Premier League: July 2020

The longest Premier League season in history finally came to an end on the 26ᵗʰ July and what a season it was. This season gave us a newly promoted team pushing for Europe, teams turning their season around in the January transfer window, Manchester City being banned from European competition for breaking Financial Fair Play rules then being welcomed back with open arms because the sport is too corrupt to really punish any team with money, a global pandemic causing a 100-day pause to the season, controversies caused by the systems brought in to eradicate controversies, almost daily football for the final weeks of the season, and finally the first Premier League title for Liverpool.

It seemed somewhat fitting that the Reds found themselves on 96 points as they lifted the trophy to celebrate their first top flight title in 30 years. But the Reds will prepare over this shorter offseason for a much tighter challenge next ear as a number of their rivals look to bounce back. Meanwhile at the other end of the table, a win on the final day of the season was not enough to save Bournemouth as they joined Watford and Manchester City in being relegated to the Championship.

Premier League Round-up

• August 2019
• September 2019
• October 2019
• November 2019
• December 2019
• January 2020
• February 2020
• March 2020
• June 2020
• July 2020

Fond farewell

I may be a Manchester United fan, but even I won’t let any bias get in the way of admitting that we are losing a truly incredible talent from the league in the form of Manchester City midfielder David Silva.

The Spaniard is leaving Manchester City after 10 seasons with the club, and has been a key figure part of the team that has won 4 Premier Leagues, 2 FA Cups, 5 League Cups and 3 Community Shields. While he has chipped in a highly impressive 77 goals in 434 appearances for Manchester City, it is his 124 assists and numerous other goals where he as instrumental in the build-up that he will be remembered for.

The league may never have seen the talent of Lionel Mess, but with a player like Silva who has such incredible control and an eye for a pass, favourable comparisons to the stars of Pep’s old Barcelona are certainly fully deserved. Even with the arrival of Kevin de Bruyne in recent seasons, it may have taken some of the focus off of Silva, but it has not negatively impacted his impact on the team or the league. And with his style of play, he still has a few seasons of elite football in him at 34. Whoever picks him up is onto a winner.

VAR’s worst day

Thursday 9ᵗʰ July was a day that will live long in infamy for VAR, as the Premier League had to make statements confirming that the system brought in to improve the accuracy of the officials’ decisions had made mistakes in all 3 matches played that day.

In Manchester United’s 0-3 victory over Aston Villa, United were awarded a penalty after Bruno Fernandes was supposedly tripped just inside the box by Ezri Konsa. A VAR review clearly showed that if anything, it should have been a Villa free kick as Fernandes in fact stood on Konsa’s foot, but despite this the penalty decision stood.

It was another penalty that was wrongly allowed to stand in Everton’s 1-1 draw with Southampton, as the Saints were awarded a penalty for a foul by André Gomes on James Ward-Prowse, only for the VAR review to show that Ward-Prowse simply fell into Gomes… and still allow the penalty to be taken!

Finally in Bournemouth’s goalless draw with Spurs, the Cherries were lucky to avoid giving away a penalty after Josh King clumsily bundled Harry Kane over at a corner. No penalty was given and following a review, the decision inexplicably stood.

The one good thing from these incidents is that the league came out and admitted that the decisions were wrong, but now they need to sort out the system ahead of next season. And I can suggest a simple amendment: for all subjective decisions, make the referee review it on the pitchside monitor and make the decision rather than gormlessly standing around in the middle of the pitch. If they’re still getting the decisions wrong, then they clearly aren’t ready to referee in the supposedly best league in the world.

Faith pays off

Remember back in the opening months of the season when everyone was clamouring for Ole Gunnar Solskjær and Frank Lampard to be removed from their roles as managers of Manchester United and Chelsea? Well I hope those morons feel stupid now, as the season ended with them in 3ʳᵈ and 4ᵗʰ respectively.

It takes time to establish yourself on a team, and then you are limited by the players at the club. Luckily for Manchester United, they finally admitted that the quality of player wasn’t there for the manager and brought in Bruno Fernandes, who revolutionised the team in the second half of the season, while the front 3 they eventually settled on (Mason Greenwood, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford) have more goals over all competitions than Liverpool’s much-vaunted Sané, Firmino, Salah trio – and their season still isn’t finished with Europa League matches still to be played! Chelsea meanwhile managed to rely on youth to overcome the loss of Eden Hazard and the transfer ban.

Of course, neither team is the finished article and they both finished well behind both Liverpool and Manchester City. Both teams need to do some good work in the transfer window to compete for the title – Chelsea have definitely started well – but the future looks bright for these 2 teams.