Sunday morning, I went through the routine.
Got up, schlepped over the the local bagel place. Got myself a blueberry bagel and a truly awful coffee and return to my cave to watch the final round of the Premier League season.
The title had already been decided and the race for the EuropaUEFA thing-a-ma-jig between Fulham and Tottenham didn't really set my heart afire.
Instead it was all about the morbid curiosity of who could suck the least (not he most eloquent description, yet apt) between Hull City and Newcastle United.
On the big T.V. it was Hull City -- at home -- trying to get a result of some kind against 11 guys Sir Alex Ferguson plucked off the street, err, the Manchester United reserves. As soon as they put up the team sheet graphic, I wondered aloud -- in a nod to 'Major League' -- who are these fucking guys? (No Japanese, though.)
As commentator Colin pointed out -- how bad exactly is Hull. Their best couldn't, at home no less, get even a draw against Manchester United's third-choice roster.
Congrats are in order since Phil Brown's men -- thanks to a nice run of form at the start of the season stick around for another ride on the Premier League carousel. The team might not be that great and the KC Stadium has rugby lines visible on it, but at least the fans come out to support the team.
Now a couple weeks ago I spilled coffee on my laptop and fried the thing. I got a new one and wasn't aware until Sunday it came with Smell-O-Vision, because the stink from Newcastle United's rotting corpse could be sniffed through the screen of the Setanta feed.
Why bother to heap on the misery of the Magpies, but no less than 10 minutes after Darron Gibson's long-range effort against Hull gave Newcastle United a lifeline, it was over. Gareth Barry's deflected shot off the zombie wearing Damien Duff's leg proved to be the final nail in the coffin.
For the next hour of the match you'd think, stress, think that Newcastle would have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at Aston Villa to try to get a goal that would have ensured safety. Instead, I think maybe the Magpies had like one solid shot -- if that -- on Brad Friedel. Hell, you'd think Alan Shearer would have ripped off his tailored suit and had a full kit on under it to swoop in and save the day with a one-hand salute.
Nope.
Newcastle United went down with a wheeze and a whimper.
That was that, aside from mandatory shots of the pudgy, teary eyed Geordies -- shirts optional.
And with that, the curtain fell on the 2009-10 Premier League season, which I'm still internally debating if it was a good season or not.
If anything, this year further re-enforced the haves and have-nots the the league has created. The 'Big Four' will only get bigger and richer with their Champions League loot, while clubs like Everton, Aston Villa, Tottenham and the flavor of the year such as Fulham (not a disrespect, the Cottagers were maybe the best story of the season) try to hammer away at the exclusive club.
The gulf between the upper class, the struggling middle class and the unwashed poor grew even greater -- perhaps in a reflection of the world at large in the financial crisis. The truly awful clubs this year -- Sunderland, Newcastle, Hull, Middlesbrough, West Brom and the forgettably bad -- Blackburn, Bolton, Portsmouth did nothing to really warrant inclusion in the top flight.
Put it this way, together the three relegated clubs totaled 22 combined wins, which was less than Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool by themselves.
Again, in another real-world comparison, the writing appears on the wall that the Premier League balloon is on the verge of popping. The weird thing is that it might be the other teams -- not the Big Four -- that should force the move -- or they'll go bankrupt trying to keep up. (Hell, even the big boys are buying on credit and have debt floating over their heads.)
Look at Burnley, which won the promotion playoff Monday. The club is in a city of 77,000. The might have one or two fans in Asia, not the millions Manchester United has cultivated. How are the clarets supposed to compete? They could spend the money on players, but look at how much good that did Derby two years ago, or even Hull which got extremely lucky.
How is this team, or others like it, supposed to compete with the billions from the oil-rich Manchester City owners?
Unlike American sports, if you fuck up in England or any other league you're pretty much screwed. You're relegated, and if you're completely clueless on how to run the books you fall from the face of existence.
Is this a game worth playing?
Still, for all that, come August I'll be schlepping down to Village Bagels and placing my order. I just hope by then the coffee is a little better.
