Premier League Round Up (May 7-11 2016)

So that’s pretty much everything decided now then. All except the “fight” for 4th place which sees both Manc clubs doing their best to avoid getting in the Champions League. Sky will be gutted at the lack of any meaningful games this weekend, and the rest of us have been robbed of the opportunity to watch fat Geordies crying.
 
I said last week I was sick of Leicester’s title celebrations but that quickly wore off. I actually really enjoyed the scenes on Saturday as they were presented with the trophy. Of course them walloping the Blues may have contributed to that too, but nevertheless I enjoyed the whole thing. I saw people ripping into them over having Bocelli there singing, but I don’t see the problem. It was cool I thought, especially as it was Bocelli himself who asked if he could be there. 
 
I think what I loved most about the whole thing though was Leicester’s players coming off a week long bender and absolutely demolishing Everton. Had they been playing anyone else - even Villa - they may have been punished for that, but over the last few weeks the Blues have been the worst team in the entire division. Yes, even worse than Villa. 
 
One of their fans saw it coming though, having put on twitter earlier in the week “Greatest achievement of all time? Wait until you see them put three past us after a week on the ale”. Got to hand it to them, they know their team so well. Remember the lad the other week who predicted a 4-0 derby defeat and a last minute loss to the Mancs at Wembley?
 
Newcastle drawing 0-0 at Villa was just about the most Rafa thing ever. He drew with us and City but couldn’t beat the worst Premier League team in history. It’s his biggest flaw as a manager, he plays up to the good teams and down to the bad ones. It happened with us time and again, and I can only put it down to the chess player in him. You don’t play chess against the likes of Villa, you just go Donkey Kong and just smash them to pieces. Villa had lost eleven straight going into that game. ELEVEN!!!!
 
Not beating Villa effectively relegated Newcastle. They may well have gone anyway but not winning that game took all the pressure of Sunderland, who had come from behind to beat Chelsea. They’d looked to be in real trouble at 2-1 down in the second half but fought back to win 3-2 thanks to goals from Borini and Defoe. Fabio is the man at this time of the season, but Defoe has been doing it all year. He’s a cold blooded assassin in front of goal. 
 
Mongo got himself sent off for two daft challenges, meaning he misses his own farewell appearance at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Will he still wear full kit and shinnies? I’d be surprised if he didn’t.
 
UPDATE: Chelsea have bottled it and offered him a one year contract. Maybe he's not as stupid as he looks as that sending off has earned him a new contract because "no-one wanted to see big brave JT go out like that". I really hope he puts his big dopy thumbprint on that contract as there's bound to be some more hilarity involving him next season.
 
That win for the Mackems more or less made them safe as they knew they had a home game with the Blueshite coming up, and if by some miracle they failed to win that they had a second chance to save themselves against Watford. I told my brother in law after they beat Chelsea that they were safe because there was no way they wouldn’t beat Everton as the players had completely quit on Martinez. That’s exactly how it turned out too, but I’ll get to that in due course.
 
West Brom and Bournemouth played out a 1-1 draw. The Baggies missed a pen and Pulis moaned about the ref. In other words, a typical day at the office for West Brom. Credit to Bournemouth on a great season though. Take Ranieri out of the equation and I'm going with Eddie Howe as manager of the year I reckon. Take Ranieri out of the equation and he'd also win the "what a nice man" award too. If he wasn't such a lovely man he'd probably fucking hate Ranieri. But he doesn't, because he's a lovely man.
 
Spurs were beaten at home by Southampton, hardly a shock considering the disappointment they’d suffered earlier in the week against Chelsea. Plus Southampton are rolling at the moment, so this was always going to be tough. Tell you what’s interesting though, for all the talk about what a great season they’ve had and how they’re on the up, if they don’t win this weekend not only is there a chance they’ll finish below Arsenal (please God don’t let that happen), they’ll actually have less points than they managed under the much maligned AVB in his first season. So maybe it’s not so much about how good Spurs have been this year, but more how bad everyone else has been (other than Leicester).
 
Elsewhere at the weekend, Palace beat Stoke as that little shitkicker Dwight Gayle actually scored a couple of goals against someone other than us. Maybe it’s because he’s playing for a cup final place, or it could just be he was a little confused when he saw Crouchy and Charlie Adam out there. I can’t stand the weird looking fucker, but if he gets the winner against the Mancs in the Cup Final then all is forgiven.
 
