The English Premier League, how I saw it

By Chester Thomas

It has been two weeks since the Premier League wound up but the memories will linger on until the new season starts unless you are an Arsenal or Chelsea fan, you might have forgotten about the 2010 / 2011 season already.

My best comeback (a split)
What most thought was a routine visit to Lancashire by Manchester United produced some woeful defending from the visitors and some Charlie Adam magic. Blackpool was undoubtedly in dreamland at the interval, two goals ahead and looking to be on course to a priceless victory. Manchester United were not to go down 3-0 thanks to the referee and a timely challenge by Rafael da Silva. Dimitar Berbatov was pivotal to the comeback but I’m not too sure he would have played the ball to Javier Hernandez as many times as he did had he known that the young Mexican would relegate him to the bench in coming weeks.

Crumple of the season (also runner-up for comeback)
Yes, you guessed it Arsenal. I could pick a few games that typified Arsenal’s self-destruct but would probably run out of space so I will go straight to the iconic of them all which has to be the Newcastle game at St Jame’s Park. Leading 4-0 at halftime, and Newcastle playing no better than a bunch of construction workers from the Sunday league, the gunners looked set for maximum points and on course for that “treble”. We all know what happened in the second half. OK, I will say it anyway … Newcastle equalised, yes they scored four goals to end the game 4-4.

Chelsea did try their best to go for this accolade with their famous meltdown and deserve some mention for this award.

Worst manager
It probably is a record worth mentioning that he was able to be at the helm of two separate teams that spent a combined total of over 18 months in the relegation, give or take a few on account of games in hand. As if that was not enough he managed to send both teams to some championship football, with the first one a seaside outfit almost getting relegated from the championship. OK, enough with the guessing game (drum roll please) Avram Grant. He was so dismal that David Sullivan did not hesitate to fire him in the opposition’s boardroom straight after their loss at Wigan.

I wonder where to from here Mr Grant.

Roy Hodgson nearly made the cut for this award but managed to redeem himself with West Brom.

Worst owner
Roman Abramovich was able to wrestle this award from Sullivan … what a feat, but he did everything in his powers to earn this and it was a fairly easy decision. It remains to be seen if Chelsea will recover from the slump they had which was preceded by the unceremonious sacking of Ray Wilkins by Abramovich. His “obsession” with the Champions League saw him commission a £50 million signing of a certain chap called Fernando Torres. Torres not only waited three months to score his first goal but has also pledged he will score plenty more next season, at that ratio you do the maths and work out an expected return.

As for Sullivan, well he is just Sullivan … did I mention he owns a pornographic publishing company. So we all know what the West Ham players are getting as performance bonuses.

Best signing
This has to be Rafael van der Vaart. Costing “only” £7 million, he proved to be a bargain buy and was marvellous for Tottenham Hotspur. Not even his woeful teammate Heurelho Gomes could outshine him in most games.

Worst signing
Enough about Fernando, Bebe was previously playing homeless soccer before turning professional and had no dream at all that he would play for such a big club like Manchester United … watching him playing in the Carling made perfect sense why he never had such ambitions. His best attempt at goal in one game went out for a throw-in and Sir Alex made no mistake at halftime and spared the boy self-inflicted torture.

Worst goalkeeper
He made several bizarre mistakes that demean the term schoolboy error, and it comes as no surprise that Gomes has failed to make the cut for Brazil. The upside though is that not all of them went through his legs.

Best countdown
Arsene Wenger: “Arsenal can win the quadruple, the squad is ready”, a few weeks later, “we can still win the double, we have to recover”, “we have to finish second”, “we have to finish third” and eventually, “next year will be our year”. For the last six years the next season has been yours.

Comedian of the year
Mario Balotelli in an interview claimed not to know Jack Wilshere. When asked about Wilshere he responded: “What’s his name? Wil something? I don’t know him.”

“I’ll look out for him next time we play against Arsenal. Maybe I’ll show him the trophy and remind him that I’m the one who won it.”

This was after edging past Wilshere to win The Golden Boy trophy as being the best player under the age of 21. The award is from an Italian newspaper and am not sure how much it’s worth to any player’s career.

And finally, my player of the season
This for me is Wilshere, who was unrivalled and exhausted most superlatives, I say most because he can still score a bit more. I am still not sure how Gareth Bale took the Professional Footballers’ Association gong as he is one of the most inconsistent players around