End of year stuff
Here's the deal, I started trying to do a best XI team. But stopped midway because it was hard to figure on a formation, since the league's best players all seem to field the same position. Does that make sense? Instead I'm going up and down the table and just jotting some thoughts on each team. Here's my preseason guesses. Be nice, they were bad. (Here's a nice rundown of miscellaneous stuff.)
* Manchester United (1st, 90 points) -- Great offense. Great defense. Great depth. As long as Ronaldo -- even with a less deadly season than last year -- sticks around, the Red Devils are going to be in this spot. How and where Sir Alex fortifies this team will be interesting. The best for a reason.
* Liverpool (2nd, 86) -- The league was lost on back-to-back scoreless draws with Fulham and West Ham in November/December. I'll say this was a very good, not great season, but a wonderful job considering the injuries that kept affecting Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres -- my favorite player to watch this season. At the other end, how about Dirk Kuyt. None of the elegance of Torres, but all the heart and work. Once again, the focus for Rafa Benitez is finding a partner for Torres, one that might actually stick around.
* Chelsea (3rd, 83) -- Hmmm...when I look at the table I'm still surprised the Blues were seven points behind United. It might be easy, but chalk it up to Big Phil fizzling out, since after that the Blues were pretty vicious and deadly. Chelsea always remains the most dangerous team because they simply flick away the crap teams like gnats. Depending on the manager, I think it's time to let the Didier Drogba team leave the station. Too much drama. Convince David Villa to come north and turn him loose. I for one missed Joe Cole and his wristbands.
* Arsenal (4th, 72) -- How to spin this one? The forgettable first half? Or the pretty good second? Still, 18 points off first place is pretty close to failure rate at the Emirates. I'm not even going to start to think where Arsene Wenger goes. Me, I'd sell Emmanuel Adebayor and bring in a couple central defenders. The other thing, you have to hope Cesc Fabregas bounces back from what was pretty much a lost season. Either way, we'll all enjoy a full season of Andrei Arshavin bouncing around the penalty area.
* Everton (5th, 63) -- A tip of the cap to David Moyes. How he's able to get blood from a stone continues to amaze. The conundrum for Everton is that across the board they're pretty good and with Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta healthy they can be great, but it's such a fine line. For Everton to make the leap to the next level might be the hardest jump in sports.
* Aston Villa (6th, 62) -- What the hell happened in February. There is shitting the bed and then there is what Aston Villa did. Chalk it up to losing to CSKA Moscow in the UEFA Cup, it's an easy excuse. The problem for Aston Villa -- and the rest of the second tier teams -- they have very good players like Ashley Young, Stilian Petrov, etc. Yet when they get spread out in these European competitions they can't bring on a Ji-Sung Park, for example, to fill in and these players are at the level of greatness like a Ronaldo or a Lampard, etc. where they'll win on pure talent. Still, sixth place is nothing to poo-poo, but after the talk of the Champions League in the fall it feels like a colossal disappointment. Going forward, Martin O'Neill might have to shake things up, a bit, because this team could stagnate. (The Gareth Barry watch starts....now, ugh.)
* Fulham (7th, 53) -- If I gave out grades here, Fulham gets a straight A. It's hard to believe nobody else in Fulham's class of teams has used the Roy Hodgson formuala, which boils down to keeping it simple. A standard starting XI. A pretty straight-forward plan of attack. Two strikers that work well together and a decent tackling midfield. It shouldn't be that hard. What will be hard is retaining Brede Hangeland from Arsenal and figuring out how to roll the dice on Europe. Still, a wonderful season, even for a seventh place finish. Small victories, people.
* Tottenham (8th, 51) -- Team drama ended up with a fairly competent season and if Spurs were on television, I'd be sure to watch. Tottenham have the tools and resources to make a run at the Big Four, but does the club have the mentality or stomach for it? That means the players and the fans. As it turns out a strikeforce of Keane and Defoe isn't too bad, eh? Of course it was Darren Bent's 12 goals that led the way. One other thing, Gomes turned out to be fairly competent in goal. Who knew?
* West Ham (9th, 51) -- Not to cut them short, but somebody had to finish ninth and West Ham did. All season I marveled at how this team could stick in the top half of the table, and I'm still marveling. Must be Gianfranco Zola.
