The Title Race

It can be hard keeping up with who is and isn’t in the title race. At the start of the season, the tired line “whoever finishes above [insert either Manchester United or Chelsea] will win the league” was repeated by various pundits. Then suddenly Arsenal were in the picture after a promising start, only for them to be firmly out of the picture after succumbing to a rather unflattering 3-0 defeat to Chelsea. At that stage, many in the media were ready to hand the rather large Premier League trophy over to the Blues, whilst some went just short of petitioning for Chelsea Football Club to be the new leaders of a one world government which stands for truth, peace and justice.

Two months on -- two months which contained something of a blip for Chelsea and resurgence for the Gunners --, some were proclaiming that this was a four, a five, or even a six horse race. The untrained eye could be forgiven for thinking that you could be desperately seeking to avoid relegation while at the same time making a stab for the title.

So where are we know? Well, were back to square two, where apparently we now have a three-horse race on our hands once more. They may be three deficient horses in a comically slow race, but a three-horse race it is nonetheless, so were supposed to get excited about it.

One website is telling us to back Arsenal at 7/2 while we can, seemingly unaware that in roughly 4 weeks Arsenal will most likely be considered “out of the race” for the third time this season. They play the other members of the soon-to-be-dissembled Big 4 three gameweeks in a row, and if previous form is anything to go by then Arsenal will be doing well not to lose all three fixtures.

Therefore the time to back Arsenal will be right after the inevitable collapse, when they will once again begin to eke their way back into the title race due to the ailments of the two horses above them.