Was that the worst Premier League season since football was invented in 1992?
Yes.
Chelsea are not even loved by their own fans, as Steven Gerrard drily pointed out a couple of weeks ago, so it’s hard to get enthused about a season in which the absolute fuppery of their rivals saw the Blues win the title three days inside the month of May.
Nobody else wanted to win the thing.
Chelsea – nobody likes them, but they don’t care
Manchester United may have turned things around since beating Liverpool in March, and pretty much guaranteed a return to the Champions League in the process, but it was a stop-start season for Louis van Gaal’s side. It took Ashley Young, Ander Herrera, Juan Mata and Marouane Fellaini to cover up for the deficiencies of Angel Di Maria, Falcao, Robin van Persie and even Wayne Rooney, missing in plain sight for much of the season.
Liverpool were just… Liverpool. It’s the hope that killed them off, as well as the fact that they sold every single one of their goals to Barcelona or a Boston treatment room. For 13 games they were irresistible and then Brendan went and spoiled it all, saying something stupid about coming second in the league, and watched it all go arseways.
Against Stoke, it was an ugly end to a disappointing season, a horrible way for Steven Gerrard to finish his career in Red.
Whose imaginary hand will Brendan be shaking next season?
There have been other reasons to wish this dying dog of a season away:
- West Ham reverting to type after unexpectedly finding themselves chasing Champions League football
- Leicester City’s survival under the most unpleasant Premier League manager since M***y M****y
- QPR
- Alan Pardew proving almost palatable at Crystal Palace, as well as a bloody good manager
- Burnley’s relegation and the fact that we’ll see a whole lot less of Sean Dyche next season
- Mike Ashley continued attempts to destroy Newcastle United
- Yaya Touré acting – and mostly playing – like a rich, money-grabbing opportunist
- Raheem Sterling, Aidy Ward and the absence of dignity
- Wilfried Bony – the new Scott Sinclair?
- John Carver
- Mario Balotelli. A move to Fenerbahce and then Qatar awaits, surely
But enough misery, enough of the gloom. Not every season can have the drama of last season, or the Aguero finish, or even the all consuming brilliance of Alex Ferguson’s best Manchester United teams. Chelsea may not wow the purists but they’re far from the tallest dwarfs.
Cesc Fabregas, Nemanja Matic, Diego Costa, John Terry – age somehow rescuing both his reputation and his form – and Eden Hazard have been the outstanding players of the season in each of their positions, with Thibaut Courtois only bettered by David de Gea. They were the best, if not the most popular, side in the division.
They’ll never be loved, not even in the affluent suburgatory of West London but they don’t care, and they’ll take some stopping next season.
Let’s just hope they have some competition.
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