Thus, the Premier League of 2024/25. It's been a complete disappointment, hasn't it? Awful time of year. Here are 10 out of the millions of reasons why.
The complete lack of a championship contest
This isn't the first occurrence, nor will it be the last, but while it's clearly nice for the team leisurely en route to the title without a worry, there's no reason to act like it's beneficial for the rest of us.
We all love a competition for the title, right? It’s the one element that truly doesn't need your team for you to feel engaged. The ups and downs of a season-long story, along with pre-existing grudges and conflicts and irrational dislikes, will inevitably result in you leaning towards your preferred, or more accurately, least objectionable option for who comes out on top.
A legitimate title contest isn't too much to request and should be the bare minimum that a league claiming to be the finest globally can provide. La Liga features a competition for the title. La Serie A tiene una carrera por el título. Even the Bundesliga is reexamining the concept once more. Ligue 1 may not have a title race, but it remains the sole major European league that comes close to lacking one.
We request a championship competition. And the troubling realization that has come to us is that we only ever receive one when Man City is involved. During the times they lack interest, someone else simply ends up wasting it.
An overwhelmingly superior champion team that isn’t even that impressive.
This is the actual issue. Liverpool is an excellent team; they have surely been the top team in the nation this year. This isn’t intended to be as casually as it seems considering they are 12 points ahead. There isn’t a major enigma regarding their 12-point lead. They clear the eye examination.
They appear to be the top team in the nation, and they truly are the top team in the nation. There is no risk here that the Premier League will soon declare an undeserving champion.
But are they truly as good as Manchester City at their peak? Are they truly as good as Jurgen Klopp’s peak Liverpool? Do they appear to be a group ready to begin a new period of supremacy? Does anyone genuinely believe that Slot's Liverpool are on the verge of entering the conversation alongside Ferguson's United or Guardiola's City in that regard?
Are they not? They are a great team, but they definitely shouldn’t be clinching the title by March.
They are, and we now have quantifiable evidence of this, not even as strong as PSG, indicating that the Premier League can't even use that as an excuse for being the only other major league to not produce a title race this year.
Much of this resembles criticism aimed at Liverpool. It actually isn't. It's a critique directed at virtually all others. Liverpool's success in exceeding expectations is not an issue for them; it's solely a problem for others who can't keep up. They neither care nor should they care about that.
However, Arsenal, City, Chelsea, and the two disastrous failures of the dismantled Big Six should truly be concerned and, to be honest, feel embarrassed.
Mo Salah securing various individual accolades
And while we’re discussing Liverpool's dominance, Mo Salah is flaunting his skills with six goals ahead of everyone else and seven more assists than anyone else.
Do we genuinely care about the pursuit of the Golden Boot? No. However, it would be enjoyable if such a thing existed, wouldn't it?
We can at least find comfort in the fact that, despite lingering doubts about whether Liverpool should truly be dominating to such a great degree, there are no such uncertainties regarding the undeniably world-class Salah, whose lesser performances in finals and significant knockout games need not worry us in conversations about a Premier League devoid of those types of matches.
However, the critique of all others involved for not putting up any sort of resistance remains valid. We are rational individuals, however, and will permit just one player a reprieve. That player is Bukayo Saka, whose 10 assists in 16 matches indicate he could have made Salah (17 in 29) compete for the playmaker award, which has certainly always been discussed and acknowledged prior to recent years.
He’s clearly going to win the PFA award.
The quickest conclusion to a relegation struggle.
The bottom three have, to be honest, been a disgrace. Even Ipswich, who for some time managed to hold their own without achieving the outcomes they warranted, are now seeing the results they merit.
At no point in Premier League history have the bottom three been so poor. Following 87 matches played, they have accumulated one point more than West Ham achieved in their 2002/03 relegation year.
The total of 43 points gathered by Southampton, Ipswich, and Leicester is nine points less than any other bottom three has achieved at this point in the season. And those were the bottom three from last season.
Even more concerning, the difference to 17th place has now reached a ridiculous nine points. Wolves, currently averaging under a point per match, likely possess sufficient points to avoid relegation with a fourth of the season left. That can't be correct, can it?
Not only is a nine-point difference clearly the largest ever gap between 17th and 18th at this stage of the season, but it’s also the second instance in Premier League history that the gap has exceeded three.
And there isn’t even a suggestion of the typical tactic that teams in relegation battles use to begin earning more points as the season advances. The three at the bottom have, if anything, deteriorated even further.
Southampton secured one victory – over Ipswich – and suffered 11 losses in their previous 12 matches. Leicester has recorded one victory and 13 losses in their last 14 matches. Ipswich is the top-performing team among the bottom three, acquiring five points from their last 13 matches.
Wolves have successfully distanced themselves from danger with a total of 11 points gained over 11 matches.
The Spurs Chuckletime Chaos Variety Show
The staggering, remarkable ineptitude of that bottom trio has resulted in the total and absolute downfall of two of the former Big Six not being the headline it deserved to be, as neither team has truly encountered the relegation difficulties they should have.
