Five Things We Learnt - The End of Season Awards

In the absence of any genuine 5 things to discuss (I mean… Arsenal qualify for Champions League at the death at the expense of Spurs shock) – the final blog of the season is presented in awards style. So here we go…

Manager of the Year – Alex Ferguson
This one was kind of a gimme, more so given he retired. But with the exception of Swansea & West Brom, no single team punched more above their weight than Man Utd (again) this year. On any given day you’d struggle to put more than 2 of Utd’s team into a Premiership XI, but season after season they challenge through sheer strength of will. That they finished 11 and 14 points respectively above City & Chelsea this year is absurd. And to bow out with a 5 all away thriller of maddening sense… well, so long old man.

Player of the Year – Gareth Bale
The Simian done good. Wonder goals, glorious assists and more match winning contributions than any other player come full time on Sunday. Bale deserves more than anyone on show to be in the Champions League next year. That he may not be, whilst Aaron Ramsey and Bacary Sagna are… is a tragedy and a disgrace. Please move Gareth, Spurs are like a terrific in the sack but ultimately abusive partner. They will keep letting you down.

Underrated player of the Year – Sebastian Bassong
One of many players let go by Spurs last year, and one of many players better than William Gallas, Bassong has had a superb season at Norwich City. He, alongside Michael Turner, has done more than any other player in the Canaries line up to preserve their top flight status. Bassong has kept 10 clean sheets, coupled with 3 goals, in 34 starts for a struggling Norwich. He is a hugely underrated talent and was done a disservice by both Redknapp and AVB at his previous club. Indeed, the season before that he had helped Spurs qualify for and reach the Quarter Finals of the Champions League… so he probably wasn’t all bad.

 

Signing of the Season – Michu
£2m – 22 goals and a League Cup. Enough said.

Villain of the Year – Jose Bosingwa
Not trying, playing crap, getting sent off, losing games, laughing about it – a problem.
Getting paid £100,000 a week to do all this by QPR? Priceless.

Fantasy Football Player of the Year – Richard Hawley the Cat
Got key decisions right all season. Rotated with efficiency and made wise, safe captain choices. Superb double header planning and selected “surprise packages” Michu, Lambert & Fellani from the off. Has earned £250 in tuna.

Worst Fantasy Football Player of the Year – Chris Bence
Narrowly beating out Jess McCallum, Matt Howe, Rob Wilson and the mythically poor Fosu Gharban. Largely due to unlike those people, gambling well over £100 on a “sport” he has no ability* in whatsoever. Continued to select a team filled with players who were rotated or injured and made ill advised mid-season attempt to win back cash already lost. Seemingly for no reason.
*Citation - ability could be substituted for “interest”

Goal of the Year – Robin Van Persie against Villa.
Four words. Pick. That. One. Out.

Bizarre moment of the Season – Eden Hazard
Yeah, Luis Suarez biting someone or Jason Puncheon urinating during a match wasn’t the strangest thing I witnessed on a pitch this year… it was this sequence of events:

·         1. A ball boy lying on a ball to prevent a Chelsea player (Hazard) from getting it during the last few minutes of a match

·         2. Hazard deciding it was a sensible thing to do to kick the ball from underneath the ball boy

·         3. The ball boy feigning injury as if he’d been booted in the ribs

·         4. Hazard being sent off and being surprised about it

·         5. The absurd reaction of the press and pundits about it afterwards – from calls to charge him with assault, to defending him to such a degree that the ball boy should be banned and made to give a formal apology. Both camps were pathetic

·        6. The FA announcing that “a three game ban is clearly insufficient for this incident”

·         7. The FA banning Hazard for three games

Moment of the Season – QPR getting relegated
Drink it in folks. Hughes. Warnock. An idiot chairman. Londoners. Overpaid, underperforming players. Get lost the lot of you. The Championship is too good for your sham of a club.

