We’ve already revealed our Premier League winners. Now, let’s flip that coin and take a look at the losers.
Tottenham
Losers all around.
Son Heung-min had a disastrous season. Given he’s a player with a heavy reliance on other worldly athleticism and is about to turn 31, it’s fair to ask if we’ve seen the best of Spurs Korean dynamo.
In a not unexpected turn of events, Antonio Conte threw his toys out of the cot, dragging the mood of the entire club down with him. Daniel Levy inexplicably chose to replace Conte with his own assistant in Christian Stellini, a thoroughly decent man who didn’t deserve Spurs. He looked so sad.
The man who comes away with the most egg on his face from this debacle, not that he’ll ever acknowledge it, is Levy. After firing one ‘serial winner’ with a tempestuous nature in Jose Mourinho, he somehow decided that Conte was the right fit for his club. He brought in the specific players that Conte wanted, despite them being past their best. He threw £50 million at Everton for Richarlison, a very good player but a never anything more than a backup at a club that employs Harry Kane.
Ah, yes….the Kane conundrum. The captain was brilliant this season, his 30 goals perhaps literally the only highlight in a terrible campaign. Yet Levy has failed here, too. In letting Kane run his contract down, his value will be at just about its lowest possible ebb, meaning that the club can’t simply restock the playing list with any Kane related sale in the same way that they did years ago after cashing in on golf aficionado Gareth Bale.
Still, Kane was good, wasn’t he?
Leicester City
When the entire wealth base of your owners are centred on a massive international airport duty free empire, it’s almost inevitable that a once in a century pandemic will have some impact.
That said, to see the Foxes so blatantly abandon what had gotten them back to the Premier League, then win both the league and cup in a five year span, was as heartbreaking as it was alarming.
Leicester have made their mark by doing all of the things that a club of middling stature must do. They’ve failed to do essentially all of those things in the past 12 months.
They’ve previously made sure that a manager hasn’t outstayed their welcome. This time around Leicester held on to a clearly phoning-it-in Brendan Rogers and then when they did eventually fire The Brodge, fail to have a contingency in place.
The Foxes have recruited well and sold for profit (see: Mahrez, Riyad; Kante, N’Golo; Drinkwater, Danny amongst others). This time around, they’ve got practically nobody on their list that looks like a potential big money buy – was Wesley Fofana their last truly excellent signing? – they have a raft of players out of contract and still somehow employ the awful Jannik Vestergaard. They’ve also previously turned replenishing a squad into an art form. Yet Kasper Schmeichel wasn’t replaced over the last off-season and Jamie Vardy’s off the shoulder runs were relied on to the very last, despite his 36 year old legs not quite having the same zip as they once possessed.
The only highlight is that this is a chance for a great reset at the King Power.
Southampton
By the time next season rolls around, Southampton will have turned over their manager (twice), their managing director, academy director, head of recruitment and head of youth recruitment, let alone a raft of rank and file coaches in the space of just 12 months. Is it really any wonder that the Saints crashed as hard as they did?
It wasn’t so long ago that Southampton were seen as a sort of beacon for smaller clubs wanting punch above their weight via a sustainable model. A proto-Brighton, if you will.
In what must be a most cautionary tale to the Brighton’s and the Brentford’s of the world, it’s really only taken two years of poor recruitment decisions to turn this plucky outfit from the little-club-that-could to a Championship hopeful.
Chelsea
This is what £658.9 million buys you, Todd Boehly.
Frank Lampard
It’s one thing to be unceremoniously dumped by Everton. That’s become an annual event by now. It’s another altogether to somehow fail upwards into a job you’ve already botched spectacularly and somehow fuck it up so badly that you will forever become a yardstick for misguided managerial appointments.
Geez, he could play a bit, though.
Everton
It was telling that it too all of five minutes from the final whistle for the mood inside Goodison Park to turn from celebratory at confirming survival, to vitriolic as chants of ‘sack the board’ rang around the famous old stadium. At least the fans, if not the board themselves, appear to understand what’s at stake for the Toffees.
Everton’s slapdash transfer dealings since being bought by Farhad Moshiri, combined with losing a major sponsor due to the embargo on Russia has seen the club become a financial minnow within the exalted halls of the Premier League. With a potentially massive fine for breaching Financial Fair Play regulations hanging over their heads like a sword of Damocles, a half completed stadium that requires more funding and a playing list in desperate need of reinforcements, Everton are caught between a rock and a hard place. Both the rock and the hard place were, unfortunately, completely avoidable.
Everton can’t rely on the ineptitude of others next season.
Leeds
Not quite as chaotic as Everton, though the consequences for Leeds have proven far more grave.
Leeds, like their Merseyside counterparts, have lurched wildly between managerial appointments over the past 18 months, moving from the very rigidly chaotic Marcelo Bielsa to the Ted Lasso-inspired Jesse Marsch, to the utterly uninspiring Javi Gracia before finally switching on the Big Sam shaped bat signal.
Allardyce’s reputation as firefighter extraordinaire has surely now been extinguished. In an admittedly small sample size, Leeds picked up a solitary point in their four matches under Allardyce’s stewardship sporting an aggregate score of 5-11. They were somehow worse under Allardyce than at any other point in the season. Not that Big Sam will care all that much, trousering a lazy half a million pounds for his three weeks work.
It’s interesting to note that Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani stated in January 2021 that Leicester were a ‘model to follow’. Back in November 2016, former director of football Victor Orta described Southampton as a ‘worthy case study’.
With those quotes in mind, Leeds season looks a little like the student who copied all of their test answers from the dumbest kid in the classroom.
Liverpool
All good things must come to an end and make no mistake, this generation of Liverpool was very, very good.
The breakup of Liverpool’s Premier League winning squad began with Sadio Mane’s departure to Bayern Munich prior to the season beginning. His replacement in Darwin Nunez has had his moments but has largely flattered to deceive. Cody Gakpo hasn’t settled either, though it’s very early days for both. Talented youngster Neco Williams also left Anfield.
This group has been together for a long time and achieved some wonderful things, but they’re starting to look tired. Whilst the club’s remarkable success rate in the transfer market has helped build this generation of success, can the recruiting department maintain that level in building the Reds next core?
Bobby Firmino has gone, as has James Milner, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Jordan Henderson and Thiago are 32, Virgil van Dijk, 31. There’s a serious need for renewal within this club. Is Jurgen Klopp the man to do it, or has this season signalled the start of a larger decline?
Cristiano Ronaldo
Now, when Premier League drama is mentioned, it’s on the pitch and not focused on a middle aged Prima Donna.
It’s nice.
