Premier League Awards 2016/17

Yes this is a bit late and you’ve already read everyone else’s summation of the Premier League season by now, but time is money, and nobody pays me shit for this. But these are always fun to do and read, to see the opinions of other people and compare notes. So indulge me a little, why don’t you?

It was another thrilling season in England, even though it all came to an end a bit soon and we were left with a fairly non-descript final day of the season, with very little to play for.

Still there were plenty of talking points to come from the season, and in the interest of fairness to every club in the division, I shall be dividing up these awards into one for the top six, and one for the rest of the league. Poor Everton, I honestly had no idea which section to put you in initially. But you end up in the rest for this season.

 

TEAM/MANAGER OF THE SEASON

Top Six – Chelsea/Antonio Conte

Not a bad start to life in England for Conte

Some might put these as two categories, but I fail to see why you would treat manager and team performance as separate things as they are somewhat co-dependent. Some might have fancied Spurs to edge this award as their ‘success’ was far less expected than that of Chelsea, but Conte’s achievements have been fantastic in his first season in English football.

This was a largely similar squad last season finished down in tenth and was in all sorts of disarray. Conte deserves credit not only for turning around the fortunes of these players, helping them rediscover their form, but realising that changes could and should be made and simply implementing them with little fuss.

He changed English football’s way of thinking from insisting on a flat-back-four, with his switch to a back three system helping Chelsea overcome a shaky start to go on a 13-game winning run, which essentially had the title wrapped up by the turn of the year, regardless of how game Tottenham’s pursuit of them was.

The Rest – Bournemouth/Eddie Howe

Eddie Howe enhanced his burgeoning this reputation this season

There was often little to choose between the remainder of the teams in the division, given they all had runs in the season where things were good, and then a subsequent slide down the table. Everton basically matched expectations to be the bridge between the two, Southampton managed top-half again, but were largely uninspiring, and West Brom (the runaway winners of this award for a while) simply hit 40 points and we went back to forgetting about them.

Bournemouth by no means had a fantastic season, but a final position in the top-half, despite many (including myself) worrying that second-season-syndrome would kick in and relegation could be in the offing.

With key players repeatedly being laid low with major injuries and results faltering, that fate did look a distinct possibility at one point, but Howe marshalled a still relatively inexperienced team at this level away from danger and led the side to their finest ever league finish. You can’t say fairer than that.

 

PLAYER OF THE SEASON

Top Six – N’golo Kante (Chelsea)

The best player in the Premier League. Another sterling season for Kante

The choice between pundits was between Kante and Eden Hazard for the gong, but I’ll plump with the majority and go for the little French midfielder, who was the difference for Chelsea and has won back-to-back titles with different clubs, which is impressive on its own.

His energy has allowed the likes of Hazard to focus on wreaking havoc in attacking positions instead of being coaxed into defensive duties, and helped improve the previously flagging performances of Nemanja Matic.

Plus, his arrival was probably key in John Obi Mikel no longer playing Premier League football anymore. These are always things to be celebrated.

The Rest – Romelu Lukaku (Everton)

It is surely a matter of time until Lukaku ends up at a top club

I wouldn’t call it a cop out. You might, but I wouldn’t, as Lukaku has not just continued to motor along at a level that is honestly beneath him, but improved his record and reputation even further by enjoying his finest ever goal-scoring season.

Goals may not be everything and he still has plenty of detractors wondering if his all-round game is yet good enough for the move up he clearly so desperately craves, but 25 goals is not an easy tally to record in the Premier League and he would have claimed the Golden Boot were it not for the crazy late-season form of Harry Kane.

Lukaku was the standout player of the sides outside of the top six. How long that is the case remains to be seen.

 

MOST IMPROVED

Top Six – Ander Herrera (Manchester United)

Captain in shithousery. Future captain of Man Utd?