* Manchester City (10th, 50) -- Considering Florentino Perez is probably taking over again at Real Madrid, perhaps a word of caution City fans. Of any sport, soccer players might be the hardest to motivate. A lot of times stupid American sports fans label soccer players flopping prima donnas, well they're not that far off. If City wants to bring in superstar, million-dollar players go for it, but how do they stay motivated with a massive number being deposited into their bank accounts every two weeks? Manager (for now) Mark Hughes seemed to have the right idea with hard-nosed players like Nigel de Jong and Pablo Zabaleta, but will those grinders satiate the Arabian owners, who clearly want 'champagne football'? Let's put it this way. City isn't going to be able to buy a title. If you want to draw comparisons to Chelsea, remember when they won back-to-back titles with Jose Mourinho, it was with pretty drab football, built from the defense out. Put it this way, Robinho might make plenty of nice YouTube clips, but are you winning anything of significance with him?
* Wigan Athletic (11th, 45) -- Brutal, effect, honest and hard working? Yeah, that's pretty much the team Steve Bruce built. The Latics took a hit when they sold off Wilson Palacios to Spurs in January. What happens when Luis Valencia wakes up and realizes he's playing at Wigan this summer? Bruce needs to invest in a striker, or two, because it would appear the Amir Zaki mirage isn't going to return to the desert.
* Stoke City (12th, 45) -- Good at home. Not flashy. Long throws? Stoke somehow built a formula that got results. The season probably changed for the Potters when Ryan Shawcross scored in the 88th minute to start a 2-2 comeback against Aston Villa in early March. In fact it changed the fortunes of each team. Stoke seem to have a solid, if drab, core. How Tony Pulis adds to the squad will likely result in survival or death next season. All and all, another great job from a team most everybody wrote off.
* Bolton (13th, 41) -- In the words of Jay Peterman of 'Seinfeld' fame, "Congratulations Elaine on a job ... done." Bolton seemed to be one of those clubs that was good or bad every other week. Perhaps Bolton had the two most underrated players, or English players, with both Kevin Davies and Matty Taylor each finishing with 10 goals.
* Portsmouth (14, 41) -- Congrats to Paul Hart for somehow steering the Pompey ship to safety. Still, the cracks are starting to show on the club that Redknapp led to FA Cup glory, and a lot of those players probably want to head for greener pastures. I could see Pompey making a couple terrible moves over the summer and really sweating it out next season. Pretty soon the age of David James and Sol Campbell will catch up with them. If I were any club in the world, I'd throw out a lowball offer for Niko Kranjcar.
* Blackburn Rovers (15, 41) -- Another English manager, another miracle. This time it's Sam Allardyce. All you need to know is down the stretch, Blackburn played Chris Samba at central forward...and didn't get relegated. On the bright side for Blackburn -- two matches with Burnley next season and the nice cash from selling Roque Santa Cruz to some other saps.
* Sunderland (16, 36) -- I've kept piling on Sunderland in recent weeks. Why stop now? This team simply got lucky because four other teams were somehow worse than them. Sunderland won three games in all of 2009. Awesome. Here's the thing, chairman Naill Quinn has big ideas and dreams, but doesn't realize no huge difference making stars want to play at Sunderland. The only way to win was with a solid squad that played together. Roy Keane attempted that and quit. Where they go from here? Who knows?
* Hull City (17, 35) -- Darling in September. Lucky bastards in May. Maybe the downfall was the bad karma from the lack of playing time for Dean Windass? In the end this team seemed like it would struggle to get results in the Championship, yet sticks around for another season in the big time. I was always a big fan of Phil Brown's headset. Looks like he has a career in telemarketing when he's inevitably fired sometime next season when Hull struggles and the players tune him out.
* Newcastle United (18th, 34) -- To use the Internet parlance of our times -- FAIL.
* Middlesbrough (19th, 32) -- In short, you can't win if you don't score. At least this finally ends the yearly Stewart Downing transfer talk. Can you say Spurs?
* West Brom (20th, 32) -- Well, if you don't even bother to get a shirt sponsor, well, that doesn't bode well. And it didn't.
Finished reading through all that? Enough typos and spelling mistakes for ya?
Two more quickies.
