EPL's Mega Managers: Numbers Point to Enormous Impact of Conte, Klopp and Co.

The two onslaughts came on back-to-back days, strikingly similar in their style and identical in margin of victory. Chelsea's arrived first, their annihilation of Everton posing questions over how long it had been since the Premier League had seen something quite like it. Liverpool's blitz of Watford a day later then threatened to make them redundant.  

Even for the neutral, it was hard not to get caught up in each. The energy, the incision, the power, the brilliance and the almost barbaric overwhelming of the opponent: It was stand-up-and-applaud stuff, the cleanliness of couches everywhere threatened by excited flinches and tumbling beers. 

Eden Hazard's display at Stamford Bridge left Everton's defence looking like delusional sailors seeing a blur of mermaids in the stands. Diego Costa was menacing, too, torching Phil Jagielka to the extent that the Englishman could have been served the next day with a rich gravy. Pedro even made it look as though Chelsea had signed one of those other fellas from Barcelona. 

Not to be outdone, Jurgen Klopp's flea brigade then dazzled in equal measure. In Watford, the likes of Philippe Coutinho, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino might have found the most accommodating guests around, but they still needed to do the business. Six goals left the accounts looking rather fine. 

That each thrashing came against sides that had recently given them trouble felt significant. Everton had defeated Chelsea in two of their last three meetings, and Watford had disposed of Liverpool 3-0 at Vicarage Road in December. The contrast here, then, pointed to quite serious progression but also fitted into a wider collective theme, set against a backdrop of excellence from others: Manchester City's toppling of Barcelona, Arsenal's surge past Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur's high-octane show against City, just to name a few. 

Almost a week on from the latest additions to such a list, it's interesting to reflect on the level most of these sides were at last season: Does everyone remember the extent of last term's mediocrity outside Leicester City and Spurs? The staleness and the stagnation? The absence of invention and audacity?

Now, though, look at it all: diverse, rich, explosive and brilliant. Did anyone foresee the Premier League's football becoming this good this fast?

The season of the "mega manager" dangled the possibility out there, sure. The arrivals of Antonio Conte and Pep Guardiola, and the return to Jose Mourinho, to join the likes of Klopp, Arsene Wenger and Mauricio Pochettino gave the division perhaps its golden age of thinkers and schemers. The intrigue was never in doubt, but the performance gains we're seeing now were. 

Despite the English top flight spending more than £1 billion in the summer, the bulk of the world's top-end talent remained untouched in Bavaria, Catalonia and Madrid. The headline bosses were in place in England, but they wouldn't be kicking the balls. 

There was the prospect of the sideshow, too. Part of you felt the Premier League's overriding theme could descend into a personality-driven affair, all words and snide remarks, drummed up and packaged for the rest of us to consume like Big Brother or The Hunger Games. Pleasingly, though, the football has taken centre stage, taken to a new level thanks in large part to the mega men. 

The numbers reinforce the visuals. After 11 games, Liverpool and Arsenal are running at their highest figures in points per game in the last five seasons. At 2.36, Klopp's Reds are going at a better clip than the Luis Suarez-led vintage of 2013-14; Wenger's men from north London, at 2.18, are up more than a quarter of a point per game on last season. 

Elsewhere, Chelsea and City are going at their second-best figures in the last five seasons. Chelsea's is essentially on par with that of their title year in 2014-15, while City's is only below that of their title season the year before that. Even Spurs, whose start has been considered only moderate by some, are on track for their highest points tally in the Premier League era. 

	Man City	Chelsea	Arsenal	Liverpool	Tottenham
2012-13	2.05	1.97	1.92	1.61	1.89
2013-14	2.26	2.16	2.08	2.21	1.82
2014-15	2.08	2.29	1.97	1.63	1.68
2015-16	1.74	1.32	1.87	1.58	1.84
2016-17	2.18	2.27	2.18	2.36	1.91

It's the same story for goals. Liverpool's swarming attack (2.73 per game) has the Anfield outfit on track for the highest scoring tally since the Premier League's inception.

Behind them, Chelsea are almost a full goal per game up on last season. Arsenal are up half a goal per game. City's clip is only below that of their last title year, when Yaya Toure's bombs from midfield added to Sergio Aguero's potency up front. Sadly, the only thing that's bombing now for the Ivorian is his career, thanks to his agent.  

	Man City	Chelsea	Arsenal	Liverpool
2012-13	1.74	1.97	1.89	1.87
2013-14	2.68	1.87	1.79	2.66
2014-15	2.18	1.92	1.87	1.37
2015-16	1.87	1.55	1.71	1.66
2016-17	2.27	2.36	2.18	2.73

Looking at these figures, those of the Manchester United persuasion might be shifting uncomfortably in their seats. Of the league's six biggest clubs, Mourinho's lot have been the least impressive, their style and tactical approach striking almost as outdated and tired—a little bit the way Jose himself has looked in the last 12 months when compared with the devilishly handsome, silver-tongued force of management who first turned up on these shores. 

Ahead of the Portuguese, Klopp is leading the way with a pressing template, its capacity for suffocation needing a yellow-and-black safety label. Guardiola's City and Conte's Chelsea are different but look equally sophisticated: Pep's full-backs in midfield have dumbfounded most, and Conte's 3-4-3 has stupefied them all. 

Pochettino's Spurs have similar traits, and it's though the aforementioned four together have dragged some late evolution out of Wenger. The Frenchman's use of Alexis Sanchez as a striker, supported by Alex Iwobi and Theo Walcott, has seen Arsenal take a new stylistic path: sharper, faster and more pressure from the front. 

At such a point, it's natural to ask what the big deal is here. Good managers and good teams should make for good performances like the pairing of a decent director and lead actor. But what makes these gains from the league's heavyweights so significant is that they're coming amid a new landscape that is supposed to chip away at their supremacy. 

When the Premier League signed its historic £5.14 billion TV rights deal last year (which rose to £8 billion after the addition of overseas rights), the whole dynamic of the English game was altered. Everyone was suddenly loaded. No one faced the need to sell. Even the league's chief executive Richard Scudamore told the BBC he was "surprised by the size of it. Burnley are now, economically, bigger than Ajax," he said. 

He was right. The result of this avalanche of cash has been the never-seen-before strengthening of the league's middle and lower classes.

Across the last two summers, Crystal Palace have gone shopping at Paris Saint-Germain; Stoke City have grabbed Xherdan Shaqiri from Inter Milan; West Ham United have taken Dimitri Payet from Marseille; Leicester City have dropped in at Sporting CP and CSKA Moscow; Everton had enough cash to splash £25 million on Yannick Bolasie—more than what Manchester City once paid for David Silva. 

Those are only a tiny selection of examples. Every club outside the big guns has spent in a way it never has previously. Their squads are now deeper than ever. Last summer, 13 Premier League clubs broke their transfer record in a single window. 

It's this that makes the gains of Klopp, Conte, Guardiola, Pochettino and Wenger this season so impressive. In the current climate, those men and their teams should be seeing the gap close between themselves and the rest. Instead, it's expanding: Liverpool, Chelsea, City, Arsenal and Tottenham are all going at some of their fastest clips in years, despite the shifting landscape. 

Three months in, it seems the season of the mega manager wasn't oversold.