Premier League Season Review 2012/2013

Now that the dust has settled, I think the time is right for me to do my little review of the season.

First of all despite all of the hype (Yes Sky that means you) I think this season has been pretty average. Even the last day of the season lacked any sort of real drama and excitement. Yes, I know that the ‘race for 4^th place’ was going on and all that cobblers but that pails into insignificance when compared to the end of the season drama in the Championship and League 1.

At the top Manchester United ran away with the league and it was pretty much in the bag with 6 games to go. I think United would readily admit that they haven’t played fantastic football for large chunks of the season, but what they have done is be very very effective. After a slightly ponderous start they have kept a load of clean sheets and racked up the goals, and are deserved champions. City shot themselves in the foot, on multiple occasions, and having a manager constantly moaning about how bad his players are and that he didn’t really want some of them anyway isn’t really going to help morale. Chelsea were Chelsea. They changed their manager part way through the season, played some great football alongside some rubbish, and a 3^rd place finish can be viewed as a job well done by interim manager Rafael Benitez.

The race for the final Champions League spot was between Arsenal, Tottenham and Everton. Arsenal had a pretty shocking start and there were calls for Arsene Wenger to go. Spurs were really up and down for the 1^st 10 or so games with some stupid fans calling for Andre Villas Boas to be sacked. (He has done a great job by the way) And Everton did what everyone has always wanted them to do; they started a season how they normally end the season, leading many including me to believe that they might just upset the apple cart. But it wasn’t to be and they fell away as the season went on. Spurs also played brilliantly for large parts of the season and then suffered when midfielder Sandro got injured and they had to start playing the massively overrated and massively hopeless Scott Parker, and they missed out on 4^th on the final day, as Arsenal got themselves together and went on a brilliant run pipping them to the post.

At the other end of the table Reading were largely not very good as was expected and were relegated. Wigan played well in parts winning the F.A Cup but their lack of any sort of defensive ability cost them. Martinez is now portrayed as a God like figure but I would like someone to ask him why when it has been obvious to the rest of the world for at least 3 years that his team can’t defend has he not done anything about it. He’s a decent manager but he’s far from the 2^nd coming. But the prize of hopelessly inept team of the season goes to Q.P.R.  They spent a load of money on players who are not good enough and then got Harry Redknapp in to manage them. The media said ‘Arry our saviour would rescue them while the rest of the world saw the truth… this wasn’t going to end well. He came in and said he would keep them up, he then realised they were bottom of the league for a reason and spent the rest of the season slagging his own players off and then wondering why they couldn’t be bothered to try for him. He now admits it will be difficult to move the players on… moral of the story, if you slag off a player for being terrible and having a poor attitude don’t be surprised when people don’t want to buy said player and put them into their team.

I should also give a mention to Swansea who won the League Cup, and played some fantastic football despite being predicted by many to struggle this season. It probably helps that I’m a little bit in love with their manager.  

But what this season will be remembered for are the large number of goodbyes and laying the foundations for next season.  Sir Alex Ferguson has retired, Paul Scholes has retired, Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher have also called it day. Next season will see David Moyes at Manchester United, a new manager at Everton, a new manager at Manchester City, Jose probably back at Chelsea and after getting rid of Tony Pulis Stoke may try and play a style of football in which the ball on occasion makes contact with the grass on the pitch. And hopefully Liverpool will learn to feed Luis Suarez before games to stop him getting peckish, that’s if he stays at course.

So in conclusion, this season was the equivalent of folk music. It was raved about by a few, while the rest of us didn’t understand the fuss finding the whole thing all a bit forgettable.