainly not until after Tuesday’s transfer deadline has passed.

United Stuck on Repeat

If Mourinho’s entry to the 100 club proved to be a damp squib, perhaps he’ll draw consolation from the fact his old mentor, Louis van Gaal, suffered a similarly miserable fate at the gates of the 50 club a day later. 

There was a lovely symmetry, perhaps not for Louis van Gaal, but certainly for those who enjoy the little coincidences life throws up from time to time, as the Dutchman’s 50th game in charge of Manchester United ended up exactly the same as his first: a 2-1 defeat to Swansea City.

This latest feather in the managerial cap sported by Garry Monk (metaphorically, as opposed to horribly literally in the case of Claudio Ranieri on Saturday) comes courtesy of getting the better of Van Gaal for a third successive time. And this one will be all the sweeter given the game turned on a tactical switch the Swansea boss made in the aftermath of going behind to Juan Mata‘s opener after half-time. 

As per Michael Cox of the Guardian, Van Gaal conceded he was tactically outwitted when Monk changed his formation from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-1-2.

“The opponent changed their shape. At 1-0 they changed their shape and we couldn’t cope with that,” he admitted after watching his side usurped in the table by their increasingly impressive hosts.  

Twice Swansea got in behind Luke Shaw, when he was encouraged to buccaneer forward, because of the fact he no longer had a winger to keep an eye on, as Wayne Routledge had been replaced. Swansea’s first saw the irrepressible Andre Ayew ghost into the box to nod in Gylfi Sigurdsson’s centre from the right before the Ghanaian played a pass with the outside of his foot that was so beautiful it would have been understandable had the ball given itself a standing ovation en route to Bafetimbi Gomis. 

From there, for the fourth successive game, we were treated to the Frenchman’s idiosyncratic, and slightly unnerving, celebration, as he slipped the ball under Sergio Romero. David De Gea could have stopped it with Monk’s cap, let alone his own.

United head into the international break on the back of a performance that seems to have been played on a perpetual loop since the start of the season. A fast incisive start that hints everything has finally clicked into place before the pace slows like a standard 45 rpm record played at 33⅓ rpm.

As Gary Neville said on Super Sunday (h/t Sky Sports), Manchester United should not be seen as title contenders. It’s difficult to argue with that assessment with Van Gaal’s side currently playing with nothing like enough tempo in the final third.

Could Have Been Worse

On a weekend when only Manchester City really enforced their title credentials with anything like conviction, as Raheem Sterling got off the mark for his new club to break Watford’s resolve before Kevin De Bruyne was added at a cost of £55 million, per the Telegraph, Liverpool supporters will justifiably lay claim to being the most miserable of all. Sunderland fans can take a week off after their team’s 2-2 draw at Aston Villa.

West Ham travelled north on the back of home defeats to Leicester City and Bournemouth and in the knowledge the last time they left Anfield with maximum spoils was the year John F Kennedy was shot, 1963. It’s probably a little dramatic to describe the intervening period as 52 years of hurt, but it’s fair to say they were due a win on Merseyside.

A fourth successive clean sheet for Liverpool was off the table within 148 seconds as the highly impressive Manuel Lanzini caught Joe Gomez ball-watching to stab in at the near post. Thereafter, it only got worse for the home side.

Philippe Coutinho’s red card, harsh perhaps but very much of his own design, means he’ll miss Liverpool’s trip to Old Trafford, and on this showing, with both Firmino and Christian Benteke having drawn blanks again, goals could again be in short supply.

The ghosts of last season returned to haunt Dejan Lovren too, with the Croatian’s chaotic display, summed up by a piece of defending for West Ham’s second goal that is only done full justice when accompanied by the Benny Hill theme, meaning further disruption to Liverpool’s defence is inevitable.

For West Ham, even Mark Noble’s dismissal, for a challenge that was barely even a foul, could not spoil an afternoon’s work that Slaven Bilic spoke of with the reverence usually reserved for titles and silverware. Given it’s been 52 years, it’s easy to forgive him a little exuberance over a victory made even more emphatic when Diafra Sakho added insult to injury in the final minute. 

“After 52 years, in this special stadium, and I think we did it in style. We didn’t nick it. It was a great performance. I’m very proud of the players,” said Bilic, relayed by Derick Allsop of the Daily Mirror. 

