Liverpool took out their Manchester United frustrations on Bournemouth, but are these huge wins a sign of greater inequality between clubs?
So Liverpool, it turned out, were angry and had a point to prove. Bournemouth ended up on the receiving end of their ire. Two up in six minutes and five up by half-time, Liverpool might have had 15 on another day. And all of this came without a single goal from Mo Salah, who contrived to miss a handful of decent chances himself.
The following day, it was Celtic’s turn, this time against Dundee United at Tannadice Park. Celtic matched Liverpool’s nine-goal win and did so away from home. Furthermore, Dundee United had already conceded seven without reply to AZ in a Europa Conference League game this season. They’ve let in 23 goals in their last four matches.
It’s not just happening in Britain either. In Germany, any belief that Bayern Munich’s grip on the Bundesliga might weaken following the departure of Robert Lewandowski is already looking optimistic. Their two away wins have been by scores of 6-1 and 7-0.
It’s long felt as though these big victories are becoming something of a trend, but is this confirmation or recency bias, or are these results the inevitable effects of other issues pressing down on the game? And if it’s not just a coincidence that you can never quite rule out something like this happening increasingly regularly, then what does this say about the direction that professional football may be taking?
There have been four 9-0 wins in the 30yyears of the Premier League, but three of those have come in the last three years. The common denominators for these results seem to be one of two things, or a combination: be a big club playing against a considerably smaller club; or be playing against Southampton. Saints were, of course, involved in two of these four matches. Three of those four 9-0 wins came for Manchester United and Liverpool.
How the f*** do you recover from losing 9-0?
The obvious thing to do is to blame the widening gap between rich and poor. While both the sample size for big wins and the number of games played already this season are still a little small to be statistically significant, it remains valid to question whether the growing gulf in resources is having an effect.
One of the big criticisms of the Premier League’s decision to bring in five substitutes from the start of this season was that to do so would likely only open that gulf further. Football, we are…
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