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Premiership 2010/11 Round-up

I'm out of breath. What an amazing day to round up a fantastic season of Premier League football. Remember, we still have until the 30th May to cry over no football for a couple of months thanks to the ever-so-tense play off final bank holiday weekend.

A record breaking Premiership season which has seen the most goals in a 38-game season and Man. United winning their 19th top flight title making them the most successful English team in history.

I was at my University's radio station Storm FM's studio presenting my usual sports show with Adam, Drew and Nick. We all had a laugh, thinking we were the next Jeff, Paul, Matt, Phil and Charlie in Soccer Saturday saying the frequent "ooh's" and "ahh's". Well, having said that Nick wasn't laughing in the end as his beloved Blackpool were relegated back to second tier of English football.

We're all going to miss Blackpool. Yes, their stadium isn't considered Premiership standard as they can only fit 16,000 in there but they put up a good fight. They started the season at the top of the league with a 4-0 win for a few hours before Chelsea beat West Brom 6-0 and claimed top spot.

It is impressive that they scored 55 goals yet we see them in the Championship next season, despite conceding the most goals in the league. As I said, they were entertaining but the critics from the start who said they were going down got it right. I do give them a lot of sympathy. I also give a lot of sympathy to West Ham as well as I genuinely thought they were going to stay up this season but now with Avram Grant gone, they have an opportunity to start fresh and hope to return to top flight by the end of the next season.

Birmingham City confirmed their relegation today. The current Carling Cup winners have to play in the Europa League and the nPower Championship. It reminds me of Millwall when they were in the FA Cup final, 2004 losing to Man. United. They competed in the UEFA Cup. Brum being in Europe will be great as they will represent the second tier and show the world that this division can be at times, equally as entertaining as the Premiership.

It will be interesting how Carson Yeung, Birmingham's owner will react to their relegation. Will Alex McLeish leave the club and go for the Celtic job if Neil Lennon leaves Celtic Park? Wouldn't surprise me if he goes back to Scotland but if he does leave Birmingham, people will not remember him as the man who put City back to second tier.

Before their final day clash with Stoke City, Wigan Athletic were almost certain to relegate but in the last three matches, they showed real determination and desire and defeated West Ham and Stoke, two great teams. I have to praise Roberto Martinez. He may be a Spaniard but his soul belongs to Wigan and I think he is once again their hero. If Swansea City beat Reading in the Championship play-off final next Monday, he will be torn by who to support. If you all remember, he was captain and managed the Swans from League Two to the Championship.

Some people focused on Blackburn's clash with Wolverhampton as both of these teams could have gone down. Wolves in fact were in the bottom three when Blackpool were leading Man. United at the break, 2-1. Mick McCarthy's team were almost dead and buried and relied heavily on Sir Alex Ferguson's team to hit back at Blackpool - which they did with ease. I'm glad for Mick. He is another coach who I think is absolutely brilliant and a great ambassador for football.

Breaking News: Carlo Ancelotti has departed as Chelsea manager.

Ouch. I'm devastated for Carlo. I doubted him from the start when he was first appointed back in summer 2009 but after Chelsea performed exceptionally under him last season, I thought he was brilliant. This season, we did well, but not as well as we would have hoped. The performance against 10-man Everton today was a shambles and unfortunately all the blame goes to the manager. Losing nine matches is not good enough and in other seasons, that would be a Europa League place rather than 2nd. Thank goodness as far as Chelsea are concerned, they won a significant amount. I wish him the very best of luck in the future and hope he doesn't leave the Premiership in a hurry. Rumours have been spreading that he could be the next Aston Villa coach, replacing the unwell Gerard Houllier. As much as I don't want to see Houllier go but he has to put his health first.

Manchester United won the title for the 19th time, overtaking Liverpool's 18. The Red Devil's performances haven't been perfect, but their home record won it for them. They won every match at Old Trafford apart from their 2-2 draw against West Brom. That surely deserves the title, as much as it pains for me to say it! Berbatov is joined goalscorer with Manchester City's Carlos Tevez with 21 goals, both players unsure about their future at their clubs. Rumours suggest that both could make exits to Spain.

Man. City finished third. Amazing acheivement considering all the stick they've been getting over their spending. Only nine points behind their bitter rivals is brilliant, and the praise has to be given to Roberto Mancini. He spent a shed load but money buys success. FA Cup winners and one of the favourites to win the Premiership next year, Man. City are now the team to fear.

You thought Chelsea's season was frustrating, think again. Arsenal have to wait for another year to win silverware after finishing 4th. Back in Feburary/March, they were right behind Man. United. Ferguson's team were getting a little agitated as the Gunners were breathing at the back of their necks. Defeats to the likes of Bolton and losing too many points at the end was just a stab in the back for them. Their season started to falter after that Carling Cup final failure at Wembley against Birmingham. Arsene Wenger needs to consider different tactics and fast. Critics are starting to discredit him which is a shame after he's done so much for the club.

