We’re 20 games in so it’s time to hand out the post-Christmas reports.
Southampton and West Ham fighting for a Champions League spot. No managerial sackings until Christmas. The return of Gerard Houllier’s Liverpool. Marouane Fellaini (sometimes) looking like an honest-to-God professional footballer. Chelsea running away with the title, then not.
It’s all happening, and after one of the dullest third rounds of the FA Cup in living memory, the Premier League hyperbole kicks back in this weekend, now with added transfer window nonsense.
But how we love it, and it’s time to dole out the mid-season awards…
Signing of the season so far
There have been some crackers. Graziano Pelle, Diafra Sakho, Ayoze Perez, Dusan Tadic, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa have all played major roles for their new clubs since August, particularly the duos from Southampton and Chelsea, but Alexis Sanchez has to take this one.
The Chilean has taken to the Premier League in stunning style, making bits out of the opposition no matter their strength and standing head and shoulders above his regressing team-mates. Ten Premier League goals for the season and no signs of needing a rest.
The 26-year-old is a bit good.
Manager of the season so far
A straight scrap between Ronald Koeman and Sam Allardyce, and we’re giving it to the Dutchman for the fact that he is brand new to English football and he lost Adam Lallana in the summer (call it revisionism, but the performances of Rickie Lambert, Luke Shaw and Dejan Lovren have been far more blessing than curse for the Saints).
Koeman’s new signings have all fit seamlessly in, with the exception of a misfiring Shane Long, and a blip in the first couple of weeks of December proved to be just that. Given the current trajectories of both sides, you wouldn’t be surprised to see Liverpool complete their scavenger hunt on the South Coast with a move for the club’s manager.
Goal of the season so far
Pelle‘s winning goal against QPR announced him as the anti-Afonso Alves, a recruit from the Dutch league that has more than enough for the Premier League.
Surprise performers of the season so far
West Ham. They’re currently 7th but only four points outside the Champions League spots, which is a stunning return for a club that were many pundits’ favourites for relegation at the end of last season.
Sam Allardyce may not be on nodding terms with humility but his signings for the season have worked spectacularly well, leaving Mauro Zarate aside, with Diafra Sakho, Enner Valencia, Aaron Cresswell, Cheikhou Kouyate and particularly Alex Song all the envy of far bigger sides. What Liverpool would give, for instance, for the goals of Sakho and the steely creativity of Song.
They just look so bloody solid.
Worst signing of the season so far
Mario Balotelli.
When you can only get 11 minutes against AFC Wimbledon despite the fact that the man who took your place has had an absolute shocker, you know you’re not long for this club. No goals in ten games is bad enough, but it’s the lack of any conceivable effort that will leave Liverpool fans to shrug a giant, yawning “Meh” when he leaves Merseyside, whether this month or in the summer.
Least surprising managerial sacking of the season so far
Alan Irvine, the now former West Brom boss who wore the same petrified look that his old mentor David Moyes made his own at Manchester United. Irvine was a curious appointment in the summer and is down there with Les Reed, Alain Perrin and Juande Ramos in the list of Premier League managers that table quizzes forgot.
Story of the season so far
Steven Gerrard’s decision to leave Liverpool at the end of the season. The hand wringers and phone-in aficionados are up in arms, claiming Liverpool should have tied their captain down to a new deal in the summer, while the more optimistic Red points to Liverpool producing their best performance of the season so far – against Swansea over Christmas – without Gerrard.
His absence will be felt and it will be strange to see the finest English midfield player of his generation in another team’s colours, but somehow the world will continue to rotate and Liverpool fans will learn to love another.
As long as it isn’t Glen Johnson.
Young player of the season so far
Harry Kane. The poise, strength and dead-eyed potency of the 21-year-old is bad news for Martin O’Neill (Kane’s dad is from Galway) and great news for Roy Hodgson, who surely won’t let Tottenham’s finest young go without an England cap for long.
He’s got seven Premier League goals so far and 16 overall for the season, and is the homespun player that the Daily Mail can wet themselves over for months and years to come.
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