* Best player -- Frank Lampard. I'm curious why everyone in England hates him. He basically brings it each and every game and is a consistent source of goals from the midfield. Is it because he's not Steven Gerrard? Lampard never gave a cheap game. Yes, he had four goals less than Gerrard, who finished with 16, but I think Lampard was a bit more consistent and stayed healthy.
* Worst player -- While I could have picked just about anyone on Newcastle, the onus falls on Michael Owen, healthy or not. He was counted on to lead the Geordies, instead he ended with eight goals. That's three less than Stoke's Ricardo Fuller. Part of being a great player is staying healthy and Owen was a failure on all fronts this season.
Finally...
One last round of applause for the winning fantasy league team -- Kent Darcy's La Academia, who won going away.
Before wrapping this up. Thanks for stopping by each week. It was fun. Your comments kept me going.
I'll have a Champions League preview up Tuesday night and don't worry, it's a busy summer for the USMNT, which means I'll be busy too.
Adios.
Got up, schlepped over the the local bagel place. Got myself a blueberry bagel and a truly awful coffee and return to my cave to watch the final round of the Premier League season.
The title had already been decided and the race for the EuropaUEFA thing-a-ma-jig between Fulham and Tottenham didn't really set my heart afire.
Instead it was all about the morbid curiosity of who could suck the least (not he most eloquent description, yet apt) between Hull City and Newcastle United.
On the big T.V. it was Hull City -- at home -- trying to get a result of some kind against 11 guys Sir Alex Ferguson plucked off the street, err, the Manchester United reserves. As soon as they put up the team sheet graphic, I wondered aloud -- in a nod to 'Major League' -- who are these fucking guys? (No Japanese, though.)
As commentator Colin pointed out -- how bad exactly is Hull. Their best couldn't, at home no less, get even a draw against Manchester United's third-choice roster.
Congrats are in order since Phil Brown's men -- thanks to a nice run of form at the start of the season stick around for another ride on the Premier League carousel. The team might not be that great and the KC Stadium has rugby lines visible on it, but at least the fans come out to support the team.
Now a couple weeks ago I spilled coffee on my laptop and fried the thing. I got a new one and wasn't aware until Sunday it came with Smell-O-Vision, because the stink from Newcastle United's rotting corpse could be sniffed through the screen of the Setanta feed.
Why bother to heap on the misery of the Magpies, but no less than 10 minutes after Darron Gibson's long-range effort against Hull gave Newcastle United a lifeline, it was over. Gareth Barry's deflected shot off the zombie wearing Damien Duff's leg proved to be the final nail in the coffin.
For the next hour of the match you'd think, stress, think that Newcastle would have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at Aston Villa to try to get a goal that would have ensured safety. Instead, I think maybe the Magpies had like one solid shot -- if that -- on Brad Friedel. Hell, you'd think Alan Shearer would have ripped off his tailored suit and had a full kit on under it to swoop in and save the day with a one-hand salute.
Nope.
Newcastle United went down with a wheeze and a whimper.
That was that, aside from mandatory shots of the pudgy, teary eyed Geordies -- shirts optional.
And with that, the curtain fell on the 2009-10 Premier League season, which I'm still internally debating if it was a good season or not.
If anything, this year further re-enforced the haves and have-nots the the league has created. The 'Big Four' will only get bigger and richer with their Champions League loot, while clubs like Everton, Aston Villa, Tottenham and the flavor of the year such as Fulham (not a disrespect, the Cottagers were maybe the best story of the season) try to hammer away at the exclusive club.
The gulf between the upper class, the struggling middle class and the unwashed poor grew even greater -- perhaps in a reflection of the world at large in the financial crisis. The truly awful clubs this year -- Sunderland, Newcastle, Hull, Middlesbrough, West Brom and the forgettably bad -- Blackburn, Bolton, Portsmouth did nothing to really warrant inclusion in the top flight.
Put it this way, together the three relegated clubs totaled 22 combined wins, which was less than Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool by themselves.
Again, in another real-world comparison, the writing appears on the wall that the Premier League balloon is on the verge of popping. The weird thing is that it might be the other teams -- not the Big Four -- that should force the move -- or they'll go bankrupt trying to keep up. (Hell, even the big boys are buying on credit and have debt floating over their heads.)
