The Final Reckoning

And so the dust settles on another Premier League season. Only it doesn’t. Because there is still one game left to play. Owing to a bomb scare this afternoon Manchester United now face the ultimate ignominy of having to go through the motions against Bournemouth to decide if they come 6th... or 5th. Whilst there was thankfully no casualties at Old Trafford due to sterling security work, it’s impossible to believe that their won’t be some when it comes to the end of season inquest. What a truly pathetic season it has been for Chelsea and Manchester United football club. There could well be five teams in the Champions League next season and that neither of them will be the two who have dominated the league for the last decade is just bizarre. More so when you consider the third team in that elite is Manchester City, who only came 4th. Just. By drawing away to Swansea reserves.

The Premier League team of the year is well documanted and, for once, very accurate. De Gea is clearly the league’s best keeper and there can be no arguing whatsoever with Alderwireld, Kante, Mahrez, Payet, Vardy and Kane. You could quibble over the rest of the defensive make up but only really between Spurs, Leicester and Bellerin... and then it’s basically Alli or Ozil. In all, it’s not a very interesting topic... and having covered the wonderful achievement of Leicester last time around... I close this season (and yes Van Gaal, I am now just pretending you don’t exist and hoping you’ll go away) with my final team of the weak... 

Courtois
Last season Jose Mourinho said it was one of the hardest decisions he ever had to make to decide on his number one between Thibaut Courtois and Petr Cech. Courtois had a fantastic season and it looked like he’d made the right call. That was until he opened up this campaign by selling Cech to Arsenal and watched his new number 1 get sent off in the opening fixture. Cech has meanwhile won the Golden Glove and (somehow) finished 2nd. Courtois has kept five clean sheets all season, been sent off twice and finished in 10th place. Below Stoke. Who stopped playing in February. 18 months ago he was voted the 2nd best keeper in the world ahead of David De Gea (and behind Manuel Neur). That claim now looks as laughable as Chelsea’s title defence.

Stones
The subject of a £35m pre-season bid, John Stones has done everything he can to prove he’s not worth that fee over the course of the past 9 months. In fairness to the lad, being coached in the defensive arts by Roberto Martinez must be like being coached in swimming by a camel. But even with that taken in to effect, Stones has made basic errors with alarming regularity and looked like he’s going to cry at least five times. Chelsea probably don’t want him anymore. Although looking at their back four... maybe they still do.

Richards

The Villa captain has seen his career reach even newer lows this year, following the seemingly sane decision to swap a career as Manchester’s City random English quota 6th sub (well played Fabian Delph, well played) for regular football at a sleeping midlands GIANT. It just you know, didn’t really work out like that did it Micah. Get Tactics Tim back. And maybe don’t sell all your established players for ones who’ve never played in the league before. I mean seriously, when your best player is the shit Ayew brother... you know it’s not been a vintage year.

O’Shea
Absolute garbage. Sam Allardyce hasn’t really done that much since coming to Sunderland beyond taking John O’Shea out back and politely telling him he will never play for the club again. Showed up to be useless by the impressive Kone was one thing. But Younes Kaboul? That is when you know you really are shit.

Ivanovic
Has to be in there for the inexplicable ability to keep getting picked, even after it had become abundantly obvious to anybody with a semblance of workable vision that he couldn’t defend a chess board who was a queen, two bishops and a rook up. Ivanhoe, it’s not the middle ages anymore. And you do need to run and tackle rather than just haul your opponents to the ground to be a good player.

Colback
14 yellow cards in 2015, failing to stamp your authority on a midfield that badly needed it and swapping your former club for your new one because you couldn’t go through a relegation battle again. Oh Jack. You silly boy you. In fairness you’ve probably not been the worst player at your club let alone the league... but I’m not Garth Crooks and I need a defensive midfielder. And you have a rubbish, rubbish haircut. So you know, them the breaks. Enjoy the Championship.

Walcott
What a complete waste of space Theo Walcott is. Does anybody more personify the Arsenal way than him? Awesome on his day, more lightweight than a hummingbirds feather the next. I want to play as a central striker says Theo. I want to show you I can be better than Giroud. Whats that? I’m not as good as Giroud? But he’s fucking garbage? He literally misses 28 chances a match but pops up with the odd hat trick against sunken teams to make his numbers look good? You won’t put me in the team over that? Fuck it then, I’ll just get injured again so you can pay my wages whilst I sit at home and play Xbox with Jack Wilshire. Fuck you Wenger. Not you Roy. Come on, I know you want to pick me. I’ll let you down, I’ll give you nothing... but what you gonna do, pick Andros fucking Townsend instead? I thought not. Come on the Euros! 

Depay
In everybody’s worst team of the year. I mean, Memphis... seriously son? What the FUCK was that!?

Sterling
The Premier League official team of the year cost the same amount as Raheem Sterling. Who once again didn’t get on the pitch today in a match that his club HAD to win. Instead his manager chose a youth player, a defensive midfielder and Jesus fucking Navas over him. And them made two further subs which weren’t him. Indeed, all told, Sterling has ended the season the 8th choice attacking option for the 4th best team in the land. For £49m and a ego about the same size... it’s safe to say more was expected. Liverpool fans have no reason to laugh at any club this season after finishing 8th... but they can laugh at Sterling.

Rooney
7 goals at a rate of one every 330 minutes is, quite frankly, not acceptable for the best paid player at the supposedly biggest club in the land. Rooney has had a shocking season, even by United’s turgid standards and it’s an absolute scandal if he’s a) still there next year or b) starts for England this summer over Kane or Vardy. Rooney was going several years ago. Now he has left the building, got a flight to China and is playing via a rusted dysfunctional radio controller robot. Nobody even knew who Marcus Rashford was four months ago. Now he’s many things, but above all he’s the person who showed the whole of Manchester how fucking shit Rooney had become. Severe. The. Fucking. Cord.