And finally… the Hindu Monkey official teams of the year:

 

The Best:

Jaaskelainen – Cited as a “weak link” by some earlier in the season. 11 clean sheets and 156 saves later. West Ham may be dull as fuck, but the big Fin has never let the big manager down.
Zabaleta – City’s best player this year. Consistent and added attacking ounce to defensive nous.
Bassong – see above
Ferdinand – Given the abuse he has taken, for both his waning form and questionable international stance, Rio has been marvellous since the turn of the year. Conceded 7 goals in his last 10 starts and commits less fouls than any other defender in modern football.
Baines – Mr Consistent. Played every minute of every match. 11 clean sheets, 5 goals, 7 assists. Moyesy… sign him up. Moyesy, Moyesy sign him up.
Carrick – Utd’s player of the year, lord knows I’ve given him some stick in the past but he has been the one rock in a midfield made of Balsa (and Ryan Giggs) all season. His reading of the game is now genuinely superb, even if his ability doesn’t always match those high levels.
Santi – Arsenal’s most creative force. Like his team mates, he went missing from time to time but for a first season in English football… 12 goals and 13 assists from midfield is a fine effort. Arsenal must keep him and Wilshire together next season and buy a genuine ball winner to play alongside them.
Bale – see above
Hazard – I’ve gone for Hazard over Mata (just) because he’s younger and this is his first season playing for a major club. He has been exceptional, Ballboygate aside. The best dribbler I’ve seen in years.
Michu – goals, looks, a terrible celebration – Michu was made for the prem. £2m. I repeat. £2m.
Van Persie – The best striker in the league – even when he plays badly he sets up other people with his corners and set pieces. 26 goals, 15 assists – 41 in total. Indeed in 38 Premier League Matches this season Van Persie has scored or created a goal in 31 of them. He is a machine. 

The Bench – Cech, Vertonghen, Mata, Fellani, Benteke, Lukaku

The Manager – Ferguson
The Assistant Manager – Laudrup

The Worst:

Green – 1 clean sheet all season, bottom of the league, being signed by your manager to be your new number 1 only for a month later see him sign a better keeper instead. Damning.
Bosingwa – see above
Vermaelen – The Belgium looks a long way short of the player he was 2 years ago. Was finally dropped by Wenger after the Spurs game, despite being club captain, and saw the team go unbeaten for the rest of the season without him.
Samba – Brought to save QPR from the drop. Didn’t. Was dropped instead. On £140,000 a week. Way. To. Go. ‘Arry.
Sagna – I know I already have a right back but I’m playing Sagna at left back just to get him in the team. He is awful. Just awful.
Mikel – the mainstay of my worst eleven of the season and will continue to be so until somebody sells his worthless ass
Sigurdsson – Improved as the season went on but three goals for the money paid for him is a woeful return. Added nothing to the Spurs team and made you forget for long periods how bad Clint Dempsey was playing.
McClean – Superb last season under O’Neill, got far too big for his boots, stopped playing well, was disastrous this time around.
Sinclair – Has played 212 minutes of football all… season… long. Despite not being injured. One of the worst transfer deals, for every party (bar Swansea) in history.
Jelavic – Looked brilliant last year, now looks terrible. So a typical David Moyes striker then? Dear god he better not fuck up Van Persie & Hernandez…
The Entire Forward Line of Stoke City – an average of 0.89 goals per game between the entire squad. Thanks. For. Coming.

The Bench – Turnbull, Santos, Sessegnon, Granero, Adeboyer, Carlton Cole

The Manager – Hughes
The Assistant Manager – Redknapp
The Devil – Pardew

Until next season you fine folk…

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week 37

This week’s special 5 things come with a celebratory air about it. And so, in no discernable order, The Hindu Monkey would like to celebrate the achievements of the following:

1. David Moyes
As a rough guess, there have been (adopts voice of Dr Evil) 1 million articles written this week about the retirement of Alex Ferguson and the subsequent appointment of David Moyes. More of the former later, but for now let’s concentrate on the man about to step into what is essentially the Iron Throne. You could have combined the ten best managers currently working into one super manager and there still would be question marks over the appointment. The simple fact is that Ferguson has ruled for so long and with such power that he has become irreplaceable. Legions of fans, myself included bar 3 long months of Ron Atkinson, have no knowledge of life under a different manager. As such there is no longer a precedent at Man Utd for what other clubs have gone through year after year in an increasingly fickle game. One club who have enjoyed stability over the past decade have been Everton. There is a certain cruelty then that they must be the club to suffer from Fergie moving on. Moyes has done a wonderful job at Everton and anyone who criticises his work, or his decision to leave, is not worth his salt. Moyes is an excellent man manager and has done wonders in the transfer market with an invisible budget. He is a competitor, a pragmatist and he is loyal. It’s easy to see why Fergie recommended him to the Utd board. He is far from the finished article though and at 50, is yet to win a trophy or truly manage at the highest level. His away record against the bigger Premier League teams seems more a statistical anomaly than any sort of inferiority complex. After all, he has beaten City away twice since the millions came in and it is only really against Liverpool that his team have come up well short time and time again during his reign. One certainly hopes that record doesn’t continue now he’s managing the biggest club in the land. Utd will be top seeded for the next couple of years whatever happens in the Champions League so Moyes has time on his hands with easier groups to learn the European adventure. A luxury which hasn’t been afforded to Roberto Mancini. There is one area where Moyes will have huge shoes to fill though, and one that has barely been touched upon by the million articles in question. Alex Ferguson was the best rotator of his players in modern football, he kept 95% of his squad happy all of the time and kept them hungry even though they could go a month without stepping on the pitch. Moyes, through squad size more than anything else, has no real experience of that art and at a club like Utd, competing on four fronts, that skill will need to be mastered and mastered quickly. With Mancini’s job in the balance we are about to enter a new season with the unprecedented situation of 4 of the top 6 clubs welcoming new managers. It promises to be one to look forward to far more than this one has been, but for now it would do any Everton fan a disservice not to celebrate the legacy that Moyes has left behind at Goodison. With great power David, comes great responsibility. So please, don’t fuck it up.

2. Frank Lampard
203 goals for a midfielder at this level  is absurd. “Super” Frank lashed in his 202^nd this weekend in classic style before celebrating the Chelsea goal scoring record with a tap in on a plate thanks to the twinkling toes of Eden Hazard. Lampard has averaged a goal every 2.95 games for Chelsea since joining them in 2001. To put that into context Emile Heskey averages 4.49. But seriously, with 17 more crucial strikes to add to his collection this year the decision to throw Lampard to the wolves in the summer is looking increasingly more absurd. The guy has played 48 times this season and has only been injured one in his entire career for more than a couple of weeks. Given its Fergie time I think it’s best to quote the great man who described him simply as “a freak.” And he’s managed Ryan Giggs… Lamps, you’ll never be my favourite footballer, mainly due to your strange homosexual love affair with John Terry more than anything else, but you are a Chelsea legend and a Premier League legend. It will be a worse place without you next year. 

3. Wigan Athletic
It’s hard to describe the emotions of any Wigan Athletic fan over the past 24 hours, but for now let us concentrate solely on the good stuff. Wigan’s win over Manchester City at Wembley, thanks to a late headed rocket from Ben Watson, was the greatest cup final upset in 25 years. It was a victory for every smaller club out there, a victory for every footballer who ever dared to dream the impossible. Wigan’s net Premier League spend has been £7m. Manchester City’s is £481m. These two might play in the same division, at least for another week, but they are leagues apart financially. This has been a cup run from the Gods from Roberto Martinez’s men and they thoroughly deserved this success. City didn’t hit the woodwork six times or see their efforts repelled time after time by a keeper having the game of his life… no… they were simply beaten by a team who played better and wanted it more on the day. You have to feel for Mancini if he is sacked, the Italian once again having to watch both Nasri and Tevez crawl off the park shaking their heads after being replaced. Good luck to any manager uniting that dressing room of egos. For Wigan though, it was day that deserved every accolade and plaudit going. So… it was a real shame that 24 hours later they were almost certainly relegated from the Premier League. Nobody has ever won the FA Cup and gone down, but Wigan will now have that honour unless they pull off the escapes of ALL escapes by winning away at Arsenal and then again at home to Villa. That’s a Villa who thanks to a moment of madness from Benteke and a series of absurd results elsewhere, will be relegated themselves if that unlikely sequence comes to full fruition. I’d love to see Wigan do it, not least because I want Arsenal to drop out of the top four, but if they achieve it this year it they should make the club permanent members of the top flight out of respect for feats of escapology. Congratulations Wigan, the Premier League will miss you.