Sure some might call for Christian Eriksen at this point, but it’s only this season that people have actually begun to notice how much he does for this Spurs team. Plus as a fan, I’m far more aware of what he has been doing, so he’s just motoring along just nicely for me.

Instead I’ve gone for Herrera, who has gone from popular yet flawed midfielder struggling to hold down a place under Louis van Gaal, to being probably the most important player in this Manchester United team.

Having been underappreciated by management staff since his arrival from Athletic Bilbao, Jose Mourinho has seen him as the ideal partner to help Paul Pogba shine – only to complete outshine his more illustrious teammate.

He might be an awful shithouse of a player for fans of the opposition and his tendency to flop to the ground does grate somewhat. But you can’t knock what he’s doing in general and try to enjoy the other, more pleasing aspects of a game that has come on leaps and bounds.

The Rest – Joshua King (Bournemouth)

King’s improvement have seen him linked with a big move

No contest here, as quite frankly this time last year, I had serious doubts about Josh King making a long-term career as a Premier League footballer, with the inkling being he would be more at home in the Championship.

Even a few months into the season I could have been forgiven for harbouring that point of view as he struggled to break into the first-team at Bournemouth, but once he took his chance, he really broke into a fine footballer.

Nobody doubted his desire or his running, but there seemed to be an issue with the final ball, the final pass and for an attacking player his returns previously were just not good enough to warrant a regular place in a top flight side.

This season it all appears to have come together for him and a leap from six to 16 Premier League goals is a testament to the work he has done away from the pitch. Plus a man with such a basic English name being a Norwegian international can only make you more endearing.

 

BEST SIGNING

Top Six – Victor Wanyama (Tottenham Hotspur)

Wanyama’s success at Spurs has surprised a lot of people

“No Kante? But you made him your player of the season!” I hear you cry. But I’m not on board for the same player winning two awards, and this is my page and I’ll do what I want. So there.

Anyhoo, Wanyama’s arrival at Spurs was met with very little fanfare really, more an acknowledgement that he would be a useful addition to the Tottenham squad with the added burden of Champions League football and Eric Dier having been quite frankly run into the ground over the course of the previous campaign and European Championships with England.

So few people expected Wanyama to essentially oust Dier from a midfield spot he had suddenly looked extremely comfortable in, with many at Spurs putting the Kenyan powerhouse among their star performers throughout an impressive season that saw many steal the headlines.

At just a reported £9m, Wanyama was nearly a third of the price of Kante, and was just as important to another side that exceeded expectations to leave the Manchester clubs in their wake, despite all pre-season talk of the title heading back up north.

Acknowledgements to Sadio Mane and Zlatan Ibrahimovic who certainly exceeded expectations as well, but it’s Wanyama who gets the nod here.

The Rest – Joe Allen (Stoke City)

Allen continued his good form over from Euro 2016 with Stoke

I really wish I could bend my rules and include January signings. But they only played half a season, so I can only apologise for not including Wilfred Ndidi or Kamil Grosicki. This goes double, because the summer transfer window last year was tragically bad, making it rather difficult to pick a winner for this ‘award’.

There’s a sense that if some of the sides in the division hadn’t twisted so much last summer, we may not have been talking about half the division as serious relegation candidates at some point in the season. Because there was an awful lot of crap signed, and for a lot of money as well.

Fernando Llorente did fairly well, but annoyed people for not sprinting much. Christian Benteke finished with a decent tally for Palace, but yet we still expected more from him. Few others jumped out.

So it’s Joe Allen that wins this one. Humble upon arriving with that price tag despite never really impressing at Liverpool, with his stock boosted once more by an impressive showing at the Euros with Wales.

He did pretty well, became an integral part of a Stoke side a lot of us forgot were in the Premier League and improved his goal-scoring record. Hilariously, only Peter Crouch scored more goals for the Potters this season. Allen even got a brace in one game.

