Cherries could be the icing on the cake for next season
At the risk of forcing a pun into the first title of every entry; it’s getting
harder and harder to cherry pick things to write about in a season that has
largely faded into a gentle, mediocre pool of sludge. One hopes then, that the
fantastic journey of Bournemouth football club will add a fairy tale quality to
the league next season as they secured promotion this week and entered the
Premier League for the first time in their history. Since being appointed
permanent manager in 2009, Eddie Howe has pulled the club out of a 17 point
deficit relegation battle, got promoted to league one, left to take charge of
Burnley for a bit for a laugh, come back and secured promotion to the
Championship, and has now helped his side to the hallowed shores of the Premier
League with a limited budget and a 95 goal scoring spree on route. This would
be pretty incredible anyway, but it’s more so when you consider Howe was just
32 when he was given the role and will come into the league as the youngest
manager by a full five years. Howe has a win ratio of 52% over his two spells
at the club. Just to put that into perspective, Wenger and Ferguson’s is around
57-59%. And Tony Adams’ around 10%.
Bournemouth will bring a superb set of supporters, some
terrific chants and an underdog story that will be hard to resist for the
neutral next season. Hell, if they beat Chelsea the world may actually explode.
With Watford having joined them, the Premier League promises to be a more
interesting place to be come August. We hope at least. I mean, come on. It has
to be.
Pragmatism wins
titles, but not admirers
Other than the 37 genuine people who support Chelsea, nobody will be celebrating the Premier League title returning to the paws of Jose Mourinho and John fucking Terry come this weekend. Chelsea deserve the title by virtue of being the team best equipped to not lose matches, but they cannot be allowed to win a title with this little fight again. With his team playing dreadfully and desperately reliant on the guile of Eden Hazard to do literally anything, Mourinho has effectively shut up shop for the past two months to grind out the results needs to claim his 3rd title with the club. Arsenal started poorly, United even more so, and City have been an inconsistent mess from start to finish. Gods knows where they’d be if they didn’t have Sergio Aguero in their team. All three of those teams need to strengthen and come again stronger in the summer. It’s hard to make a case for any of the clubs below them challenging for titles. Liverpool need stability and a long term plan, Saints have over performed and should be proud of their achievements, whilst Spurs will just finish outside of the top four for the next 10,000 years no matter what they do. The league needs a proper title race to flourish and to pull the quality up of every side below it. As it is, we risk going into the final weekend of the season with potentially just two games meaning anything.
Other than the 37 genuine people who support Chelsea, nobody will be celebrating the Premier League title returning to the paws of Jose Mourinho and John fucking Terry come this weekend. Chelsea deserve the title by virtue of being the team best equipped to not lose matches, but they cannot be allowed to win a title with this little fight again. With his team playing dreadfully and desperately reliant on the guile of Eden Hazard to do literally anything, Mourinho has effectively shut up shop for the past two months to grind out the results needs to claim his 3rd title with the club. Arsenal started poorly, United even more so, and City have been an inconsistent mess from start to finish. Gods knows where they’d be if they didn’t have Sergio Aguero in their team. All three of those teams need to strengthen and come again stronger in the summer. It’s hard to make a case for any of the clubs below them challenging for titles. Liverpool need stability and a long term plan, Saints have over performed and should be proud of their achievements, whilst Spurs will just finish outside of the top four for the next 10,000 years no matter what they do. The league needs a proper title race to flourish and to pull the quality up of every side below it. As it is, we risk going into the final weekend of the season with potentially just two games meaning anything.
QPR and Burnley may
have shot their load
4 and 5 points away from safety respectively, both these sides need an absolute minimum of 8 points from remaining fixtures that read:
QPR: Liverpool Away. Man City Away. Newcastle Home. Leicester Away.
Burnley: West Ham Away. Hull Away. Stoke Home. Villa Away.
It seems unlikely at best, and impossible at worst. All of which effectively leaves Leicester, Sunderland and Villa fighting for one place in the drop zone following an improbable double victory for Hull City this week. Still, if there is hope for anyone, it comes in the form of simply playing Newcastle. Who are in complete freefall and could well survive despite winning just one game in 2015 and with the worst goal difference in the league. Come on lads, let’s all do this and give this season one great thing to be remembered for.
