The 2022/23 Premier League season has been full of spectacles and high levels of football entertainment, from big money signings making headlines for the right and wrong reasons to shock results and already seen 2 managers lose their jobs. There’s also been some very controversial decisions made by VAR. It sure is promising to be a very interesting season up ahead and here are our top feature stories of the 2022/23 edition so far:
Arsenal topping the Premier League table was sure not on the cards of many fans, and they have even mocked the Gunners’ summit placement at times. Arsenal have managed to rack up 6 win and only 1 loss in their 7 games so far, scoring a total of 17 goals. Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur closely follow in 2nd and 3rd respectively, having 18 points each. The Gunners have certainly been the surprise story of the season so far with their very strong start. With Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko as new additions it is surely going to benefit Arsenal as they are previous champions with Man City.
Leicester City on the other hand have their start to the season in turmoil, losing all but one of their 7 games so far this season, and have conceded 22 goals in total. Leicester finished in the top half (8th), a position that they are expected to finish in, This season after 7 games they currently sit at the bottom of the league and as the time passes game by game it is not looking any better for the team and some of their fans are starting to sound their lack of confidence in manager Brendan Rodgers. Leicester have just come out of a 6-2 drubbing at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur on the weekend, and face 19th place, newly promoted Nottingham Forrest in their first game back from the international break. A game that Rodgers may or may not be taking charge of.
Erling Haaland was placed under a lot of expectations since he joined English champions Manchester City, and the standard was set very for him by pundits, football experts and football fans alike. These standards were relative to the form he picked up at Borussia Dortmund and everybody was eager to see how he would fair in a new team and a different league, whether or not he would be able to replicate his goal scoring form at City. The young Norwegian has been able to do exactly that and live up to the expectations by scoring a whopping 11 goals in 7 Premier League games (current topscorer), getting into the record books in the process with the most goals after 5 games, with 9 goals. Breaking City legend Sergio Aguero’s record of 8 goals in 5 games. The 22-year old has been exactly what he was expected to be in his new team with his non-stop goal scoring and he is sure to continue tearing up the league (including back-to-back hattricks in the Premier League). He has already picked the Premier League Player of the Month award for the month of August. A lot of people are touting him as a comfortable favourite for the golden boot this season.
On contrary Liverpool’s big-money signing, Darwin Nunes has been underfiring massively since he’s joined the Reds. Due to his massive price tag, the Uruguayan has also had some huge expectations placed on his shoulders, and when he first joined Liverpool he was immediately compared with Erling Haaland, fans eager to see who would be the one to fire up the league immediately. Nunes started the season with his first appearance being against Manchester City, in which he scored a 94th minute goal to give Liverpool a 3-1 win and lift the Community Shield. Since then he has appeared in 6 Liverpool games in all competitions and has only scored 2 goals and assisting one, one goal and one assist in the opening game of the season against Fulham. He has however only played in 3 games in the Premier League for Liverpool, and one of the main reasons for that is the red card he received for a headbutt on Crystal Palace defender Joachim Andersen. This led to him being suspended for 3 games, also missing Liverpool’s emphatic 9-0 win against Bournemouth. Liverpool has also been underperforming this season by their own standards and are currently 7th with 2 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss. Some football experts and former Liverpool players have said that they don’t expect the Uruguayan for long and then when he does find his feet, he will be as explosive as he was in Benfica.
Two Premier League clubs have already let go of their managers so far, Bournemouth ended their relationship with Scott Parker following Bournemouth’s embarrassing 9-0 defeat at the hands of Liverpool. Gary O’Neil has since taken over as caretaker manager for Bournemouth and there are strong news surfacing that Bournemouth support the idea of making him their next permanent manager. The other club being Chelsea parting ways with Thomas Tuchel for reasons that have since been communicated by new Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly, saying “Tuchel is extremely talented and had great success, our vision for the club was finding a manager that wanted to collaborate with us. But we weren’t sure Thomas saw our vision the same way we saw it, we didn’t have a shared vision”. This all came after Chelsea’s 1-0 defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League. Chelsea appointed now former Brighton manager Graham Potter to become the club’s next head coach, Boehly convinced that Potter is the right man to build the club’s vision and reach their goals. The new Chelsea man signed on a five-year contract, Todd Boehly backing him to achieve great things with the club.
There has also been a persisting inconsistency with the VAR in the Premier League that fans have been left frustrated at, often calling for the referees to be relooked at. From the big teams benefitting off of VAR calls, to sometimes finding themselves at the wrong end of refereeing decisions. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding VAR decisions and drama surrounding the decisions that have been sometimes deemed ‘dubious’ by the fans. This surely promises to be an exciting and highly entertaining Premier League campaign this year and we, as Marshalls World of Sport, will be with you with every single game, all 38 matchdays.