“It was one of those victories that will be written about in books for years to come.”

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Arsenal are continuing their pursuit of another striker but appear to have missed out on Inter Milan‘s Mauro Icardi.

According to Italian journalist Emanuele Giulianelli, the Gunners pursued the striker but were knocked back by the Serie A outfit:

Arsenal have scored just three goals in their four matches this season, and two have come courtesy of own goals.

Olivier Giroud is the Gunners’ only scorer this year, but as Squawka Football notes, he is otherwise going through a dry spell of his own:

Theo Walcott featured in Giroud‘s centre-forward role Saturday but failed to score against 10-man Newcastle United and was guilty of missing a gilt-edged chance, while Alexis Sanchez’s failure to get off the mark could be a lack of sharpness as a result of his extended summer break following the Copa America.

Icardi would have been a strong step in the right direction for the Gunners. The 22-year-old enjoyed a prolific season last year, notching 27 goals and 9 assists in all competitions and would likely have made an excellent long-term acquisition.

According to Metro‘s George Bellshaw, Gunners boss Arsene Wenger is still hopeful of landing a striker before the end of the transfer window. He said:

We are open and we are in the transfer market. If we find any exceptional player in any sector, we will do it. At the moment, I don’t know if something will happen or not.

We’re working on it; I’m not any more or less optimistic than I was last week. You always want more goalscorers, but it’s unpredictable.

TalkSPORT’s James Dodd has a suggestion for the Gunners with time running out before the window slams shut:

QPR‘s Austin on the move

Per David Wright of the Express, Queens Park Rangers striker Charlie Austin has been linked with a whole host of Premier League clubs in a £15 million move, albeit his report fails to mention the Gunners.

Nevertheless, Giulianelli claims that any such links with Arsenal are not to be believed anyway:

With the likes of Karim Benzema seemingly staying put this summer, Austin could be worth pursuing, however.

The 26-year-old scored 18 goals in the Premier League last season and created seven in a poor team that finished bottom of the table.

In a team as creative as Arsenal, Austin would likely contribute plenty of goals thanks to his incisive play and power in the air.

The Englishman may not be the star Arsenal need to promote a title challenge, but the prolific striker is a natural goalscorer who could certainly be of use in lieu of a bigger name. Ultimately though, a move elsewhere or even staying at QPR seems the most likely outcome.

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Former England international Owen Hargreaves believes Bayer Leverkusen star Hakan Calhanoglu would be a “perfect” signing for Liverpool, expressing his admiration for the Turkish playmaker while appearing on BT Sports (h/t Daily Star‘s Jamie Anderson).

Calhanoglu, who was born and raised in Germany but opted to represent Turkey at the international level, is widely regarded as one of the best young attacking midfielders in the world, and Hargreaves is a big fan, saying:

Calhanoglu is the star he is the feature of this team. If you think about Liverpool or Tottenham he would be perfect in those teams. I love Calhanoglu, I think he’s gonna be a superstar, honestly he’s one of the best strikers of the ball you’ll see.

The 21-year-old emerging star showed exactly what the fuss is all about during Leverkusen’s 3-0 win over Italian side Lazio Roma in the Champions League play-offs, as shared by OptaPaolo:

A free-kick specialist, Calhanoglu is at his best when he gets to play in a central role behind the striker, although he has moved out wide in the past. It’s easy to draw comparisons with Mesut Ozil, although Calhanoglu is very much his own man.

As reported by WhoScored.com, he scored eight goals and provided six assists last season in the Bundesliga, with a number of those assists coming from set pieces. The year before, he managed 11 goals, showing his incredible scoring potential.

Calhanoglu is a phenomenal prospect and a player who is quickly rising in the eyes of scouts and fans alike, but he’s unlikely to be available this late in the transfer window. Judging by the comments he made after it became clear Heung-Min Song could be on his way to Tottenham Hotspur, he seems more than committed to Leverkusen, via Goal’s Liam Twomey:

I think he is badly advised. I have written to him, called him, but he has not answered his phone. I am very sad, the whole team is a bit disappointed.

When you’re 23 years old, of course you have respect for your father. But you have to sometimes make your own decisions. We were there for him always – that’s why we are sad. Everyone has tried to reach him.