4 and 5 points away from safety respectively, both these sides need an absolute minimum of 8 points from remaining fixtures that read:
QPR: Liverpool Away. Man City Away. Newcastle Home. Leicester Away.
Burnley: West Ham Away. Hull Away. Stoke Home. Villa Away.
It seems unlikely at best, and impossible at worst. All of which effectively leaves Leicester, Sunderland and Villa fighting for one place in the drop zone following an improbable double victory for Hull City this week. Still, if there is hope for anyone, it comes in the form of simply playing Newcastle. Who are in complete freefall and could well survive despite winning just one game in 2015 and with the worst goal difference in the league. Come on lads, let’s all do this and give this season one great thing to be remembered for.
#praytosendthetoondown
Why can’t clubs cope
with the Europa League?
It doesn’t matter who it is (usually Spurs or Everton), but each and every year the clubs who qualify for the Europa League toil until they inevitably get dumped out post the group stage, having already played 28 games and with nothing to show for it. There is no doubt that playing Thursday to Sunday is the hardest combination of games available, a longer wait followed by a very short recovery period. The Europa League also has a higher propensity of long haul away games and the teams involved are always playing catch up. But other countries don’t struggle with it the way we do, and with a Champions League place now up for grabs for the winners, it’s hard to see why there isn’t any motivation at all for English club to make a better fist of trying to win it. Squad sizes are bigger than ever, so why not just rotate steadily over the season. Surely this approach is better than the Everton approach of don’t rotate at all, or the Spurs one of change your entire starting eleven. Barcelona and Real Madrid barely rotate, and still manage to compete on all levels because they keep things fresh week by week rather than ever having to make wholesale changes. Ferguson was a master of this, making sure that his players stayed hungry and picked and chose the fixtures that would suit certain players, regardless of the actual competition it happened to be. He didn’t always get it right, but the logic was sound. If clubs are going to have squads of 20-25 senior, well paid players, they need to be using them correctly to manage the situation they are in. Yes the Premier League is a tough, physical league with no easy fixtures, but English teams are floundering across Europe not because they have the worse players, but because they remain tactically naïve and the squads are being mismanaged. I mean, if I can successfully run three fantasy football teams, I’m pretty sure running a top flight Football Club across several competitions can’t be that difficult…
It doesn’t matter who it is (usually Spurs or Everton), but each and every year the clubs who qualify for the Europa League toil until they inevitably get dumped out post the group stage, having already played 28 games and with nothing to show for it. There is no doubt that playing Thursday to Sunday is the hardest combination of games available, a longer wait followed by a very short recovery period. The Europa League also has a higher propensity of long haul away games and the teams involved are always playing catch up. But other countries don’t struggle with it the way we do, and with a Champions League place now up for grabs for the winners, it’s hard to see why there isn’t any motivation at all for English club to make a better fist of trying to win it. Squad sizes are bigger than ever, so why not just rotate steadily over the season. Surely this approach is better than the Everton approach of don’t rotate at all, or the Spurs one of change your entire starting eleven. Barcelona and Real Madrid barely rotate, and still manage to compete on all levels because they keep things fresh week by week rather than ever having to make wholesale changes. Ferguson was a master of this, making sure that his players stayed hungry and picked and chose the fixtures that would suit certain players, regardless of the actual competition it happened to be. He didn’t always get it right, but the logic was sound. If clubs are going to have squads of 20-25 senior, well paid players, they need to be using them correctly to manage the situation they are in. Yes the Premier League is a tough, physical league with no easy fixtures, but English teams are floundering across Europe not because they have the worse players, but because they remain tactically naïve and the squads are being mismanaged. I mean, if I can successfully run three fantasy football teams, I’m pretty sure running a top flight Football Club across several competitions can’t be that difficult…
The new season kicks
off on August 7th
Which means the Charity Shield will be August 2nd. Which is frankly, a complete disgrace. Football is not a summer sport and this year there have been less midweek matches than ever before in the Premier League. English football needs to take a long hard look at itself. The TV money is welcome, but it cannot be allowed to utterly dictate games, fixtures and start dates. This Champions League final is on June 6th this year which will mean the shortest ever distance between the last and first game of the season (should an English club have got to it). A mere 8 weeks when it used to be 13/14. If we want seasons to be more exciting, with better standards and compete stronger in Europe and Internationally, we don’t need more games spaced out, we need a longer, proper pre-season for clubs to adequately prepare. As it is, expect another turgid opening month to the top flight as players don’t achieve full fitness until September.