Look at Burnley, which won the promotion playoff Monday. The club is in a city of 77,000. The might have one or two fans in Asia, not the millions Manchester United has cultivated. How are the clarets supposed to compete? They could spend the money on players, but look at how much good that did Derby two years ago, or even Hull which got extremely lucky.
How is this team, or others like it, supposed to compete with the billions from the oil-rich Manchester City owners?
Unlike American sports, if you fuck up in England or any other league you're pretty much screwed. You're relegated, and if you're completely clueless on how to run the books you fall from the face of existence.
Is this a game worth playing?
Still, for all that, come August I'll be schlepping down to Village Bagels and placing my order. I just hope by then the coffee is a little better.
End of year stuff
Here's the deal, I started trying to do a best XI team. But stopped midway because it was hard to figure on a formation, since the league's best players all seem to field the same position. Does that make sense? Instead I'm going up and down the table and just jotting some thoughts on each team. Here's my preseason guesses. Be nice, they were bad. (Here's a nice rundown of miscellaneous stuff.)
* Manchester United (1st, 90 points) -- Great offense. Great defense. Great depth. As long as Ronaldo -- even with a less deadly season than last year -- sticks around, the Red Devils are going to be in this spot. How and where Sir Alex fortifies this team will be interesting. The best for a reason.
* Liverpool (2nd, 86) -- The league was lost on back-to-back scoreless draws with Fulham and West Ham in November/December. I'll say this was a very good, not great season, but a wonderful job considering the injuries that kept affecting Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres -- my favorite player to watch this season. At the other end, how about Dirk Kuyt. None of the elegance of Torres, but all the heart and work. Once again, the focus for Rafa Benitez is finding a partner for Torres, one that might actually stick around.
* Chelsea (3rd, 83) -- Hmmm...when I look at the table I'm still surprised the Blues were seven points behind United. It might be easy, but chalk it up to Big Phil fizzling out, since after that the Blues were pretty vicious and deadly. Chelsea always remains the most dangerous team because they simply flick away the crap teams like gnats. Depending on the manager, I think it's time to let the Didier Drogba team leave the station. Too much drama. Convince David Villa to come north and turn him loose. I for one missed Joe Cole and his wristbands.
* Arsenal (4th, 72) -- How to spin this one? The forgettable first half? Or the pretty good second? Still, 18 points off first place is pretty close to failure rate at the Emirates. I'm not even going to start to think where Arsene Wenger goes. Me, I'd sell Emmanuel Adebayor and bring in a couple central defenders. The other thing, you have to hope Cesc Fabregas bounces back from what was pretty much a lost season. Either way, we'll all enjoy a full season of Andrei Arshavin bouncing around the penalty area.
* Everton (5th, 63) -- A tip of the cap to David Moyes. How he's able to get blood from a stone continues to amaze. The conundrum for Everton is that across the board they're pretty good and with Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta healthy they can be great, but it's such a fine line. For Everton to make the leap to the next level might be the hardest jump in sports.
* Aston Villa (6th, 62) -- What the hell happened in February. There is shitting the bed and then there is what Aston Villa did. Chalk it up to losing to CSKA Moscow in the UEFA Cup, it's an easy excuse. The problem for Aston Villa -- and the rest of the second tier teams -- they have very good players like Ashley Young, Stilian Petrov, etc. Yet when they get spread out in these European competitions they can't bring on a Ji-Sung Park, for example, to fill in and these players are at the level of greatness like a Ronaldo or a Lampard, etc. where they'll win on pure talent. Still, sixth place is nothing to poo-poo, but after the talk of the Champions League in the fall it feels like a colossal disappointment. Going forward, Martin O'Neill might have to shake things up, a bit, because this team could stagnate. (The Gareth Barry watch starts....now, ugh.)
* Fulham (7th, 53) -- If I gave out grades here, Fulham gets a straight A. It's hard to believe nobody else in Fulham's class of teams has used the Roy Hodgson formuala, which boils down to keeping it simple. A standard starting XI. A pretty straight-forward plan of attack. Two strikers that work well together and a decent tackling midfield. It shouldn't be that hard. What will be hard is retaining Brede Hangeland from Arsenal and figuring out how to roll the dice on Europe. Still, a wonderful season, even for a seventh place finish. Small victories, people.