Speaking of the Mancs, they turned in another hideously dull performance at Norwich on Saturday but somehow emerged from Carrow Road with a 1-0 win. I say somehow, but the explanation is actually fairly simple. Norwich have Bassong at the back and Jerome up front. Replace those two with competent Premier League players and they’d have won the game. Bassong has been relegated SIX TIMES!! That's not a co-incidence. If Norwich had a goalscorer they’d be safe as they haven’t actually played that badly.
 
They hammered Watford (who have since sacked their manager, the fucking loons) in midweek but it’s too little too late. I think they’ll come straight back up though, as they have no star player who other clubs will be targeting so they’ll keep their squad together and their manager will have learnt a lot from this season.
 
The only thing stopping me from completely losing the plot over the Mancs’ being so close to the top four despite being widely acknowledged by everybody, including their own fans, as being garbage, is our Europa League run. If we win next week none of it matters, but it’s fucking annoying seeing them get results when they’re having only one or two goal attempts a game. If they get top four they’ll be the worst side the Premier League has ever entered into the Champions League. Even worse than the Blueshite in ’05.
 
The most entertaining thing about United - aside from Van Gaal obviously - is watching TV pundits continually try to explain how they’re so high in the table. Nobody knows. It’s harder to explain than Leicester’s title win. They’re getting caned by every pundit, and rightly so because they stink and no-one can figure out how they’re not in the bottom half.
 
They look more like  bottom half team than a top four one, and they certainly don’t deserve a Champions League spot, but City probably don’t either as they’re a fucking disgrace. They drew 2-2 with Arsenal at the weekend. Not a great week for Arsenal though. Danny Welcrap did his knee in and will be out for nine months, and there’s a lot of talk that Alexis Sanchez is pissed off and wants to leave. If John Henry is not preparing a £40m + a quid offer as soon as the season finishes then he’s not the man I thought he was.
 
How about those City fans though eh? Pellegrini won the title and two cups for them in his time there. He also reached the CL semis for the first time in their history  (the less said about the cowardice he showed when they got there), but this was his last home game before leaving to be replaced by Guardiola. You’d think maybe the fans might have given him a respectful send off, but at full time the Etihad emptied quicker than Ferguson’s bowels on a motorway hard shoulder and poor old Pellegrini had to give a farewell speech to about a dozen people. You stay classy Manchester.
 
A point against Arsenal in isolation wasn’t a bad result for City, but it meant that somehow a top four finish was no longer in their hands. How has that even happened? It wasn’t that long ago they were still in with an outside shot at the title, but now they would have been staring down the barrel of fifth place if the Mancs had beaten West Ham on Wednesday. They might still end up fifth as they’ll need to get a result at Swansea to hold onto fourth. That won’t be easy because Swansea have suddenly woken up. 
 
Having looked like they were done for the year they have suddenly burst back into life with a few good wins, not least on Saturday when they thumped West Ham. That was an historic event as it would be the last occasion the Hammers would ever face a Welsh team that plays in white at “the old Boleyn Ground”. At least we don’t have to hear any more of that shit now the fucker has been bulldozed.
 
This must be how the rest of the country felt last year with Stevie’s “farewell tour”, although unlike Upton Park Stevie has actually managed to put together a career highlight reel that consists of more than just a Paolo Di Canio volley.
 
Swansea have surprisingly given their manager a new contract, ending speculation of a return to the Liberty Stadium for Brendan. He needs to choose his next job very carefully, because if he flops he might end up on the scrapheap quicker than you can say Owen Coyle. Remember when he was reportedly being lined up to replace Wenger? Now he manages the Houston Dynamo’s (yes, I just had to look that up). 
 
Staying with West Ham though, everyone wanted to talk about what happened before their game with the Mancs on Tuesday night. Fuck all that, what we really need to be talking about is what happened afterwards. I wanted to turn it off but I couldn’t. I was completely fascinated by it, I felt like it was all some elaborate piss take and the West Ham top brass were laughing at us all, but three days have now passed and they’ve not yet come out and said “GOTCHYA!!!!”. I’m beginning to think it was actually meant to be serious you know.
 
