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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Sport
Jonathan Wilson

The overstuffed football calendar is reducing quality but increasing drama

Unai Emery, Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland saw dramatic swings of fortune this weekend.
Unai Emery, Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland saw dramatic swings of fortune this weekend. Composite: Guardian design

It was a very good weekend for Liverpool, and a pretty good weekend for the Premier League. It’s one round of games, and blips and quirks do happen. But that three of the top four on Saturday morning could lose felt not only invigorating – maybe this isn’t a league entirely predetermined by how much money you have – but also, perhaps, part of a pattern.

And that pattern is of football that is a bit patchy, a bit scratchy, a bit lacking the sort of fluidity and quality we’ve become used to, which is perhaps not so good. Moisés Caicedo’s equaliser aside, Chelsea’s draw at Manchester United in Sunday’s showpiece was an extremely limited game. The sense this autumn has been of a lot of sides packed with good players not playing particularly well.

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