He’ll play Champions League football with the Germans in 2015-16, something the Reds can’t offer, and given his importance to the squad, Leverkusen won’t even think of selling unless Calhanoglu openly asks for it.

Liverpool already field one of the world’s top attacking midfielders in Philippe Coutinho, but the Brazilian has plenty of experience playing out wide. There’s every reason to believe the two could coexist and rotate on the pitch, even if it would take some width out of manager Brendan Rodgers’ side.

But summer arrival Roberto Firmino also prefers to play the No. 10 role, and he’s likely to move into the starting XI once he’s fully fit and adapted to the Premier League. Calhanoglu could hypothetically move out wide, but that would take away some of his best qualities, like his ability to play a pass into the box when the Reds are pressing.

It’s difficult to see how Rodgers would fit those pieces together, and while there’s no denying Calhanoglu would improve the squad should he move to Anfield, a transfer looks unlikely at this point.

Spurs Want Fabio Borini?

According to Tuttomercatoweb (h/t Liverpool Echo‘s Kristian Walsh), Tottenham Hotspur are eyeying Fabio Borini as a last-minute option to chase should moves for their other attacking targets fall through.

Walsh provided the latest on the speculation:

In what would surely be the most Spurs transfer ever, the London club have been linked with a move for the out-of-favour striker – in the Italian media, of course – in case their move for West Brom man Saido Berahino falls through.

Website Tuttomercatoweb says the 24-year-old has attracted interest from a host of Serie A clubs, with Fiorentina, Lazio, Inter Milan and Bologna all mentioned.

But Spurs may be about to step in, they say. Fantastico.

The Reds have been trying to offload the out-of-favour Italian throughout the summer, and with less than a week left in the summer transfer window, Borini is still at the club. As explained by Walsh, a host of Italian clubs have been linked with a move, but so far, nothing has materialised.

It’s fair to wonder why. He’s been training separately throughout summer, per the Guardian‘s Andy Hunter, and he’s unlikely to earn even a second of playing time this season in the event that he stays.

If the likes of Bologna and Lazio, who will be without striker Miroslav Klose for the foreseeable future―via AFP for FIFA.com―are all eyeing the forward, how is he still at Anfield? The Reds’ demands can’t be that high―Borini barely played last season and did nothing to warrant a significant investment.

Regardless of what Rodgers was hoping to fetch in return for the Italian, the club’s asking price must have dropped drastically by now. A move to north London seems a little far-fetched, but at this point in time, you have to assume the club would agree to just about any deal.

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In January this year, as English football obsessed over winter moves for the likes of Wilfried Bony and Juan Cuadrado, Raul Albentosa swapped Eibar for Derby County in a move that barely registered on England’s transfer radar.

In Spain, however, the reaction was very different. 

“Albentosa worth his weight…in pounds,” said a startled Marca in the Spanish capital, summing up the feeling of the country’s footballing community. Here was an Eibar first-team regular swapping La Liga for the Championship, England’s second tier financially outmuscling Spain’s first. It wasn’t even the Premier League doing the damage.

Imagine, then, what the Premier League could do to La Liga. Or to the Bundesliga. Or to Serie A or Ligue 1. Or to the Eredivisie, Primeira Liga, the Super Lig or the Russian Premier League. Well, you actually don’t need to imagine it; the reality is already evident.

When the Premier League announced its colossal, £5.136 billion TV rights deal in February, the league’s chief executive, Richard Scudamore, admitted he was “surprised” by the sheer weight of cash coming the Premier League’s way. “Burnley are now, economically, bigger than Ajax,” he said. And he wasn’t wrong: This summer, Burnley, even after relegation, have spent £14.46 million in the transfer market; Ajax have spent £7.91 million, per Transfermarkt.

If you look around, you’ll find the Clarets aren’t the only English outfit overwhelming decorated European clubs. 

This summer, Newcastle United, who fought relegation last season, have taken the 14-goal Georginio Wijnaldum from PSV Eindhoven, as well as Aleksandar Mitrovic and Chancel Mbemba from Anderlecht and Florian Thauvin from Marseille, all three selling clubs title contenders in the Netherlands, Belgium and France respectively. Newcastle’s neighbours, Sunderland, have also gotten in on the act, signing Jeremain Lens from Ukrainian champions Dynamo Kyiv.