Kudos to Ange Postecoglou’s remarkable squad, they really put in a valiant effort. Maintaining belief in Ange long after it became evident that it wouldn’t succeed. Losing at home to Ipswich and Leicester truly exceeds expectations – and they still have the opportunity to finish that specific hat-trick of failure when Southampton visits next month.
The loss to Leicester momentarily suggested the real possibility of something genuinely funny happening, but Spurs then unintentionally triumphed in their next three league matches while getting eliminated from both cup competitions, and that, unfortunately, marked the conclusion of that.
To their great credit, Spurs have now begun to dispel the notion that their issues were caused by injuries by remaining incredibly poor even with all their players returned.
Their Premier League season is over, with the last few weeks spent disregarding league matches – admittedly in a manner that is quite difficult to distinguish from all their prior losses – in the charming yet undoubtedly misguided hope that they could win the Europa League.
The Man United Chuckletime Circus Mishap Variety Show
Refer to what was stated earlier, honestly. If it had included a real danger of relegation, this could have been more exciting, but instead, it has only added to the overall diminishing quality of The Best League In The World.
Starting the season with a fragile and inconsistent squad, United are concluding it with a fragile and inconsistent squad that is now compelled to adopt a system that fits nearly none of them.
At times, it has been quite humorous, but – similar to Spurs – United have just gone too far. You should embrace a more Chelsea approach regarding your unfortunate seasons. Spurs and United have taken it too far, to the point that their losses hardly draw attention anymore.
United's defeats at Old Trafford were once a matter of national importance. Currently, they can suffer a home defeat to, for instance, Palace or Brighton or anyone else, and genuinely no one pays attention or is concerned.
Once more, if this excessive embellishment of the terrible pudding had been paired with a real chance of relegation, it could have been more bearable, but the bottom three made that impossible. In United's situation, 16 of the 37 points they have awkwardly scraped together this season have come from their six matches against the Doomed Three, leaving only 21 from the remaining 23 games.
Similar to Spurs, what was once amusing has simply turned too monotonous. Certainly, one can continually tell the same joke repeatedly until it eventually becomes funny again, but there is a skill to that which exceeds this duo of total fools. You are not Stewart Lee. You’re not even Sideshow Bob walking on rakes.
And you won't ever be.
West Ham and exercising caution with your wishes
This truly frustrated us for about half a season, but it does now appear to be improving for the better.
There was inevitably going to be outrage when West Ham chose to dismiss David Moyes for delivering terribly disappointing league football for two years, with the media's view that winning the Europa Conference should guarantee him job security not widely held by many Hammers.
We understood that the initial indication of issues following Moyes would be met with a flood of condescending admonishments from the media about being cautious about one’s desires, and indeed it happened. Forget that Julen Lopetegui's West Ham was never truly inferior to David Moyes', the important point was that West Ham committed the ultimate error of swapping a genuine British manager for a foreign one, which was seen as less effective.
However, the real important point is that this was never what West Ham supporters desired. They did not desire Moyes' departure just to bring in a less reliable Spanish equivalent. They desired something viewable, which truly isn't too much to request.
There are preliminary indications that they could potentially receive it from Graham Potter, who is English which is favorable but also somewhat geeky which is indeed a negative and quite unfamiliar managerial characteristic, so he should still be approached with caution.
TL;DR: In the future, we will only accept Careful What You Wish For reprimands for supporters of teams that received what they desired.
Having to feign interest in who secures the fifth Champions League spot
The Premier League will have five spots in next season’s Champions League, which is new and rather intriguing until you consider that the team likely to gain from this is probably Chelsea or Manchester City, and that rather than being something enjoyable, it has turned into a tedious escape route for an underperforming Big Club.
The other side of that, naturally, is truly fascinating and novel teams within the top four themselves, but don't dwell on that too heavily at the moment as it doesn't align with our agenda, alright?
Having to act as if 11th position could earn a spot in the Europa Conference League.
Each season brings about one of these situations, and this season’s is the most ridiculous so far. Indeed, it is technically feasible for the team that ends up 11th in the Premier League to gain access to Europe.
However, it's not going to take place. Mainly because, in addition to all sorts of entirely foreseeable events like Aston Villa claiming the Champions League or Bournemouth securing the FA Cup, it also necessitates either Manchester United or Tottenham ending up in the top half. There are theoretical possibilities and then there’s taking the mickey.
Chelsea performing well for just enough time that everyone had to concede they were mistaken about Enzo Maresca before he quickly validated their doubts.
Let's be honest, none of us enjoy being shown to be incorrect. However, being shown to be incorrect by a manager who then quickly replicates all the late-season errors he committed at Leicester the year before to actually demonstrate that we were right all along and didn’t need to pretend to be gracious and humble is unbelievably frustrating.
Nonetheless, a significant lesson gained. No longer acknowledging our mistakes. From now on, we will continue to adhere strictly to all our principles. Consequently, Nottingham Forest will be relegated, and we will stand our ground on this.
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