2021 has started and for foreigners the holidays really seem over. In the four corners of the Old Continent, several clubs that few expected at the top of the main national championships had taken advantage of a particular first part of the season to come to the top of the standings. But in recent weeks, the trend has likely reversed and brought some order to the Big Five pecking order. Even if the best are still not where they “should” be.
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There were Everton, Aston Villa and also Southampton in the Premier League, Real Sociedad and Villarreal in Spain and Sassuolo in Italy. If they are still placed, these teams have gradually given way to the regulars of the leading groups. Only 60% of clubs that finished the previous season in the Top 5 of their respective leagues were included even before the start of last December. Before this second weekend in January, that number had risen to 76%.
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This is explained, in large part, by the delay in the commissioning of the majority of the biggest European clubs. Juventus, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Manchester City, for example, have had a difficult start to the season. The health crisis is the main cause: for these clubs involved in all competitions and whose numbers are armored with international players, the sequence of matches has become indigestible. Especially after a respite and summer preparation reduced to pain. Some of them, like Paris Saint-Germain or Liverpool, have even been deprived of several main elements at the same time because of Covid-19.
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Perhaps this is why the leaders of the major leagues are not (yet?) Those expected before the start of the season. Some particularly well-armed outsiders took advantage of the exceptional context:
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Pochettino: “Messi? All the best players in the world are welcome in Paris ”
Finally, the only exception is the German championship, the first to resume after the first childbirth. Bayern Munich, European champion and RB Leipzig, semi-finalist of the last C1, have already settled in the first two places in the Bundesliga standings.
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And now, should we already imagine that all the favorites will gradually gain the upper hand over their rivals? Not so fast. There are several unknowns, both on the impact of a new epidemic wave, as on the freshness of the workforce for the next sprint which will begin in mid-February, with the start of the knockout stages of the Champions League. Leaders are still a tightrope. Jürgen Klopp and the Reds, who have collected just two points in their last three games when they seemed to be back on track, certainly won’t say the opposite.
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