As the 2018-19 Premier League season enters week 17, it is fair to say that it has been an intense season thus far due to the competitive nature of the league.

Throughout the first weeks, all eyes were on Manchester City, who won the league by a whopping 19 points last year.  They came in as a massive front runner, and have enough fans to make them one of the most supported teams of all time.  

Fans enjoy rooting for and watching Manchester City because of the way that they dominate and seem to manipulate any game on the pitch.

Head coach Pep Guardiola is considered to be one of the best in the world, and his team is too.  Coming into the season, many experts expected that Manchester City would truly control the league.

Although they have managed to be successful, it was not exactly in the fashion people expected.  Their performance so far this season has led them to be ranked number two on the latest NBC power rankings. 

At the end of the seventeenth week, Manchester City sits at an impressive 16-2-3.  The team took take a huge loss to Chelsea 2-0 earlier in the year, and recently took a draw against Liverpool.

However, the worst game for Manchester City was one of the biggest losses they’ve taken in years.  On the Christmas Day special, they played the team Crystal Palace, who is normally looked at as being an easy team to beat in the Premier League.  While Manchester City did have two goals from Kevin de Bruyne Ilkay Gündogan, they were no match for Palace and ended up losing the match 2-3. 

This loss was massive to the league standings, and it put Manchester City a total of four points behind Liverpool.  While Liverpool is always a top club, they got a massive Christmas present when their talented rival took this detrimental loss to Palace.

Most recently, Manchester City was able to pull off a massive win against Liverpool with a score of 2-1.  However, it will likely not prove to be enough to capture a title.  For a team that predicted to dominate the league, Manchester City has been slightly disappointing during this 2018-19 season. 

“It is obviously surprising to see such a talented team not be in first right now, but the Premier League will never be predictable.  It is time to start realizing that,” said junior Justin Tawil.  

In the past, there have been many league champions that nobody predicted to advance that far, including the 2016 Leicester City team.  However, this year, that is not the case. 

Finally, the solidly favorited Liverpool club looks as though they are in their best position in years to become the Premier League Champions.

After being in competition for the top spot, Manchester City was the chosen champion for many football experts.  However, Liverpool has been on a redemption run this year, and sits at an incredible 17-3-1.  

As of now, they are ranked first in the league and are in a prime position to capture the cup.  Nonetheless, Manchester City is great competition and will be a tough team to officially eliminate for the rest of the season.  Either way, it will be an incredible sprint to the finish, and many are excited to see who will clinch the Championship title in the remaining 17 weeks. 

While Premier League Football is normally not the number one attraction in America, one move this season has captured the attention of many Americans.

American star Christian Pulisic recently signed a transfer fee for £58 million to join the elite club of Chelsea.  At just 20 years old, Pulisic had been playing for the Bundesliga club, Dortmund, since the 2015-16 season.  

In his 115 games there, he scored 15 goals and recorded 24 assists.  Pulisic quickly made a name for himself as one of the top players in the German league, and this prompted immense international attention from elite clubs. 

Ultimately, with Dortmund being unable to compete with Bayern Munich, the club saw this to be a reasonable time to move their young star.

“Christian has shown his quality during a fantastic spell in Germany and at just 20, we believe he has the potential to become an important Chelsea player for many years to come,” said Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia.

The season is almost halfway through, but there is so much more excitement to come.  What will happen with Manchester City?  Can they pull through in the standings against Liverpool?  Or, will the four point advantage holders continue to keep the title in their grasps?  

What will the young Christian Pulisic bring to the league and the world of English football?  All of this and more will play out in 2019, and football fans around the world are excited to see it all unfold.