 

WORST SIGNING

Top Six – Shkodran Mustafi (Arsenal)

We thought Mustafi would be a big player for Arsenal. We were wrong

Remember how I mentioned last summer’s transfer activity was a bit rubbish? This goes for the top six as well, with a gluttony of candidates available for this. Claudio Bravo, John Stones, Vincent Janssen, Moussa Sissoko, Michy Batshuayi, the list goes on. This is just the ‘bad’ ones, let alone those that just didn’t live up to expectations.

While many would expect Sissoko to win this, there was always a sense that he was brought in to bolster an already strong squad, replacing Nacer Chadli more than any first-team regular.

Mustafi on the other hand was supposed to – along with the equally disappointing Granit Xhaka – be the final works in the Arsenal puzzle, the expesive, established stars that bounced them into a serious title tilt, with the gold up for grabs following Leicester’s unexpected success.

Finally a competent partner for Laurent Koscielny had arrived in the form of Mustafi. Well, that was the thinking anyway, as the German was cumbersome, clumsy, slow and just looked all over the place as Arsenal’s defence looked worse, not better for his arrival.

For £35m, you expect so much better. You at least expect him to not end the season potentially as fourth choice, with youngster Rob Holding and the returning Per Mertesacker looking far more composed at the back for the Gunners.

The Rest – Ahmed Musa (Leicester City)

It has not gone well for Musa at Leicester. Pitifully bad, in fact

The first signal of Leicester’s intent to not simply slip away into the pack once again after their shock title win. Also the first signal as to why they did.

Musa was the first player Leicester broke their transfer record to sign last summer. Islam Slimani came next, another striker in a team with a couple of stars already in their attack, with Shinzi Okazaki hardly disgracing himself either. So you already you wondered how things were going to fit together.

Slimani at least grabbed a handful of goals when he managed to be fit, but Musa on the other hand was an unmitigated let-down. Like, to the point where you forgot he was even there come the end of the season. Never before has a black player wished they were back in Russia.

 

YOUNG PLAYER

Top Six – Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur)

When will Alli get a challenge for this award? He should be a shining example

We all know how good Dele Alli is. We all know what a good season he had. Want to know why he won this? Because no other young player was quite frankly given anything that could be deemed a regular chance.

Gabriel Jesus may well be fantastic when he gets a full season behind him, and Hector Bellerin could well get back to his previous levels, but there are very few opportunities being offered to young players of any nationality, let alone English.

The success of England’s under 19s at the World Cup will hopefully lead to change, but with all the money going round in the game, clubs are always more likely to sign established stars than give a youngster a chance. They will keep signing promising kids, loan them out a tonne and eventually they’ll be able to toddle off somewhere in their 20s, failing to have kicked on and disillusioned with a nomadic lifestyle and a lack of chances at the place that was supposed to be home.

The Rest – Tom Davies (Everton)

Davies is evidence of what can happen when faith is put in youth

It’s not just the money men by the way. The rest of the division is not much better for giving young players a chance, with only a couple of clubs seeming like a place to be given that chance to impress in the Premier League.

Southampton have developed a reputation for it, and Everton have also thankfully taken it upon themselves to give their impressive academy a chance to shine, with Tom Davies being the pick of the bunch.

The youngster has taken to life as a Premier League regular like a duck to water, pouring shame on Ross Barkley in the process. Davies looks comfortable and willing to kick on, with a number of Everton fans now happy to see Barkley moved on if it means Davies can be the main man driving forward from the midfield.

Alfie Mawson deserves a mention as well, but frankly the pool is still far too small to choose from. Given the disaster of last season’s transfer window, it is perhaps more pertinent to look to the academies for ways to improve the squads.

Women’s Game Needs To Progress To Five Sets – Because They Can

It’s been a constant rumbling within the world of tennis over the best part of a decade: Why won’t the sport pay equally for both men and women in major tournaments? Why does gender make a difference to the rewards handed out come the end of the tournament which requires the same amount of matches to emerge victorious?