Which means the Charity Shield will be August 2nd. Which is frankly, a complete disgrace. Football is not a summer sport and this year there have been less midweek matches than ever before in the Premier League. English football needs to take a long hard look at itself. The TV money is welcome, but it cannot be allowed to utterly dictate games, fixtures and start dates. This Champions League final is on June 6th this year which will mean the shortest ever distance between the last and first game of the season (should an English club have got to it). A mere 8 weeks when it used to be 13/14. If we want seasons to be more exciting, with better standards and compete stronger in Europe and Internationally, we don’t need more games spaced out, we need a longer, proper pre-season for clubs to adequately prepare. As it is, expect another turgid opening month to the top flight as players don’t achieve full fitness until September.
Team of the Weak:
Guzan – Gifted City a goal and then conceded a late winner
after his team had dragged themselves back into the match
Janmaat – Looked like he was already planning his summer transfer move
Mangala – An absolute sham of a £32m defender
Vertonghen – Couldn’t keep a clean sheet against my six a side team
Dann – Allowed Hull to score. Twice. Awful
Arfield – Beginning to look like the Championship player he is again. In the team as the main creative hub. Creates nothing
Sterling – Absolute toilet across both games. Will be lucky if Liverpool want him on this form, let alone a bigger club
Fellaini – Slashed at a massive early chance, lucky to stay on the pitch, dragged at half time
Ozil – Despite recent upturn in form, couldn’t control a big game when it mattered
Austin – Missed a penalty, got booked. Remains blameless if QPR go down but could have really helped his team here against a West Ham team who stopped playing in March
Rooney – Merseyside toils continued, utterly anonymous
Balotelli – One of the worst seasons for any top striker in living memory. Lucky to ever play at a high level again after this
Janmaat – Looked like he was already planning his summer transfer move
Mangala – An absolute sham of a £32m defender
Vertonghen – Couldn’t keep a clean sheet against my six a side team
Dann – Allowed Hull to score. Twice. Awful
Arfield – Beginning to look like the Championship player he is again. In the team as the main creative hub. Creates nothing
Sterling – Absolute toilet across both games. Will be lucky if Liverpool want him on this form, let alone a bigger club
Fellaini – Slashed at a massive early chance, lucky to stay on the pitch, dragged at half time
Ozil – Despite recent upturn in form, couldn’t control a big game when it mattered
Austin – Missed a penalty, got booked. Remains blameless if QPR go down but could have really helped his team here against a West Ham team who stopped playing in March
Rooney – Merseyside toils continued, utterly anonymous
Balotelli – One of the worst seasons for any top striker in living memory. Lucky to ever play at a high level again after this
What you may have
missed
Saints and Spurs pulling out the stops in an entertaining
early fixture that now feels like it took place a year ago; Leicester hauling
themselves to apparent safety only to be dragged back down again by the
relentless juggernaut of negativity that is Chelsea; Hull keeping back to back
clean sheets and keeping Yorkshire back in the big leagues for another season;
Newcastle now just losing for fun; Sunderland still wandering around trying to
win a match; Man City limping past Aston Villa to keep the challenge on for the
real title this season… second place; Stones and McCarthy absolutely dominating
the Manchester United forward line; Arsene Wenger still not managing to beat
Jose Mourinho at football and Liverpool, I’m sorry Brendan, but in absolutely
no way playing “outstanding” in any possible way that you can quantify that
word.
https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey
https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey
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