Elsewhere, another of last season’s relegation-threatened outfits, Aston Villa, recently outbid Ligue 1 runners-up Lyon for Nice’s Jordan Amavi, the Frenchman joining Idrissa Gueye in Birmingham after the latter’s switch from Lille—the 2010-11 French champions. Fellow Midlands outfit West Bromwich Albion lured Jose Salomon Rondon to the Premier League, the Venezuelan fresh from scoring 13 goals in Zenit Saint Petersburg’s title-winning season in Russia.

Those four clubs aren’t alone, either; nearly every club from the Premier League’s middle and lower classes is doing the same.

Southampton have signed Jordy Clasie from Feyenoord; Swansea City have pinched Andre Ayew from Marseille; Stoke City pulled off a heist by getting Xherdan Shaqiri from Inter Milan; Crystal Palace went shopping at Paris Saint-Germain to get Yohan Cabaye; West Ham United bought Dimitri Payet from Marseille and Angelo Ogbonna from Juventus; Leicester City took Gokhan Inler from Napoli and Christian Fuchs from Schalke; Bournemouth signed Max Gradel from Saint-Etienne; Watford got Jose Manuel Jurado from Spartak Moscow. 

Evidently, the Premier League’s financial might means its clubs are gobbling up most of Europe. 

This is now a world in which, according to Deloitte’s Football Money League, West Ham and Aston Villa have bigger budgets than Italian heavyweights AS Roma and Sunderland’s annual revenue is almost on par with that of 2014 Spanish champions Atletico Madrid. 

And this before the £5.136 billion of TV money even arrives, the new deal coming into effect next season. So if England’s lesser lights are enjoying the feeding frenzy, what does it mean for the country’s elite, the Manchester Uniteds, Manchester Citys, Arsenals, Chelseas and Liverpools of this world?

Ironically, little more than a month after the Premier League announced its landscape-altering deal with Sky and BT Sport, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal were dumped out of the Champions League, the world’s richest competition left without a representative in Europe’s final eight.

At the same time, LFP president Javier Tebas (Spain’s equivalent of Scudamore), like most football administrators around Europe, was frantically looking for an answer for La Liga, for a way his league could compete. Doing so was “urgentisimo,” he told Sid Lowe of ESPN FC. 

Yet despite La Liga’s financial inferiority to the Premier League, Spain’s top division had three representatives in the Champions League’s final eight in Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. Admittedly, the hegemony of Barca and Real contributes significantly to the vast financial inequalities in Spain, but Atletico continue to punch above their weight in Europe, and this season they’ll be joined in the continent’s top tier by Valencia and Sevilla—excellent sides entirely capable of toppling England’s elite.

So the question then becomes: Shouldn’t the Premier League’s cash be addressing this shortcoming? The obvious should be yes, but in reality, it might actually be no. 

The transfer market activity witnessed in England this summer has neatly outlined the problem the Premier League’s elite face. Below them, the division’s bottom 14 clubs are spending like they never have before, shopping in places they’ve only previously dreamed about. Think about it: Relegation-threatened clubs in the Premier League are signing leading players from title contenders in Europe. 

Consequently, the top-to-bottom standard of the league is being driven north, the gulf between the respective ends of the table narrowing. Already this season we’ve seen that Swansea, West Ham and Crystal Palace will be a real handful, that the newly promoted sides won’t at all be pushovers, that the race to be best of the rest will be absolutely ferocious.

After three games, only one team has a perfect record in the Premier League, only five out of 20 have won more than once, and out of 30 completed games, there have only been six home wins. Six.

It’s not unreasonable to suggest, then, that it’s never been harder to win a Premier League game than it is right now. Every outing is a battle, a scrap, time and comfort rarely available to experiment or slip down a gear.

For the league in isolation, it’s magnificent; every game has the potential to be an enthralling contest. But for the league’s elite, it’s hardly beneficial for their aspirations in Europe, the energy and preparation time needed for Champions League ties denied to them by the demands of their own domestic competition.

But the issue could also go beyond the way the division’s “have-nots” are closing in on being “haves”. Indeed, even with the cash influx, the Premier League’s heavyweights are still struggling to close the gap on the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich because they already appear to be shopping in the highest player bracket they can. The league’s financial muscle doesn’t appear to be changing that. 