* Tottenham (8th, 51) -- Team drama ended up with a fairly competent season and if Spurs were on television, I'd be sure to watch. Tottenham have the tools and resources to make a run at the Big Four, but does the club have the mentality or stomach for it? That means the players and the fans. As it turns out a strikeforce of Keane and Defoe isn't too bad, eh? Of course it was Darren Bent's 12 goals that led the way. One other thing, Gomes turned out to be fairly competent in goal. Who knew?
* West Ham (9th, 51) -- Not to cut them short, but somebody had to finish ninth and West Ham did. All season I marveled at how this team could stick in the top half of the table, and I'm still marveling. Must be Gianfranco Zola.
* Manchester City (10th, 50) -- Considering Florentino Perez is probably taking over again at Real Madrid, perhaps a word of caution City fans. Of any sport, soccer players might be the hardest to motivate. A lot of times stupid American sports fans label soccer players flopping prima donnas, well they're not that far off. If City wants to bring in superstar, million-dollar players go for it, but how do they stay motivated with a massive number being deposited into their bank accounts every two weeks? Manager (for now) Mark Hughes seemed to have the right idea with hard-nosed players like Nigel de Jong and Pablo Zabaleta, but will those grinders satiate the Arabian owners, who clearly want 'champagne football'? Let's put it this way. City isn't going to be able to buy a title. If you want to draw comparisons to Chelsea, remember when they won back-to-back titles with Jose Mourinho, it was with pretty drab football, built from the defense out. Put it this way, Robinho might make plenty of nice YouTube clips, but are you winning anything of significance with him?
* Wigan Athletic (11th, 45) -- Brutal, effect, honest and hard working? Yeah, that's pretty much the team Steve Bruce built. The Latics took a hit when they sold off Wilson Palacios to Spurs in January. What happens when Luis Valencia wakes up and realizes he's playing at Wigan this summer? Bruce needs to invest in a striker, or two, because it would appear the Amir Zaki mirage isn't going to return to the desert.
* Stoke City (12th, 45) -- Good at home. Not flashy. Long throws? Stoke somehow built a formula that got results. The season probably changed for the Potters when Ryan Shawcross scored in the 88th minute to start a 2-2 comeback against Aston Villa in early March. In fact it changed the fortunes of each team. Stoke seem to have a solid, if drab, core. How Tony Pulis adds to the squad will likely result in survival or death next season. All and all, another great job from a team most everybody wrote off.
* Bolton (13th, 41) -- In the words of Jay Peterman of 'Seinfeld' fame, "Congratulations Elaine on a job ... done." Bolton seemed to be one of those clubs that was good or bad every other week. Perhaps Bolton had the two most underrated players, or English players, with both Kevin Davies and Matty Taylor each finishing with 10 goals.
* Portsmouth (14, 41) -- Congrats to Paul Hart for somehow steering the Pompey ship to safety. Still, the cracks are starting to show on the club that Redknapp led to FA Cup glory, and a lot of those players probably want to head for greener pastures. I could see Pompey making a couple terrible moves over the summer and really sweating it out next season. Pretty soon the age of David James and Sol Campbell will catch up with them. If I were any club in the world, I'd throw out a lowball offer for Niko Kranjcar.
* Blackburn Rovers (15, 41) -- Another English manager, another miracle. This time it's Sam Allardyce. All you need to know is down the stretch, Blackburn played Chris Samba at central forward...and didn't get relegated. On the bright side for Blackburn -- two matches with Burnley next season and the nice cash from selling Roque Santa Cruz to some other saps.
* Sunderland (16, 36) -- I've kept piling on Sunderland in recent weeks. Why stop now? This team simply got lucky because four other teams were somehow worse than them. Sunderland won three games in all of 2009. Awesome. Here's the thing, chairman Naill Quinn has big ideas and dreams, but doesn't realize no huge difference making stars want to play at Sunderland. The only way to win was with a solid squad that played together. Roy Keane attempted that and quit. Where they go from here? Who knows?