I began to smell a rat when they announced they’d be talking to some legends and then introduced “the indestructible Carlton Cole” followed by Marlon Harewood and Anton Ferdinand. Then a fleet of Hackney cabs arrived on the pitch and random ex players started getting out. Tony Cottee got out of one, then Trevor Morley, who was looking a bit sheepish, perhaps in case his ex missus was in attendance. I put that on twitter and was well pleased with it, but most people were too young to get it. Not everyone though, one wag replied “or Ian Bishop” which was even funnier than mine. Google it if that’s gone over your head.
 
Anyway, the whole thing was beginning to look like “It’s a knock out” only without the paedo doing the play by play commentary, but the weirdness then went off the charts when they wheeled out some cockney punk band to play “I’m forever blowing bubbles”. Chaz n Dave will have been turning in their graves watching this. The front man just looked like he was a little too excited and didn’t know what to do with himself. Like a kid at a school disco who’s had too many sweets and just jumps up and down because he can’t handle the sugar rush. It was just utterly fucking surreal and it felt like the whole football world was laughing at them.
 
I don’t really get why the whole “last season at Upton Park” thing got the amount of publicity it did. Half the teams in the country have moved to new stadiums but none of them had this much fuss made of them. I’ve lost count of the amount of times recently I’ve heard about “the chicken run” and the “Boleyn Ground”. It’s Upton fucking Park you cunts. It’s always been Upton Park and I’d never even heard the words “Boleyn Ground” until about 18 months ago. Now all of a sudden it’s become trendy to call it the Boleyn Ground. I’m calling bullshit on that. Fucking football hipsters, that’s who I blame.
 
I almost wanted them to lose on Tuesday just to see the celebrations fall flat on their face. But then the Mancs went 2-1 up despite doing absolutely nothing and scoring from their only two attempts of the entire game, and reality suddenly hit home. Fuck this, they need to lose, the absolute shit bastards. Thankfully West Ham went full on alehouse and were just putting cross after cross into the box and Antonio and Reid both headed past De Gea (who made a right mess of Reid’s goal) to prevent United sneaking into the Champions League spots. For now at least.
 
I’m not actually that arsed who gets fourth as I can take a positive out of it either way. Ideally I don’t want United in there (more because of how shit they’ve been rather than my inherent dislike of them), but if they were to get fourth the benefit is twofold. First, mad Louis might get to stay. Second, “Flat Track Pep” won’t have Champions League football, which would be hilarious. Obviously United are the bigger evil than City, but I’ve grown to really dislike City recently so if United fluke fourth spot I’ll console myself by laughing at City, and specifically Raheem fucking Sterling, especially if we win next Wednesday.
 
As I’d assured the brother in law, Sunderland ran out comfortable 3-0 winners over the Blueshite to save themselves and relegate Newcastle.  “Lock up your horses, there’s going to be hell” they chanted. Quite a night for them, I’m not sure what pleased them the most, saving themselves or sending Newcastle down. If you’re going to have a shit season and be down at the bottom, that’s just about the best ending you could possibly have really. No wonder they were so ecstatic. Still, the image of Fat Sam dancing is something no-one wants to see, not even Sunderland fans.
 
I don’t like giving him credit, but there’s a reason why when he joined Sunderland that automatically had people saying they’d stay up. If you want to stay in the league, you hire him or Pulis. Villa should have gone for him but instead they thought they were being clever and hired Remi fucking Garde. Now they’re down and Sunderland are safe. It played out just as everybody said it would at the time. As long as they have Allardyce, they won’t be relegated. They won’t ever win anything either, but at least they’ll be safe.
 
The Blues sacked poor old Martinez the day after, mainly because they had no choice. The players have been trying to get him canned for weeks. I the last five games they’d given up 115 shots on their goal. I doubt Leicester have given up that many all season.
 
The fans were going to kick off at the final home game so they did the only thing they could and bin bagged Bobby. They also had to cancel their player of the year awards night because it would have been embarrassing having all their fans celebrating his departure. There were also rumours they were going to protest against Blue Rinse Bill, although he might have pacified them now by not only giving his beloved Bobby the axe, but also in the appointments he’s made.
 
Hilariously, he’s put the dream team of Big Fat Joe and Big Fat Unsworth in charge for the final game. As if there weren’t already enough obstructed views at that shit tip of a stadium. Now the first five or six rows will only be able to see two giant heads. It’s like Mount Rushmore. Wheeling out Joe Royle was a pure Everton move though wasn’t it? Of course the only reason he got the call was because my old pal Howie is no longer with us. I'm shocked they overlooked Big Dunk though, that'll have really set the cat amongst his pigeons.