Who needs perfection? Why flawed City, Arsenal and Liverpool cause drama | first division

YoChad Harbach's 2011 novel The art of fielding, shortstop Henry Skrimshander is closing in on the U.S. collegiate record for most consecutive baseball games without an error when a throw inexplicably goes wrong and hits a teammate in the dugout. At that, his confidence evaporates to the point that he can no longer execute the most basic skills; he receives the howls. What remains of the novel, for me, is the overwhelming sense of pressure of having mistakes recorded in this way, even appearing on the scoreboard, as if sport had become less about achieving glory than about avoiding mistakes.

Avoiding mistakes is good. Some people should be judged for avoiding mistakes. Postal workers, bus drivers, indexers, especially surgeons and air traffic controllers should continue without error. But sport? Shouldn't sport be about actively creating something?

Even if we wanted our goalkeepers and defenders to be free of blemishes, it still tends to be the goals that are remembered rather than the blunders, and if mistakes linger in the general consciousness, it is almost invariably because of the goals they scored. . to.

This may be a subjective view (from a nostalgic forty-something anxious about change), but sport has a problem with perfection. Once participants start to improve too much, something is lost.

It's probably no coincidence that the heyday of snooker, for example, came before there was almost a guarantee that players would fall apart once they had a chance with open reds; The best billiards in history, the last frame of the 1985 world championship final, was the unbeatable climax that was precisely due to the fact that Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, with their nerves destroyed, missed one pot after another.

The endless sixes of the modern Indian Premier League, with the balance between bat and ball destroyed, feel as if they have cheapened the spectacle. As technology has improved, the strategic challenge of many of the great golf courses has been destroyed, while Formula One has felt increasingly predictable.

Sports shouldn't be about perfection. The idea that greater technical capacity is necessarily desirable is one of the great myths, not different and not alien to the capitalist demand for constant growth. The priority should be competition, cuts and thrusts, parries and responses, the sense of danger; That's what gives sport its drama and its narrative.

Of course, there are limits: no one is suggesting that television companies should show a close 1-1 tie on a random playing field instead of city ​​of manchester defeating Bournemouth at home (again) or Liverpool beating Sparta Prague. But there is a danger when the concentration of talent becomes too great, when the gulf between the richest and the rest is so great that the games between them are no longer competition. This has been one of the most intriguing Premier League seasons in recent memory, partly because there are three teams good enough to challenge for the title, but also because all three have flaws. The result of many fewer games this season seems inevitable.

Liverpool concede the first goal in games too often, they are starting to look tired and their reshaped forward line remains a work in progress.

Cody Gakpo is yet to settle, while Mohamed Salah has not been anywhere near his best since suffering a hamstring injury at the African Cup of Nations. There is much to admire in the energy of Luis Díaz and Darwin Núñez, but with calmer and more reliable finishers, Liverpool would surely have won at least one of the two league games against Manchester United, or the home games against Manchester City and Arsenalin all of which notable chances were wasted.

In those four games, they missed their most clinical finisher this season, Diogo Jota. He ranks fourth (behind Son Heung-min, Jarrod Bowen and Phil Foden) if players are ranked by non-penalty goals minus xG, a rough measure of attacking efficiency. Díaz and Núñez respectively occupy position 554 and 559 out of 562.

Arsenal's £60m signing of Kai Havertz in the summer is starting to look like a slow-moving success. Apart from a sympathy penalty at Bournemouth, he didn't score until late November against Brentford, and the feeling was that Mikel Arteta was no closer to figuring out how to use his unusual set of attributes than any of his coaches at Chelsea. . But he has five goals in his last seven league games and his ability to operate as a sort of luxury target man/false 9 hybrid has been a key factor in his form this year.

Even if the goals have dried up for Gabriel Martinelli, the fact that Gabriel Jesus is no longer a guaranteed starter and Leandro Trossard has more goals off the bench than any other Premier League player this season suggests they have strength in depth. But a question remains about mentality and the tendency to lose pace in the face of setbacks. as happened against Bayern on Tuesday.

City, meanwhile, has lost its balance. Real Madrid was not the first team to reveal the space behind its defensive line, a problem that is largely due to problems at the top of the field. Erling Haaland may still be the league's top scorer, but he entered the weekend just two places above Núñez in that non-penalty goals minus xG table.

He still scores a lot, but the problem is that when he doesn't score (and his performance has dropped significantly by his standards since late November) he doesn't do much. He is certainly not functioning as an auxiliary midfielder, and the injury that kept John Stones out for months has prevented City from finding that extra man in the back four, while the fact that the Norwegian thrives with direct service has created a tension that sometimes seems as disruptive as it is creative.

None of these are major flaws. They are the type of problems that the vast majority of clubs would love to have. But all three clubs have solved problems this season. None are completely reliable. And that has added to the intrigue.

The feeling of figuring things out, correcting them, refining them and improving them has added to the drama. Perfection Is Boring: This season has benefited from all sides being at least slightly imperfect.