The answer for most has been a basically simple one; when they play five-set matches at majors, then they can expect to earn the same as their male counterparts.

To a certain point, you can understand that view. If you don’t put in the same amount of work, you shouldn’t expect the same rewards, regardless of whether they actually have any say in it or not.

 

For it’s hardly like female tennis players have simply refused to play five-set matches, for they have never been given a choice in the matter. It has never gone to a vote to my knowledge and no female tennis player has publicly stated that they would be unwilling to move to five sets for a major, emulating the males on the tour.

So what exactly is stopping the LTA from allowing women to play five set matches? I wouldn’t fancy it to necessarily be a scheduling issue, as it would be easily possible to move some matches around, playing a few extra games on outside courts.

And surely in this day and age, it cannot be because they believe women are incapable of playing matches of such length, because that is utter nonsense. That earlier stated view is seen by some as a sexist attitude, but the stance of tennis authorities that women are unable to compete for a potential five hours and their matches don’t have the same draw as the men.

Women’s football is played at the same duration as the men. Why not tennis?

Few other sports holds women back in the same way. Female footballers play the full 90 minutes, those playing cricket play the full 50 overs in their one-day internationals. Laura Trott is now one of Great Britain’s most successful ever athletes competing in the same event as others that have excelled. Even WWE have dropped their sexist attitude towards women, having them perform in some the more dangerous matches and headlining their main events, a vast change from the pillow fights they put them in a decade ago.

The reasoning is that it isn’t simply a case of female tennis players needing to ‘earn their equality’. These are all supreme athletes in peak physical condition, more than capable of going the same distance as their male counterparts.

At the end of a match that goes to three sets, it is very rare that you will see the competitors come off looking exhausted, collapsing into the handshake as you do see the men come the conclusion of a gruelling five-setter. Daria Gavrilova’s victory over Naomi Broady at the Australian Open on Tuesday was a pulsating three-setter that was tight in every set, but both were able to jog up to the net

There is clearly so much more energy left in the tank that they could go on longer. Sure those one-sided matches that occur at times could be stretched out even longer for a demoralised loser, but this also could see them having more of a chance of recovering from dropping a set, as opposed to the current climate that leaves them one set away from being out of the competition.

Gavrilova defeated Broady in a pulsating three-set match and looked like she still had plenty in reserve.

This in turn loses then respect as competitors, their accomplishments diminished by the men they play alongside. All achievements are met with musings of ‘what if?’ as though there could still be more they can do to win your adulation.

Serena Williams has been one of the most dominant athletes in history, but for this reason she has often not received the respect she deserves for her accomplishments. She is obviously more than capable of going to five set matches, or perhaps she may find more of a challenge, should any opponents be more suited to a longer game.

 

The women’s game needs to be moved to five sets for major tournaments, to mirror the efforts of the men’s game. Not because they need to play the same amount as men to be deemed worthy of equal prize money; but because they are more than capable of doing so.

The women’s game would benefit massively from switching to that format for major events, giving them greater exposure and a chance to be viewed equally, perhaps promoting women’s sport even further than transformations in football and cricket have, putting them on a pedestal that perhaps only major athletics events can.

This isn’t simply a case of money anymore. It is athletes at the peak of their physical powers being given the freedom to display those talents on the biggest of stages. That is the main reason to elongate women’s tennis to five sets. They’ve definitely ‘earned’ that right.

 

Thoughts on the progression of women’s tennis? Get involved in the comments section below!

Frustrated At The Focus On Goals Alone

This has been very much a fascinating season in the Premier League, with goals aplenty being fired in to raise the excitement levels at both the top and bottom of the table.

There may be no surprise package like Leicester City this season, but the gap separating the top six sides in the division stands at just ten points at the time of writing, with each one having enjoyed spells of playing fine football and scoring freely.