* Hull City (17, 35) -- Darling in September. Lucky bastards in May. Maybe the downfall was the bad karma from the lack of playing time for Dean Windass? In the end this team seemed like it would struggle to get results in the Championship, yet sticks around for another season in the big time. I was always a big fan of Phil Brown's headset. Looks like he has a career in telemarketing when he's inevitably fired sometime next season when Hull struggles and the players tune him out.
* Newcastle United (18th, 34) -- To use the Internet parlance of our times -- FAIL.
* Middlesbrough (19th, 32) -- In short, you can't win if you don't score. At least this finally ends the yearly Stewart Downing transfer talk. Can you say Spurs?
* West Brom (20th, 32) -- Well, if you don't even bother to get a shirt sponsor, well, that doesn't bode well. And it didn't.
Finished reading through all that? Enough typos and spelling mistakes for ya?
Two more quickies.
* Best player -- Frank Lampard. I'm curious why everyone in England hates him. He basically brings it each and every game and is a consistent source of goals from the midfield. Is it because he's not Steven Gerrard? Lampard never gave a cheap game. Yes, he had four goals less than Gerrard, who finished with 16, but I think Lampard was a bit more consistent and stayed healthy.
* Worst player -- While I could have picked just about anyone on Newcastle, the onus falls on Michael Owen, healthy or not. He was counted on to lead the Geordies, instead he ended with eight goals. That's three less than Stoke's Ricardo Fuller. Part of being a great player is staying healthy and Owen was a failure on all fronts this season.
Finally...
One last round of applause for the winning fantasy league team -- Kent Darcy's La Academia, who won going away.
Before wrapping this up. Thanks for stopping by each week. It was fun. Your comments kept me going.
I'll have a Champions League preview up Tuesday night and don't worry, it's a busy summer for the USMNT, which means I'll be busy too.
Adios.
Labels: Monday recaps, Premier League, Soccer
Joe Cole's wrist bands > NBA headbans.
Any analysis of Italy or Spain or Germany coming? As much as I've followed English football since, damn, before the Internets, it's becoming too predictable. That Big Four $ is just too great for well over half of the table to ever compete with on even a semi-equal level. Plus, I like your writing...
And Burnley? Burnley? Well, good luck to 'em.
The biggest winner for me has to be Fulham as well. Great play by most of the team the entire season. (Wigan's did well for half the season in this role [albeit with ugly play] as well.)
Trouble for next season: Hull City and Sunderland just stink!
Take care, Kent
I am a Fulham fan and this season is about the best possible outcome. Hodgson was great and the team did what it had to do. The final-day joy of staying up last season was euphoric but this year is more a feeling of satisfaction. Seeing NUFC make every 'wrong' decision makes me smile when I think of 'my' club.
That being said - how does it getter from here for Fulham? Are they going to have the quality to stay in the top seven next season? Will they have the depth to field a decent team in the Europa League?
I can certainly be accused of cynicism and negativity. Why dwell on that stuff when the Cottagers just finished such a great season? A year ago they were ready to taste Coca Cola - I should be cheerier.
Keeping Hangeland is gonna be job one this summer. Job two will be bring in a bit more 'spark' and attacking magic. Bullard provided that kind of quality that could, at times, turn a loss into a draw or a draw into a win during the kind of close, defensive matches that Hodgson favored. Don't get me wrong, selling Bullard along to Hull was a genius move by Hodgson. The Cottagers now need one or two players who might do something special in attack but won't forget their place in the team structure (the aforementioned Rocky Dennis) and earn Hodgson's ire.
Fulham are miles and miles behind the top four and "only" miles behind the teams in 5/6 spots - Everton and Villa. I would put Tottenham (as ever) in that group just outside the CL teams. Can Fulham legitimately break into that group that hovers above mid-table? They made it this year, let's hope they make it a regular feature. THEN we can start whining about how we need a new stadium if we want to really compete with the big boys. Maybe we could rack up some stupid debt to overpay for a fading striker from Italy...
Told you I was cynical. Great season for Fulham, and lets hope they try and build sloooowly. And they keep the Norwegian.
Just wanted to say thanks for the great blog. I check by a few times each week and you're one of my top sources for football news and analysis. Keep up the great work. Cheers!