I live in America, at the end of the day, whatever happens in the English Premier League has no bearing in my life at all.
But man, all of a sudden I am rooting hard against Arsenal.....
In the summer of 2007, spoiled rich kid Randy Lerner tired of the sports team he inherited from his Dad, the Cleveland Browns, and decided to cultivate his passion in England with the Aston Villa Football Club.
Aston Villa briefly reversed their Premier League fortunes and began to gravitate toward the top of the table. Having tired of his toy, the Cleveland Browns, he sold them in 2012 for over a billion dollars, handing the Lerner family a nice, tidy American Football profit. To this day, it still irks me that Lerner made a shit ton of money in Cleveland by running the team like crap.
Oh, but Karma caught Randy Lerner. After a few early years of success, the Lerner Brand soured at Aston Villa. Lerner began to throw good money after bad and his detached management style brought on the wrath of the fans. Lerner sold Aston Villa after his team was relegated in 2016 to the Championship....for $90 million. Lerner had lost nearly half a billion dollars in the Premier League in under a decade.
Now that Lerner has been removed from Villa, there are no Premier League teams that I hate, which brings us to today. Back, just a few months ago, Arsenal and 5 other teams from England tried to bolt from the Premier League to form their own European Soccer Super League. They failed spectacularly. World class A-Hole Stan Kroenke and his co-conspirators tried to Americanize soccer in Europe by creating a league where owners get rich and there's no relegation system. The new league would have crippled traditional leagues in Spain, England, and Germany. It also would have guaranteed revenue streams for teams, like Arsenal, that already have revenue streams heavily tilted in their favor.
Lo and behold, after only 3 games in the new EPL season, look at this:
Is that Kroenke's Arsenal team sitting in the relegation zone? Now there is only a .1% chance of Arsenal actually getting sent down, the 2021-2022 season doesn't end until next May, but what if Arsenal is beset by injuries and morale problems and they plummet like a bad stock?
Arsenal being relegated would be like me reaching into Kroenke's pockets and pulling out $100,000,000. Even a billionaire is going to feel that.
Again, nothing personal, any of the Big 6 getting sent down would be ironic, but I didn't expect any of the Big 6 to actually be in the relegation zone after 3 games. Arsenal is even behind minnows like Norwich City that just got promoted and have a five-fold salary disadvantage against Arsenal.
There is no way Kroenke is going to get Lerner-ed out of the Premier League.
But a fan can dream, can't he?