This summer, Chelsea’s biggest signing to date is Pedro Rodriguez, Arsenal’s is Petr Cech, Manchester United’s is Memphis Depay, Manchester City’s is Raheem Sterling and Liverpool’s is Christian Benteke. Do those men improve their respective squads? In most cases, yes. But are they the difference between the Champions League round of 16 and the competition’s final? Probably not.

Last summer, it was similar. The Premier League’s headline arrivals were Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas, Alexis Sanchez, Angel Di Maria, Ander Herrera and Eliaquim Mangala—players either discarded by Barcelona and Real Madrid or players who wouldn’t get into their first XIs. And despite Arsenal’s ability to fork out £42.5 million on him, Mesut Ozil fell into the same group the summer before, his services not needed at the Bernabeu.

Thus, what we appear to have in the Premier League is a situation in which the division’s elite, despite their wealth, are shopping in group, say, “1b.” But to close the gap on Barca, Real and Bayern, that’s not enough: They need to be shopping in “1a.” But can they?

Late last year, the Guardian, using a panel of 73 experts, provided its ranking of the top 100 players in world football. Of the top 50, only 14 at the time played in the Premier League, and only 12 still do. Among the top 10, just one does.

Even with its extraordinarily deep pockets, England can’t keep or sign the creme de la creme: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Suarez, Neymar, James Rodriguez, Gareth Bale, Thomas Muller, Arjen Robben, Toni Kroos, Philipp Lahm or Manuel Neuer. Those 11 men were in the Guardian‘s top 15 but none of them play in the Premier League. And not far behind them in the rankings were Andres Iniesta, Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, Karim Benzema, Robert Lewandowski, Mario Gotze, Xabi Alonso, Arturo Vidal and Javier Mascherano, among others.

Not surprisingly, it’s Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich who are the last three European champions, the Premier League’s elite watching their domestic competitors below them get stronger and stronger, concurrently finding themselves unable to take the next step to catch the world’s leading trio.

To make the jump from very good to great, England’s top clubs need the sort of players who simply aren’t available to them at present.

But could all of this be cyclical? After all, as recently as 2008, the Premier League had three of the four Champions League semi-finalists. Could it swing back that way again?

It’s certainly possible, but there are trends that suggest the current dominance of Barca, Real and Bayern on the European stage may be here to stay for the short term at least. Potentially longer. 

One of the major issues seemingly facing the Premier League is that it can’t match the allure of the aforementioned triumvirate for the world’s hottest talent beds.

The last two World Cup winners are Spain and Germany, demonstrating the countries’ current superiority in developing the finest the continent has to offer. Additionally, Spain and Germany have also dominated European football at youth level in recent years, sharing three of the last four under-21 titles, four of the last five under-19 crowns and having appearing in four of the last six European finals at under-17 level—they split the three titles before that too.

For reference, when English clubs last stood at the forefront of the European game, the talent pools were more diverse, as the history of the European Under-21 Championship illustrates. Finalists in the tournament between 2000 and 2007 included the Netherlands, Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, France and Italy, an almost decade-long wave of talent coming through Europe with little sense of attachment to La Liga’s giants or Bayern. 

But it’s now very different. Not only do Barcelona and Real Madrid represent the undisputed pinnacle in the minds of most, but they also hold a social significance and identity that resonates with the players populating one of the continent’s two hottest talent beds. For the other, Bayern Munich is exactly the same. Players from those nations will rarely, if ever, turn down those clubs, their pulling power unmatched for where the largest crops of stars are emerging from.

The fact Bastian Schweinsteiger is the first German to ever play for the Manchester United first team demonstrates the effect of that allure, a nation that is a footballing powerhouse having remained essentially untouched by the Premier League’s biggest of all.

What’s more, in the case of Real Madrid and Barcelona, the talent hotbeds in South America and elsewhere on the Iberian Peninsula are further resources that are easily tapped into. With the similarities in culture, language and climate, moving to one of La Liga’s big two is both attractive and natural for the finest players hailing from Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Portugal—five countries that currently reside high up FIFA’s world rankings along with Spain and Germany.

