There Are No Good Teams In The Premier League

How many Premier League teams would you say are super happy with their season so far? I'd put the number at three. First there's Arsenal, which, aesthetic qualms aside, has to be giddy about its prospects of breaking the duck and winning the title. Then there's Aston Villa, already well positioned to nab a Champions League spot for the second time in three years, a remarkable feat for any club outside England's six or seven traditional and/or financial juggernauts. A little further down the table, you have Brentford, the league's one true little engine that could, the lowest-spending team in the competition which in the offseason lost its two best players and also its revered manager and is nevertheless on track for its best-ever EPL finish.

Besides those three, though, I don't think any other team's fans would say they have been totally thrilled by their guys' performances up to this point. This strikes me as a little odd! Success in the Premier League is, after all, wholly contextual. Two-thirds of the way through the campaign, I would've thought that more than just three teams could claim to be headed toward what counts for them as fully satisfying success. Sure, there hasn't been any real title race to speak of, and there likely won't be unless Arsenal starts choking at levels that would seem unlikely even for them. (Though, let's be honest, you can never say never with that lot.) But on the other hand, only two teams (the practically already relegated pair of Wolves and Burnley) are entirely devoid of hope, and with only two of the likely five Champions League places more or less locked up already, there are at least seven teams that can credibly claim to be contenders in what is sure to be another dogged fight for the coveted Arsène Wenger Trophy. So why, then, does this season feel vaguely unsatisfying for all but a couple teams? I'd argue this is because no one in the league is simply good.

Arsenal is, for certain, a great team, probably the best in all of Europe. Manchester City is very good, with a ceiling that could in theory reach greatness but also a low floor that the team has already collapsed onto multiple times this year. But other than those two, nobody else has been consistently good in absolute terms.