Goals are a major part of football of course. Without goals, teams don’t win games and therefore don’t win titles. And yet there seems to be an even bigger affinity towards goals and goalscorers than ever, with the currency of definitive strikes earning players more plaudits than they necessarily deserve.

 

Defenders for instance appear to gain far more credence for their contributions at the other end of the pitch, than for doing their job in preventing the goals going in at the other end of the pitch.

For instance, Nathan Ake was tipped to become a roaring success when he returns to Chelsea next season, touted for a first-team berth after scoring twice in three games. These goals came in Bournemouth’s thrilling 4-3 victory over Liverpool and their defeat to Southampton, and marks an impressive achievement for a defender to score in such regular fashion.

The point however is that Bournemouth conceded three times in both of those matches. Despite Ake giving some extra impetus to the attacking ranks going forward, he was also part of a defence that shipped six goals in 180 minutes. Yet Ake was being talked about as potentially forcing his way into a Chelsea defence that was already into their extraordinary run of victories, with an incredibly lean defensive record at the heart of that.

Nathan Ake to walk into this current Chelsea team? Please…

Virgil van Dijk is another who has benefitted from an impressive record in front of goal, which his prowess earning him links to the majority of the top clubs in England, should he look to leave Southampton.

While he has always proved competent at the back as well, it was not until he started scoring goals as well that those rumours arose. An article written after The Saints’ recent 4-1 home defeat to Tottenham Hotspur claimed van Dijk’s stock had risen after scoring the opener, absolving from any blame for the following capitulation against a side who had a less than stellar record away from home this season.

It was not until he had managed the ultimate disgrace by being sent off late on in the next home defeat to West Brom that he was finally called out on a poor run of form, with Charlie Nicholas freed of the shackles of praise to criticise his recent performances. His display against Spurs saw him easily beaten to the ball by Dele Alli for Spurs’ equaliser, before a dreadful waft of a leg during Victor Wanyama’s surge into the box saw fellow centre-back Jose Fonte forced into a last-ditch block.

Defenders who rarely score seem to receive less praise than those more successful at the other end of the pitch, with the likes of Cesar Azpilicueta, Jan Vertonghen and even Ragnar Klavan overlooked for their performances this campaign.

Would Van Dijk be as highly rated without the regular goals?

It’s not just defenders who are able to paper over cracks with goals however. The aforementioned Alli has perhaps avoided censure for some of his displays this season due to his ability to pop up with a goal every now and then. He has perhaps not been as creative as some of his fellow attacking midfielders however, with even Harry Kane creating more chances this season.

Paul Pogba likewise was receiving heavy criticism until he started finding the back of the net, with only goals deemed worthy of ‘paying back the transfer fee’. It feels ridiculous that no successful passes, tackles or simple positional awareness is worthy of being considered fiscally appropriate, despite those all being important parts of midfielder’s job.

Then you come to the propensity of pundits and co-commentators to simply pick goalscorers as their winners of the Man of the Match award, frequently referring them to having ‘turned the game’ with their goal, essentially picking a moment of the match, as opposed to somebody who has enjoyed 90 minutes of all-round play.

One instance that sticks in the memory (sorry Saints fans, I don’t mean to pick on you) was Southampton’s 3-0 victory over West Ham this season, in which the co-commentator gave the award to Charlie Austin, despite claiming he barely touched the ball in the opening 40 minutes before his opener. Despite players like Oriol Romeu, Ryan Bertrand and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg distinctly enjoying superior games, it was the one stick out moment for that particular pundit (name escapes me) and the opening scorer was given the award.

 

As stated, goals are important to win football matches and I would never knock any player for scoring goals and aiding their team’s efforts to win a game.

However there are many different facets to winning a game of football and goals are just one part of it. Too much attention is solely paid to that part of things, allowing many players to paper over the cracks in their game by merely contributing to that final 5% of the match.

 

Share the same views? Or vary from that passionately? Feel free to add your comments below!