As such, this is the problem for the Premier League’s elite. Around them, their own league is growing stronger, the depth increasing, the collective spectacle from top to bottom becoming greater. The division’s middle and lower classes are benefiting immensely from the cash influx, possibly closing the gap in front of them. But the heavy hitters themselves can’t seem to take steps of a similar extent, unable to close the gap they want to close—the one to Barca, Real and Bayern.

Right now, the very finest, group “1a,” the creme de la creme, continue to elude them. And while the talent hotbeds, the next generation of stars, continue to have a nationalistic connection and association in identity to places such as the Spanish capital, Catalonia and Bavaria, it’s possible that even the immense cash influx coming to the Premier League in the very near future won’t immediately change that.

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Mario Balotelli has left Liverpool to join AC Milan, with the Italy international agreeing to a season-long loan at the Serie A club.

Milan confirmed the deal on Tuesday, posting a stirring speech from the player, via La Gazzetta dello Sport:

I feel like someone who has just put the first part of his career to one side. Played and lived like a boy. But the ‘match’ is not over… Now I will have my say and live like a man. I know that many people don’t believe in my comeback. But I have to try. And have the belief that I can do it.

I have a promise to keep to myself, my family, Milan, [coach Sinisa] Mihajlovic, [agent Mino] Raiola and all those that want the best for me… I know that I cannot make any more mistakes.

Balotelli infamously only found the net on one occasion in the Premier League for Liverpool following a £16 million move from the Rossoneri in the summer of 2014.

Leaving the Reds represents a major blow for Balotelli, who has now failed to make the grade at four illustrious European outfits. The former Inter Milan prodigy now faces an almighty challenge if he is to rediscover the spark that once saw him rated as one of European football’s brightest prospects.

As noted by OptaPaolo, playing in England has been a major struggle for Balotelli:

Another spell with Milan for the Italian is intriguing. After managers such as Roberto Mancini, Brendan Rodgers and Jose Mourinho struggled to get the best out of the frustrating forward, Sinisa Mihajlovic faces a major task if he’s to get a tune from a complex character but an undeniably talented player.

Here’s a reminder of what he is capable of at his best and why teams continue to take chances on the controversial striker:

Milan know what Balotelli is capable of—the striker scored 26 Serie A goals in a season-and-a-half with the club in his previous spell, per WhoScored.com. But with the likes of Luiz Adriano and Carlos Bacca in the Rossoneri squad, the Italian faces an almighty fight getting into the starting XI.

But a step back might be exactly what this bespoke player needs if he is to eventually make his way to the top. Balotelli is box office as it is, but playing for sides like City, Liverpool or either of the Milan giants, the minutiae of every move made both on and off the pitch is examined in forensic detail.

Balotelli now needs to focus on his football, get regular game time and, as tough as it may be, avoid the media attention that is constantly trained upon him. But even at this relatively early stage in his career, it’s tough to see all those factors aligning for the forward.

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Real Madrid midfielder Asier Illarramendi completed a move back to his boyhood club Real Sociedad on Wednesday, bringing an end to his two-year stay in the Spanish capital.

Sociedad confirmed the news on Twitter, which was translated by AS English:

Real Madrid also noted the player’s exit.

Illarramendi spoke of his joy of returning home to La Real, as reported by AS (translated via ESPN FC).

“Very happy. Of course, I wanted to return, I haven’t yet spoken to my teammates, later I will speak with them,” he said. “Real [Sociedad] has always been my first option and I was really wanting to return home, of course.”

The Spaniard struggled to make an impact at the Bernabeu as a result of Los Blancos’ embarrassment of riches in midfield.

According to Transfermarkt, the midfielder made 30 appearances in La Liga last season but made just 10 starts and played only 1,234 minutes—an average of only 41 minutes per appearance.

Illarramendi’s chances of racking up a significant amount of minutes this season were even lower, with Real bringing back Casemiro in the summer and signing Mateo Kovacic from Inter Milan.

However, the move represents a fresh start for the 25-year-old, whose impressive distribution will help Real Sociedad in possession while his ball-winning skills will provide protection for the back four.

The Basques have lost a number of key players in the past couple of seasons, tumbling down the La Liga pecking order as a result. The last time Illarramendi wore the colours of Real Sociedad, the club was playing UEFA Champions League football. Two years later, they couldn’t even finish the season in the top 10.

