|
Adam Hurrey looks back with an irreverent eye at the season that was in England's top flight and hands out some tongue-in-cheek prizes. Most beleaguered manager: David Moyes Once again, the Premier League was littered with exhausted, discarded managers. Swansea managed to go through two beaten-looking men -- the dignified but doomed Francesco Guidolin and the confident Bob Bradley, who went down wasting his time defending the abbreviation "PK" -- before the earnest authority of Paul Clement guided them so safety. Hull's Mike Phelan took the first Manager of the Month award, only to be gone by January, while Watford's Walter Mazzari did well to make it to the penultimate week before having his forgettable spell in charge brought to an official end; making him carry out his duties for a final-day thrashing by Manchester City just seemed cruel. But, above all, and including fallen hero / everyone's back-up grandfather of choice Claudio Ranieri, it's Moyes who cut the most sorrowful figure. Having waved the white flag at Sunderland almost from the start, his attempt at a January rallying cry left something to be desired: "I'd be kidding you if I said the players we're hoping to bring in this month are going to make a big difference." It's been quite a fall from his appointment as Manchester United boss in 2013. Moyes is still searching for his level, but it may be a downward journey. Most mystifying signing: Simone Zaza The litany of sorry-looking figures extends beyond managers to those on the pitch. Moussa Sissoko, whose name cannot be mentioned without a reminder that Tottenham committed £30m for his services, remains one of Mauricio Pochettino's rare errors of judgement, for example. For Manchester City, Claudio Bravo failed to qualify for even that most backhanded of goalkeeping compliments -- "good shot stopper" -- regardless of the other qualities that made Pep Guardiola dispense unceremoniously with Joe Hart. Elsewhere, Wilfried Bony's quiet but swift descent from ice-cool goalscoring grace to the Stoke sidelines seems to have drifted under everyone's radar. West Ham, though, can always be relied upon for some maverick transfer-window activity. Their record of signing certifiable non-events to solve their perennial striking problems extends back about a decade, but last summer's increasingly panicked search took things to a whole new level. £5 million was the initial outlay to secure Zaza on loan from Juventus, with something close to £20m due to sign him permanently once he'd clocked up 14 Premier League appearances. Eight goalless games -- and one shot that went for a throw-in -- was all Slaven Bilic needed to see. To his credit, Zaza acknowledged his failure to adapt before heading off to Valencia, where he had slightly better fortunes. Unsung hero: Anyone interviewing Pep Guardiola In many ways, Guardiola has lived up to his reputation: A ball of furious touchline energy, a man astronomically hard to please, a micromanager of the most imperceptible details and, above all, an unwavering idealist. And a combination of all those things has made him a spectacularly awkward interviewee. Even before games, when questions about starting line-ups get no more probing than "What's the thinking there?" Guardiola has steadfastly refused to play ball. If one passive-aggressive highlight has to be selected, how about Guardiola's post-match thoughts following Manchester City's 2-1 win over Burnley in early January? Interviewer: "You don't seem that happy that you've won." Guardiola: "More than you believe, more than you believe I'm happy. I'm so happy, believe me, I'm so happy. Happy New Year." There isn't a more terrifying smile in the Premier League. One season in, we are no closer to untangling exactly what's going on behind that unsettling glare. Surprise package: Wing-backs Since tactics are essentially a never-ending search for space and territorial advantage, most formations will never completely die; there's always the prospect of them cycling back into fashion. Nevertheless, a team winning the Premier League title with a pair of wing-backs was an unexpected novelty. The role had never quite bedded into English football, despite bursting onto the scene in the mid-90s, when adventurous full-backs or unfortunate wingers suddenly found their workload double overnight. But the wing-back is, well, back. If you'd told Chelsea fans last season that Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses would patrol the flanks in 2016-17, you would have been met with a heavy sigh. Instead, Alonso -- another £20m solution to Chelsea's post-Ashley Cole dilemma -- and Moses -- for whom four clubs in four years couldn't find a purpose -- took to their roles almost instantly. Next season? Ruben Loftus-Cheek will reinvent himself as a libero. Sheer persistence: Adama Traore A lowlight of 2016-17 was the all-pervading meekness of Middlesbrough, who only just scraped their way to a total of 100 shots on target on the final day of the season; for scale, Gylfi Sigurdsson managed 50 on his own. Amid that collective dearth of endeavour, though, one player stood out. Adama Traore is a unique spectacle, In all of Europe, Neymar is the only player to have successfully dribbled past more opponents per game; Traore treats a short pass like some sort of insult and, though he offers rather a one-dimensional experience, what a dimension it is. Once they eventually fizzle out, each of his fearless surges through opposition shirts is followed by Traore down on his haunches, his virtual Energy Meter almost visibly recharging back to light green in time to do it all over again. His quite exceptional lack of end product -- Jesus Navas looks like David Beckham in comparison -- is mitigated by the fact Traore only turned 21 in January. Given that and despite his shortcomings, you suspect there will be no shortage of top-flight takers for a player, who has been part of back-to-back relegations. Official tweet: Victor Anichebe It was only October, but Anichebe got this category sewn up with what was, by all measures, a masterpiece. All of the Sunderland forward's hard work -- standard platitudes about the fans' support and his teammates' effort in defeat, plus the obligatory look towards their next one -- is undone (or has its glorious insincerity magnified) by the errant "Can you tweet something like" at the top: The five, unmistakable words of a professional footballer's "people." Ridiculous statistic: West Ham The sheer range of data sets available these days means that statistics can be dragged out to support any narrative but, sometimes, the numbers speak for themselves. On the final day of the season, as the Premier League let down its collective hair, West Ham's social media department delved deep into their spreadsheets and came up with this beauty: Lanzini -- and what a moment it must have been -- took fewer than four minutes against Burnley to "pass" that landmark. History was made and 21,634 lucky souls at Turf Moor will forever be able to say: "I was there."
|