4. Paul Scholes
I won’t labour this one, although it’s somewhat ironic that a player who craves so little of the limelight has retired twice. Amidst all the hullaballoo this afternoon, the most creative English midfielder of my lifetime slipped out the back door with the sort of speed he normally hurtles into tackles. Scholesly, you were a legend. Farewell. Again.

5. Sir Alex Ferguson
There is nothing that can be said that hasn’t already about Fergie. Simply counting up his trophies means nothing. The man hasn’t just been the best manager of his generation by luck or good fortune, he has done it by evolving time and time again. From man management to rotation, from shifts in formation to game changing substitutions… Fergie has mastered everything at the highest level of football for three decades and has done so though a mixture of class, ability and sheer bloody mindedness. His farewell speech this afternoon could be dissected and pulled apart on many levels as people line up further to analyse and pay their respects, but there were two moments that stood out more than any others. The first was how much passion and belief remains in this great man, turning to the “young players” of his team he bellowed “don’t you ever let this football club down.” The second was the demanding of respect for his replacement. For all Fergie’s faults, he has been the staunchest defender of his fellow professionals over the years. He has attended countless tribunals and personal hearings for his fellow managers and has always reacted fiercely to all who have treated his peers with what he deemed a lack of respect. I don’t know how many Premier League managers have come and gone since Fergie took his place in the Old Trafford dugout, but it’s a lot… and the average length of time a manager is given compared to an underperforming player is a scandal. Addressing the Utd fans, Fergie took time out from his farewell speech to demand the crowd showed David Moyes the same respect he has been afforded – “I'd like to remind you that when we had bad times here, the club stood by me, all my staff stood by me, the players stood by me. Your job now is to stand by our new manager.” With 70,000 fans roaring loudly, it was enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. What we do in life, echoes in eternity… and for this great manager of this gre… I’m sorry, I’ve just quoted Gladiator. 

Ah fuck it, it’s what he would have wanted.

Hindu Monkey Team of the Fergie Era:

Schmeichel
Neville – Ferdinand – Stam – Irwin
Ronaldo – Keane – Scholes – Giggs
Cantona – Van Nistelrooy

Subs: Der Sar, Vidic, Pallister, Beckham, Rooney, Solskjaer

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week 36

1.Bale is a worthy winner.
In a season peppered with standout striking performances and little else, Gareth Bale is a worthy winner of both player of the year awards. Bale has been sensational for much of the season and has developed a Ronaldo esque ability to play badly and still deliver a match winning goal, the hallmark of any true game changing talent. 20 goals and a further 9 assists in the league is a better return than anyone bar Suarez and Van Persie, both of who play at the top of the pitch. Bale has played on both flanks and as a roving number 10 and scored and created key goals in all of those positions. Indeed, the biggest take home stat of the season is what the league table would look like if each team was shorn of their key player. Spurs would be 7^th, some 19 points worse off than what they are without Bale. Only Van Persie has won more points for his team this season and Utd would still be top without him such is their margin of error. Spurs have no so margin, they have become the ultimate one man team and they head into a midweek battle with Chelsea which they simply have to win in order to qualify for the Champions League. That feat would be unthinkable without their Welsh Simian. So remember this Spurs fans, if you do fall short of 4^th and your star player decides to jump ship – without him you would be just a bunch of average, overpaid players at a so called big club who, whilst occasionally hitting the heights of old, have to settle for mediocrity season after season. Yep, you’d be Liverpool. And if Bale does leave you should cherish him making you believe you had a chance at all.