Former Manchester United manager David Moyes was hired to change the team’s fortunes, and it will be interesting to see if he has made any improvements in his attempts to pronounce the 25-year-old’s name, via BetVictor:

The Spaniard had also been linked with Liverpool, Arsenal, Juventus and Tottenham Hotspur over the summer, so his acquisition can be seen as something of a coup for La Real.

After a difficult spell in the Spanish capital, Illarramendi will need to take the opportunity to jump-start his career. If he can do so, Real Sociedad will have reacquired an excellent player in their bid to challenge for a Champions League place.

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Florentino Perez will be jumpy, agitated, a goalless draw with Sporting Gijon sending his cortisol levels soaring. All summer he’s sat subdued, by his standards, biding his time, spending his energy attempting to put out existing fires at the Bernabeu, unable to indulge himself in his favourite pastime. 

Bringing Mateo Kovacic to Real Madrid might have temporarily satisfied the cravings, but possibly not to the extent he would have liked. Perez will likely want more, names he can put up in spotlights, the sort he could beam into Madrid’s night sky like Gotham summoning Batman. The calls will go out. 

By the end of the week, the numbers on his desk phone will be barely visible, worn away by anxiously sweaty fingers and thousands of button strikes. The screen on his Samsung Galaxy S6 (he wouldn’t use an iPhone, Apple doesn’t sponsor his club; Samsung do) will be equally battered.

He’ll have had Jorge Mendes on speed-dial all week. Rival presidents will get to the end of it either sick of his voice or knowing his personal number by heart, and probably both. The “comparable players” section on Transfermarkt‘s pages for Gareth Bale, James Rodriguez and Isco will have permanently remained on his home screen. 

For most, this week is known as the final week of the transfer window. For Perez, it might simply known as the week. His time. 

Sometimes when I picture the Real Madrid president, it’s not of him sitting at the Bernabeu or Valdebebas, but inside the top floor of a 500-story cartoon tower dominating the skyline of the Spanish capital, a caricature of him frantically scouring the lists of Europe’s top scorers, playmakers and most marketable talents, screaming at his secretary like Ari Gold in Entourage for not being able to locate Mendes. 

Admittedly, such an image isn’t entirely fair to Perez. The Real Madrid president hasn’t gotten to where he is by lacking intelligence or business nous—you don’t rise to be the Chairman and CEO of Grupo ACS, as well as the No. 1 man of the world’s biggest football club, without a good dash of both.

But when confronted with the transfer market and buying players, Perez’s attitude to patience has been similar to that of Apple’s to battery life. Never content with what he already has, he’ll want to add names like Aguero, Pogba or De Gea, and if not them, he’ll want others anyway, the window’s final week heightening his thirst. 

Wants and needs and two very separate things, though. 

Interestingly, last week it was Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger who, while describing his own situation, basically outlined the sort of principle Perez should look to adopt this week. “The funds are there, people know that you have the resources,” Wenger said when quizzed on his efforts to sign new stars, “but the [appropriate] players are not available.”

Essentially, the Frenchman’s message has always been that buying for the sake of buying isn’t the answer—that if you can’t get exactly the man you want, then buying an alternative who isn’t certain to be better than what you already have isn’t how you do it. 

In Wenger‘s case, that belief has always felt tinged with stubbornness—there are plenty of players who are better than those Arsenal already have, many of whom have switched clubs this summer, such Arturo Vidal, Nicolas Otamendi, Jackson Martinez and Morgan Schneiderlin—but at Real Madrid, the principle very much applies. 

Unless Perez can prise away attacking stars from Barcelona or Bayern Munich (ludicrously fanciful in the case of the former; unthinkable at this stage in the window from the latter), or lure Sergio Aguero from Manchester City (just as unlikely), it’s almost impossible to improve upon what he already has up front: Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Bale, Rodriguez and Jese.

In midfield, it’s a similar story. Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Isco, Kovacic and Casemiro currently headline Real’s central options, rendering the list of available upgrades extremely short. Unless it’s the powerful and multi-skilled Pogba whom Real and Perez can get—and given the scathing assessment of Madrid expressed by the Frenchman’s agent, Mino Raiola, that also seems fanciful—then Los Blancos are already at a point at which they’re close to maxed-out for talent. 

