Could Arsenal And Napoli Break The Rule And Win The League?

Mulan

With around half the season gone in the Premier League and Serie A, we see a new situation that we haven't seen in years. Arsenal and Napoli are top of their respective leagues with a relatively comfortable lead after years of domination by other top teams, but most importantly, top spending teams. Those are teams with players in each position able to break into any squad in the world.

This prompts the question, could Arsenal and Napoli finally break that rule and win the league? The short answer is, yes, it is possible that they might end their season atop their respective leagues. The long answer is where the situation gets trickier as both teams aren't really in the same position.

The Difference

For one, Arsenal is a much stronger club than Napoli, financially of course. In the last 5 years, Napoli's net spending, that's sales minus buys, is 88 million euros. Arsenal, however, have a net spending of exactly 489 million euros. Of course, Arsenal is facing teams that are much more financially able than those in Serie A, and with higher-quality players as well.

So, we can't consider Arsenal winning the league a victory for the poor. 489 million euros isn't an amount a poor team could spend. Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that Arsenal's current squad not reflecting that number. About 75% of Arsenal's starting eleven didn't really cost that much. Nicolas Pépé alone cost 80 million and he's not even in the current squad.

So, the amount of money was mainly spent on bad investments, which matters only in comparison between Arsenal and Napoli because if Napoli had spent almost half a billion, they'd have sold Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Ødegaard, and William Saliba already as they don't have the luxury to make that many bad investments and get away with it. So, Arsenal didn't form the current squad thanks to spending half a billion, changing coaches and technical directors, and many other mistakes, but as a club, Arsenal can afford that while Napoli can't.

Arsenal can't afford to spend as much as Manchester City and Manchester United but have enough to justify its position. Napoli is the real victory for the poor in this scenario. However, it is a victory for the poor against the rich that are less rich than the English Premier League rich teams. Juventus of course spent years making mistakes that the club became the way see it now as a result of poor investments that are too long to explain here.

So, the answer is yes, Arsenal and Napoli can win the league this season, however, they're not going to break the rule.

The Exception That Proves The Rule

If Arsenal and Napoli end up winning the league, no rule would be broken, it's not going to mean that any team could win it next season. In light of the current financial climate, poor teams won't win titles unless the rich and top teams make a lot of mistakes and failed. In the past few years, the rich teams' failure can be summed up in one team the most, Manchester United.

The other side of Manchester, however, had their spending backed by great management, analysts, and even scientists who are the best in their field making the possibility of failure very low. So, by the same metrics, Liverpool winning the league in the 2019-2020 season proves the rule as well and doesn't break it. Even Leicester City falls under the same rule as the points tally shows that they had the lowest point tally a winner had in recent history with the exception of Manchester United 2010-11.

The rule states that any team that needs to win the league would need to equal Manchester City in terms of spending and quality in players, coaches, staff, and any department really. If the team doesn't have all that, then it would require them to overperform while Manchester City underperform, and by a large amount.

The Great Reset

Whether it is Leicester City, Liverpool, or Arsenal if they win the league, once the new season begins, all of these teams weren't and won't be the teams with the most chances to win the Premier League in the following season. The same can be said about Napoli, once the new season begins and AC Milan, Inter Milan, and Juventus start spending and recruiting, we might very well see Napoli back competing with the likes of Lazio, Atalanta, and Roma for the fourth spot in the Serie A.

In Conclusion

That's not just how football operates nowadays, but it has always been this way. Atletico Madrid won the league twice since 2000, and Valencia won it twice as well. But, once the following season started, the league returned to being a two-horse race, even one at times. Atletico Madrid needed both Barcelona and Real Madrid to severely underperform to win their titles, just like Napoli needed Juventus and both Milan sides to underperform, and Arsenal needed Liverpool and Manchester City to underperform.

All of that while Atletico Madrid, Napoli, Valencia, and Arsenal need to extremely over-perform in the process.



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Arsenal winning the league? Nah. They just want to win their next match; at the end of the season, if Arsenal is first, the FA can decide to give them the title

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this is gonna be very interesting finish to both leagues. Would've been great if Maradona was around to witness Napoli

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