Monday 14 May 2007

How was it for you?

JJ here,

And now, the end is near… oh wait, it’s over. Shit, what am I supposed to do with my weekends now? Watch swimming or rallying on Grandstand? Oh the humanity.

Right anyway, you’ll be picking over the season reviews in today’s papers and they’re all choosing their highlights and lowlights from the Premiership (here’s the excellent Paul Wilson and the big-haired David James doing so for starters: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/05/13/force_of_fergie_pain_of_pardew.html ), so why don’t we.

Here’s my picks, all routine categories. Send on your folks.

Best Player: Paul Scholes.
Never liked him due to the shirt he wears but he has been amazing this season. His goal against Villa during Christmas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwJjcvg3rIg ) was a lesson in how to hit a ball.

Best Team: Man U
Coped with the loss of Van Nistelrooy by changing their style of play to suit Ronaldo. His 23 goals followed and they became as unbearably brilliant as they’ve been in a decade.

Best Game: West Ham 3 - 4 Spurs, March 07
Absolute classic, how West Ham survived after this horrible, horrible loss is amazing. Tevez began to show his class and got his first goal for the home side with a great free kick to put them two-nil ahead (the highlights have been taken down from Daily Motion, the bastards). Then it went to 2-2, before Zamora headed in an 85th minute goal from a Tevez free. A Berbatov free 90 seconds later and a Paul Stalteri finish five minutes into injury time got Spurs all three points. What. A. Game. You can shove your Grand Slam Sundays up your arse.

Best Buy: Carlos Tevez
My ‘Tevez for Liverpool’ bandwagon has begun in earnest. Legalities aside, he kept them in the league, what more do you want?

Most Improved Player: Patrice Evra
From pure shite last year to being the best left back in England; a huge turnaround.

Young Player of the Year: Daniel Agger
After a rocky start Agger has filled the boots of Sami Hyppia brilliantly. Great shot on him and will only get better. With Alonso having a slow season he should probably be regarded as Benitez’s best buy so far.

Best Pundit: Johnny Giles
Despite the obsession with ‘moral courage’ he talks sense in a field dominated by jokers and morons.

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Worst Player: Cashley Cole
There’s probably some folk who performed worse but this maggot of a human being isn’t fit to tie Wayne Bridge’s boots. Somehow regarded as world class. Explain please.

Worst Team: Watford
The logical choice. Awful football all season. Honourable mention for Man City who were truly horrendous as well.

Worst Game: Man City v Watford, Dec 06
Surprised? Of course not. This 0-0 draw is the worst game I’ve seen in years, never mind this season. Anyone who complained about the Chelsea v Liverpool matches should sit through this and see what bad football really looks like.

Worst Buy: Andriy Shevchenko
Who else could it be? Upset the balance of the side that had won the league two years on the trot. Want evidence? Ahem… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJaRJe-pT8c

Least Impressive Young Player of the Year: Anton Ferdinand
It would be harsh to give it to Chelsea’s Kalou as this was his first season in the league but Ferdinand’s descent from quality to calamity marks him out. A headless chicken; a rabbit in the headlights; choose your description but frankly he was appalling all year.

Least Improved Player: James Beattie
A waste of a great deal of space and proof that while David Moyes can get things very right at times, he can also get things very, very wrong. Per Kroldrup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_Kr%C3%B8ldrup ) is yet more evidence of this.

Worst Pundit: Alan Shearer
Ah, how to pick from all the jokers and morons? Well considering his contract with the BBC is so large, Shearer has to get it above Redknapp and the inconsequential Gavin Peacock. Talks nonsense week in week out and does so with a disgracefully smug look on his face; a look that will only be wiped away when he messes up the Newcastle job in a few years time. Can anyone tell me a good point he has made? Anyone?

Well folks, your thoughts?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'll post my thoughts later, but
scholes - no
man u - yes
best game - yes but pool 0 man u 1 was great in its own way :)
best buy - mccarthy for value and goals, tevez didn't score until march. but yea he did keep them up.
most improved player - ronaldo, too much trickery last season, not enough goals or end product. like a different player this season, even if he is a big game bottler
young player - fabregas
worst player - ooijer
worst team - watford

Mr C said...

Best Player: Michael Essien- Regardless of Chelsea's millions, without Essien's verve and determination, the season would have finished much earlier. Lampard has been increasingly attacked for his lacklustre performances for the national side and I honestly believe the same would happen if he didn't need to match the running and hard work of Essien to avoid the ire of Jose and the fan base.

Best Team: Man U- Better style of football then Chelsea. Fewer cunts.

Best Game: Bolton 0 - 4 Man Utd: The former bogey team put to the sword, underlining the change from previous seasons. Nice to see Allardyce's bemusement as his cynical XI were taken to the cleaners by a side playing proper football.

Best Buy: Dimitar Berbatov- So many great goals. Deft touches, good in the air and brilliant finisher. The best Andy Garcia look-alike Spurs will ever sign.

Most Improved Player: Mark Viduka. He's still a shit but he's also suddenly reminded the Premiership of just how class he is when he feels like it. Might have the pace of a gravestone but his finishing in the area kept Southgate in the job. Far too good for Boro.

Young Player of the Year: David Bentley- Crosses the ball well, runs all game, good(ish) finisher. Wenger selling him and buying Hleb may well be one of his few mistakes at Arsenal.

Best Pundit: Gavin Peacock (no, really). No clichés or shit jokes, just makes sense. We don't get Giles, Brady and co. so I don't know what I'm missing out on. Saying this, putting Lineker in the same room as Dunphy would be priceless.
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Worst Player: Andy Johnson. Its one thing to be brave and run at players with the ball, its another thing to rely on this to earn you penalties to score from as your only means of scoring goals bar the odd tap-in. Its also easy to refer to yourself as a international class footballer. Failing to score against Andorra after saying this tends to make you look like a bit of a dick.

Worst Team: Bolton. People fail to understand my hatred of Big Sam and his 'team'. Besides their cynical, boring football and deluded opinions of their standing, they have taken to employing some of the most loathsome footballers around. El-Hadji Diouf anyone?

Worst Game: Chelsea - Man Utd: Boring, boring, boring. Irrelevant fixture and upcoming FA cup final or not, people paid £50 to attend that game so at least try to look interested.

Worst Buy: Shevchenko. Tries hard and undeniably world class but playing under a system and a league he isn't used to. May well go down as the biggest turkey of this and any other season.

Least Impressive Young Player of the Year: Theo Walcott. He's clearly very good but didn't justify the hype.

Least Improved Player: Paulo Ferreira. The sight of him being beaten time and time again by Bolo Zenden in the second leg of the champions league sums him up. Bought for £13,000,000 three years ago. Yet to cross the halfway line.

Worst Pundit: Mark Lawrenson. He's not funny or astute. Being a wanker with a sizeable medal collection doesn't guarantee insight

Unknown said...

Good choices for the most part lads but don’t think Fabregas deserves any great credit for this year or Walcott too much criticism. Next year is the one to judge the latter while the little Spaniard has wayward shooting that makes Frank Lampard’s World Cup look positively brilliant.

I picked Scholes as, unlike Rooney, he hasn’t had a patchy season and, unlike Ronaldo, he’s not Ronaldo.

Essien would have won this hands down but he has been used disgracefully by Chelsea. Right back, centre back, donkey for Fat Frank even though he’s ten times the player. Mourinho can talk shite about a team bond all he likes but he’s operating a galactico system at the moment. Will he sort it next season? There’s a lot to fix at that club so it’ll be the biggest achievement of his career so far if he does.