Costa
Diego Costa actually finished the season with 12 goals. Which sounds crazy when you consider how bad he’s been in almost every game. I’m all for players putting themselves about and treading the thin line between physicality and aggression. But Costa commits actual assault in most matches. Chelsea did so well last season because Costa worked. His style and manner of play was this season’s Jamie Vardy... yes he got in people’s faces but he also ran defences ragged with his energy, scored vital goals and led from the front. As it is, this year Costa has been Chelsea all over. Hot air and arrogance with no end product. He should be ashamed of his performances this year and cannot hold his head high when he inevitably leaves. And seriously... is that his real face? That guy has to be wearing a mask as an ongoing troll right? He looks like Pob fucked a Gorilla and was then sent to work in a mine shaft for forty years. He’s 27?? I mean come on... that has to be a joke right? Anyone? Anyone...

ah who cares... enjoy next season... it will probably be much less interesting than this one

although Wenger won’t win it... that’s a free tip. Not a 5000/1 one... but it might as well be

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

The Incredible Journey III - The Year of the Fox

Over the course of this season I have tried, and failed, many times to explain to my football loathing girlfriend the enormity of the achievement should Leicester City win the Premier League. Even trying to shoe horn in her love for Richard III has failed to engage her in this incredible story. Don’t you support Man United she asks me? Have you just switched teams now that you’re crap? I point out I haven’t switched teams, I’m just caught up in an adventure that would be possibly the singularly most incredible sporting achievement of my lifetime. I just want to be able to say I saw it, that I was there... when Leicester City of League one a few years ago and 5000/1 to win the title... somehow did it. I speak of Jamie Vardy, a guy brought up a couple of miles from our house in Sheffield and how his journey from non league to Premier League title winner in a few years is going to be a Hollywood movie. Will the movie portray Sheffield as an industrial ravaged wasteland of abandoned factories and stereotypical northerners with flat caps and whippets? Almost certainly I say.

Ultimately, whether to someone with no interest in football, or a scholar of the game, trying to explain away this season is frankly impossible. Teams like Leicester City simply don’t win top flight titles. It doesn’t happen. Ever. Comparisons have been thinly clutched to the great Clough teams. Both of his achievements (Derby’s title and subsequent double European Cup triumph with Nottingham Forest) are up there with the finest, but they existed not only in a different era of football where money and elitism was not so dominant. Also whilst the cup wins were incredible, as were say, the Euro triumphs of Greece and Denmark, they were achieved over a much shorter period of games (6 to 12). Leicester have won the title over a full 38 (with two to spare) and indeed you could stretch back their form to a staggering FIFTY games now and they would still be top of the pile. This is a team made up of rejected players who have come together under a likeable journeyman to achieve the incredible. Kante, Mahrez and Vardy have been the three best players in the league this year, but every player deserves a 10 out of 10. Danny Simpson, a player who couldn’t get in the QPR team that was relegated? Robert Huth, deemed not good enough for a Stoke defence that has conceded 28 goals more than Leicester so far. Danny Drinkwater, a Man United loanee of 5 clubs in 2 years before joining this Leicester team. I mean, Mahrez and Kante were both playing French Ligue 2 football just 18 months ago?? When Mahrez was offered a contract at Leicester, he thought it was a rugby club. You just couldn’t make up stuff like that. It would sound ridiculous. It does sound ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

There is an argument that Leicester would not have done this but for the collective failings of the elite. It is worth pointing out then that their points total of 77 is already above the 75 point mark that Manchester United won the title with in 97 (with two games to spare). Leicester have lost just 3 times all season and there is a bitter irony to the fact that two of those losses have come to Arsenal, who were the team seemingly most well placed to take advantage of the ailing of others. Leicester have won this title on their own merit playing a style of football that they adapted wonderfully as the season wore on. 

Having said that, it was worth pausing for a moment to consider the incredible failings of the teams below them this year. Last season, after 36 matches, the top four of Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and United had lost 23 matches between them. This season that figure stands at 37. Two of the top four from last season won’t be in it this time around and there has never been a Premier League season before where any of the top four didn’t finish in the top two of the subsequent season. Manchester City’s European Adventure aside, this has been a truly horrific season for the apparent elite. Incredibly, both United and Arsenal are expected to begin the new season with the same managers in charge.

Spurs however, do deserve credit for pushing them to this stage. In any other year the sight of the young Lillywhites snatching the title from their London rivals would be the stuff of fantasy itself. As it was, had they done it this year they would have faced the unfortunate ignominy of their greatest ever achievement forever being a footnote as the season Leicester almost won it. Spurs somewhat lost the plot last night; responding to losing a 2 goal lead by trying to start a 22 man brawl rather than attempting to just score another goal. But that shouldn’t detract from their own huge effort this season. They are a young, wonderfully talented team who will be back again next year to remind the bigger clubs what a belief in a genuine youth set up can actually achieve.

But this is the year of the Fox. And nothing should detract from that fact. This is a victory that should inspire children up and down the land to take up the game. That should inspire any player released from a club there is still hope. That should inspire any players of the lower leagues that it’s possible to achieve the impossible. It is an utterly, utterly extraordinary achievement of which their will likely be no repeat in our lifetimes.

Leicester City. Claudio Ranieri. I salute you. You have given us all something to remember for the rest of our lives. Now is the time to celebrate. Now is the time to party. Now is the spring of our contentment.

Nobody will ever, ever be able to take this away. Not even a fucking Tudor.

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey