One game can be ignored by City and Chelsea, but not the other big clubs

After last night’s game, there’s only one team in last year’s top four who will be truly happy with their performances. Manchester City swatted aside West Brom in the way they used to when they were a happily functioning side, and they put in a performance that one would expect would be rewarded with a 3-0 victory. This was not playing badly but winning anyway, this was simply being a very effective football team. Obviously, as Tony Pulis made clear after the match, his tactics had given David Silva the room to operate at the height of his powers, but that was true on several occasions last year, and still City struggled.

The reaction has been, from some, a consideration as to why City often featured so low in the season’s predictions. It’s simple, really, and the guess of third or fourth place is perfectly justifiable. City’s players didn’t seem especially enthused with Manuel Pellegrini, nor did the fans, and the constant rumours about Pep Guardiola made it plain that the owners weren’t that keen either. The arrival of Raheem Sterling was an excellent buy, but after a quieter season than his breakthrough year at Liverpool, it was expected he may take some time to adjust. Fabian Delph is a handy Premier League player, but realistically City need more than that to improve their midfield. With the exits of Stevan Jovetic and Edin Dzeko to Italy, and James Milner to Liverpool, there is obviously further work to be done.

Despite Pellegrini signing a new contract, it is a reasonable assumption that City will not now hurl cash in the last weeks of the transfer window to land a superstar. Kevin de Bruyne will likely join, but the major transfers could well be on hold until Guardiola arrives and convinces the very best players to ignore Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and join what people would doubtless call his ‘project’. Anyway, City won and they looked happy doing it, and with a season of possibilities ahead of them, people have naturally lurched to optimism for their season, even if there is the caveat that it is too early to make firm guesses.

And that’s true. One game is not sufficient for observers to seriously alter their perceptions. It will take plenty more City games, regardless of transfers to demonstrate that past performance is not the best guide to their future chances in 2015/16. So when Chelsea fall apart against Swansea City with hints of infighting, you can ignore it all and remember the following factors: Jose Mourinho, last year’s Chelsea team, their back-up ‘keeper is no clown, and none of the others have improved that much. One 2-2 draw does not stop Chelsea being favourites.

But the thing is, it’s far more sensible to dismiss surprises as indicators of the future than it is to dismiss repetitions of failures. They are harder to ignore and, logically, so they should be. A surprise is just that because it comes against a backdrop of evidence that hints otherwise, and there are 37 more games where the surprise will have to be repeated. For City, we can still see there are a number of reasons to hold back on thinking City are suddenly rejuvenated, and for Chelsea, who are about to strengthen with Baba Rahman joining from Augsburg, there’s still a conviction they remain the best club in the country.

The repetitions of failures though, for Manchester United, Arsenal, and to a degree, Liverpool, cannot be so simply cast aside as it, ‘just being one game.’ It’s one game that continues a streak of the previous year for United under Louis van Gaal, a whole decade for Arsenal, and two decades for Liverpool. This might just be what these teams are for the foreseeable future.

Last season, Manchester United were dull. At least under David Moyes there was the muscle memory of occasionally effective panic to lay siege to a side when necessary, but with Van Gaal it was all about the ‘process’ and ‘philosophy’ of all the p’s: patience, passing and possession. More often than not it worked: United finished fourth, they often eventually found their way through, and they still had one of the better squads in the league, for all the imbalance and poor form of superstars. But still they were dull last season, rigid and predictable, just as had been warned about from his time at Bayern Munich. They are still dull this season.

The signings of Sergio Romero, Matteo Darmian, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin hint at no great change in approach, and as impressive as Memphis seems, he is just one player in a currently ponderous attack. Pedro may join, but he is direct and pacey, not a magician. United are now a boring side, and it is not possible, on past evidence and current activity, to dismiss this as just one game. They might become a more effective boring side, but they are almost certainly now operating an absence of fun by design.

Similarly, Arsenal were put forward as title candidates because they finished third and improved their ‘keeper position, but failed - so far - to do the equally essential job of buying a central defender, a full back, a defensive midfielder and a striker. Without that, they remained worse than City. And without a change in manager, the continuous mental weakness of ‘nerves’ as Wenger described it, was still there. Like United’s previous season of dullness, Arsenal have a decade of specialising in failure. This isn’t one game, this is more compelling evidence.

And Liverpool are trying the same as last year, merely hoping for different results. Another swath of new signings to be assimilated, by a manager prone to over-thinking. It might work, just as it might at Arsenal, United and City, but one game should not change anyone’s mind in either direction at the top of the table.