Tottenham finished 4th last year, but this time around they missed out on a Champions League place by just six points. Manager Harry Redknapp should be proud of his team's acheivements. I didn't expect them to reach the quarter finals of Europe's biggest football competition, despite being trounced by Real Madrid. They should take great pride for this season's success and overtaking Liverpool - again.

Them and Liverpool have to take the summer transfer window as a great opportunity to boost their squads and challenge for higher positions. The Reds have to consider themselves lucky finishing sixth after an atrocious start to the season. I never doubted their ability climb up the rankings, but they were right to axe Roy Hodgson. In fact, they should never have appointed him in the first place. They would have been stuck in the bottom ten if they kept Roy in the hot seat. He's a good manager, but not for the "big" teams. I do not want to put Fulham and West Brom down to a lower level but he's a sort of coach that would guide them out to a level of mid-table or higher standards rather than relegation or somewhere like 13th or 16th.

Two teams who have puzzled me this season; Bolton Wanderers and Sunderland. I didn't expect their explosive starts to the season. Bolton were challenging for fourth place during Christmas but ended this year in 14th. Their overall performance this season doesn't match their place at all. Same goes for Sunderland, although 10th was more fair for them. Aston Villa had a great end of the season beating Arsenal and Liverpool. Gary McAllister has been a great temporary replacement for Mr. Houllier who I wish to have a speedy recovery and if he does return to Villa, I'm sure he will do well for them despite their early season jitters.

Ok, I'm going to do two things before I publish this less-controversial post. Last June, I put up my predictions for the Premiership on my Facebook account and would like to share it with you today and analyse my predicting performance. But before that, here are my alternative Premiership awards:

Team of the Season - West Bromwich Albion: What a season they've had. 11th is spectacular especially after so many people didn't really give them a chance, including myself. Roberto Di Matteo, I'm a huge admirer of him but he left the club at a great time as they were going to slip at West Ham's 2010/11 calibre. Roy Hodgson left Liverpool and was quickly appointed West Brom's manager and saved their season. His reputation as a successful manager has been restored. Now he has to keep the big guns such as Odemwingie and improve the squad further to gain equal amount of success, even perhaps better.

Manager of the Season - Alan Pardew (Newcastle): I thought it was a mistake for Toon Army to get rid of Chris Hughton after a positive start to their return in the Premiership. When they appointed Alan Pardew, my first instinct was that they were going to be the next Charlton Athletic. He guided them to relegation in 2007 and finished 13th in League One this year. After their goalscorer Andy Carroll left to Liverpool for £35million in the closing stages of January transfer window, I thought Newcastle have no chance as they didn't really have a replacement for him other than Shola Ameobi and he's not a 20-goal a season player. Alan Pardew's determination took them to a comfortable 12th place and I think he will do wonders for them again next season. 7th or 8th place is a distinctive possibility for them next season.

Player of the Season - Yaya Toure (Man. City): Manchester City's success hasn't been down all to the Abu Dhabi based owners. Well, ok their money did buy some talent but they eventually gelled well together, after three years trying to find their "perfect squad". One player did stand out for me - Yaya Toure. £24million well spent. He's been a match winner, scoring twelve goals in all competitions including the winning goal against Stoke City in this year's FA Cup final. A force to be reckoned with. He's also has my award for the best signing of the season.

Match of the Season - Newcastle 4-4 Arsenal, 5th Feb 2011: Yes, another award for Newcastle. I'm not doing this on purpose but it's just that some of the things they have done have been just headline grabbing including this match. It's quite something if a team comes back after being 4-0 down after 67 minutes, scoring four in dramatic style. Yes, it helps if the opposition was down to ten men but it's something which as far as I know, hasn't been acheived in the English Premiership. Remarkable stuff and it supposedly began Arsenal's collapse.

Biggest headline of the Season - The Signing of Fernando Torres to Chelsea: £50million was the figure Chelsea had to pay for the Spaniard. Quite a lump sum, isn't it? How many goals did he score, one. How many assists did he make, none. Money well spent then! It's a crazy amount and well it only benefitted Liverpool. This season hasn't been great for him and I certainly hope Drogba stays at Chelsea and they both play together more often. Next season has to work for Torres otherwise he would regret his move to west London altogther. I still have faith.

That's the award ceremony out of the way, here is my 2010/11 season predictions made by me in June 2010. I've compared it to the final Premiership table. Spot the difference...


As you can see, there are clear differences. I was correct by saying Birmingham would relegate but I thought West Ham would do well, but in all honesty, they didn't. I was right by saying Wolves would finish 17th and Stoke to finish 13th. Tottenham finished fifth which I got correct but I got the winners and two of the relegators wrong so next season, I will have to perform better.

Next month, when the fixtures will be announced, I will be blogging at least four times. I will predict every division's outcome from the Football League and exclusively publish it. Stay tuned.

So bring on 2011/12 season. Let's hope next season can match this season.

Comments

  1. A Chelsea supporter15 October 2011 at 09:27

    A very well-written article. The way you've written it, it feels like you support each and ever club, because you've given words to everything any fan felt about this season.
    Happy 2011-12! :)

    ReplyDelete

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