As for the defence and David De Gea, while the Spaniard would be a magnificent addition, why not just wait and sign him for free in 2016?

Additionally, Perez, if he hasn’t already, would be well served reflecting on the sort of clubs at which he’s recently done his expensive shopping. Bale and Modric arrived from Tottenham, Isco came from Malaga, Rodriguez was bought from Monaco, Kovacic came from Inter Milan, Asier Illarramendi was prised from Real Sociedad and Keylor Navas was snatched from Levante.

In essence, all of those clubs are selling clubs at this point in time, unable to resist the advances of the white monster that is Real Madrid. But with Real Madrid’s squad now so star-studded, such outfits currently don’t have what Real need in order to improve; for Real Madrid’s squad to get significantly better in the final week of the transfer window, Perez would need to be plucking names from Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain or Juventus—clubs that can fend away Madrid if they choose to at this late stage. 

Perez, therefore, should resist all his natural urges, his impulses, and sit tight. His squad is already stacked, and manager Rafa Benitez is already faced with tough decisions on whom to include and whom to leave out.

What’s more, too often Perez has sought external solutions to internally created problems, continually disrupting continuity and stability within the squad. Another venture into the transfer market would only be repeating previous mistakes. 

Real Madrid already have the pieces they need; their improvement must come from within. Perez can settle those cortisol levels by not picking up the phone.

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Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher took a final parting shot at Reds flop Mario Balotelli ahead of the Italian’s loan move back to AC Milan, calling his signing a “major mistake” and wondering why the Rossoneri are willing to give the forward another chance.

As reported by the Daily Star‘s Marc Williams, Carragher didn’t pull any punches on Sky Sports, saying:

The Balotelli signing was a major mistake from the whole club.

He (Rodgers) has got Benteke and Sturridge to come back. I still can’t believe he signed him, but it hasn’t worked out and he’s going to move.

He’s kidded some coaches if he’s got another move this time to AC Milan. Where’s the evidence of his quality?!

Here’s the video of the full segment:

According to Sky Sports, the Italy international traveled to Milan to undergo a medical on Monday, with the official announcement of his loan move expected imminently.

The 25-year-old moved from Milan to Liverpool in the summer of 2014 amid much fanfare but failed spectacularly at Anfield, scoring just one Premier League goal all season, per WhoScored.com.

He never seemed likely to play a big role in the 2015-16 campaign and will now return to the San Siro, where he enjoyed some of the biggest successes of his club career. Milan started the season with a 2-0 loss against Fiorentina, and the Rossoneri are still in need of an established back-up striker behind summer arrival Carlos Bacca.

Balotelli’s struggles with Liverpool were a source of mockery all of last year, and when Reds manager Brendan Rodgers gave an evasive answer upon being asked about his future on Monday, ESPN FC’s Michael Cox took the opportunity to take a shot of his own:

The Daily Telegraph‘s Mark Ogden isn’t exactly sad to see him go:

Super Mario’s career has been a roller-coaster ride, filled with ups and downs at every stop he has made. He looked an incredible talent during his days with Inter Milan, ruined his chances of success with Manchester City with a series of controversial incidents and finally seemed to blossom into a world-class striker when he first moved to the Rossoneri.

After scoring 12 goals in 12 matches to start his Milan career, via WhoScored, his form once again slumped. As Balotelli started playing worse and worse, so did Milan. By the summer of 2014, the club was determined to ship him out, and Liverpool took the bait.

BBC Sport’s Phil McNulty is more than puzzled by Milan’s decision to bring him back:

The Italian has the uncanny ability to attract controversy wherever he goes, but usually, he finds ways to be productive early before wearing out his welcome. At Anfield, he couldn’t even do that, and at the age of 25, his career already looks to be in a downward spiral.

According to Sky Sports’ Fabrizio Romano, Milan will not have the option to make Balotelli’s move permanent, and even if he performs well at the San Siro, you have to wonder whether any club will be willing to make a significant investment for his services next year, when he looks all but certain to leave Liverpool for good.

There’s no way around it―the Balotelli transfer was a huge flop for Liverpool, and in all likelihood, the Reds will only be able to recover a fraction of the fee it took to bring the Italian to Anfield in the first place.

Follow @ReverschPass

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