2. What on earth has happened to Fulham?
Let’s not labour this point, the fact that Fulham are suddenly in danger of being relegated is both farcical and a lesson to any player who thinks his team is safe until the maths have all been done. Compare for a moment how much criticism has been thrown in Paul Lambert’s direction this season… and how much praise has been handed to Berbatov and Jol’s “free flowing” yet inconsistent Cottagers. Then consider that somehow these two teams are now level on points with two games left to play. Fulham have picked up just a single point in six matches and have only scored in two of those games. One of those was this weekend, when despite scoring twice they inexplicably conceded four to the already relegated Reading. Fulham have Liverpool next before finishing the season away to Swansea. The Swans have nothing left to play for but will want to send their home supporters off with a win and held their own against City this Saturday. Fulham’s fate may well rest in other’s hands and if Wigan and Sunderland both win this week, Martin Jol could be responsible for quite possibly the most ridiculous relegation in league history. 

3. Worst. Super. Sunday. Ever.
Liverpool, Everton, Man Utd & Chelsea treated us to 175 minutes of abject, nothing football this weekend on a day which will hopefully be expunged from memory as quickly as my ill-advised decision to watch Lake Placid 4. The worst Mersyside derby in years was memorable only for a perfectly good Everton goal being ruled out. It was a measure of the feebleness of the occasion that there was apathy rather than anger from Everton fans at the final whistle. Utd v Chelsea was even worse until a final 10 minutes when everything suddenly decided to happen. A Phil Jones own goal from a Juan Mata strike awoke a Utd team giving the impression they would have settled for a nil nil if the game was 90 hours not 90 minutes. The adage nobody likes to lose still rings true and Utd tore into Chelsea for a huge 5 minutes before realising there was no time left and so just kicked them instead. Rafael’s senseless red card gave Fergie something to talk about other than quite how bad his team were, although he at least had the grace to mention the latter. Chelsea were the only team to benefit from a terrible afternoon of football and even they had to rely on somebody else scoring for them. No, the real fun was to be had further down the table… and all the way into the Championship. 

4. Wigan may have left it too late.
Roberto Martinez team completed another famous late season victory on Saturday and many were talking after the game about how this would be another in a long line of Wigan great escapes. Let’s be clear though, despite the abject feebleness of the likes of Stoke, Norwich, Newcastle & Fulham of late… Wigan are still very much the favourites to go down. Put simply, Wigan need to win at least 2 of their final 3 games. If they do that, they’ll have 41 points which will surely be enough. Not all of the 7 other teams still involved in the best bum fight since Brokeback Mountain are going to win their last two games and logic dictates that 41 points will make you safe. The problem is twofold. Football doesn’t work by logic, it works by maths (citation needed)… and Wigan could actually win all three of their last games and go down.  The second and more pressing concern… is that Wigan really do have to win 2 of their last 3 games. The first of which is on Tuesday against Swansea, who despite having nothing left to play for find themselves a key figure in events at both ends of the table. If Wigan don’t win that they have to beat Arsenal away. That’s an Arsenal team who’ve been beaten once in a dozen matches and are fighting for a Champions League place. A huge ask, and even if they do win one of those games they then have to beat Villa at home in a final throw of the dice. I’m not saying Wigan can’t stay up, they can… but if you had to put your money on anyone joining QPR and Reading in the Championship next season, the smart bet remains the Lactics.

5. Bruce has done it the right way.
When Steve Bruce was dismissed by Sunderland 18 months ago I was not alone in questioning whether he would get another shot at the Premier League. Credit then where credit is due. Bruce did not hang around waiting for another big offer. He didn’t moan. He didn’t claim any club was too small. He waited for a Championship position to become available and proved he was capable of getting back to basics. Hull were a laughing stock when they were last in the Premier League, but Bruce has brought back the pride and passion to the club and deservedly won them promotion back to the big time this Saturday. His stock has risen not only from taking a step back to go two forward, but also because of the failings of Martin O’Neil in the job that he left. His return to the Premier League is good news for him, good news for Hull… and good news for the Manchester United team that he will roll over twice for next season.