Mark Hughes annoyed at ‘dark arts’ attempt to relegate Southampton claiming “that was my mission” as Huddersfield’s point against Chelsea is enough to save Sparky from taking two teams down in the same season.
Hang on, hang on. I am working it all out. Last night’s Premier League results gave us some outcomes and I want to make sure I get it all right before announcing what you already know.
Yes, I can confirm Manchester City are Champions and Yaya Toure has left the building.
Yes, I can confirm that Arsenal are spineless and only turn it on at home.
Yes, I can confirm that Mark Hughes thinks a national hotel chain tried to get Southampton relegated and he is pissed off because that was his mission.
Yes, I can confirm that David Moyes kept a straight face when throwing down the gauntlet to West Ham to ‘match his ambition’.
Yes, I can confirm that the Guardian have reported that Arsene Wenger is being lined up to replace Big Sham Allarfarce at Everton.
And yes, I can confirm that Harry Kane saved the day and Tottenham will be playing Champions League football next season.
Oh, I nearly missed this one. I can confirm that Huddersfield Town have managed to stay in the Premier League by getting a point at Chelsea last night.
Shall we start there? Yes, lets.
It looks like it is all done and dusted at the bottom of the Premier League for another season. Huddersfield actually led at Chelsea last night, not a great surprise considering the team Antonio Conte selected, and managed to hold on for the point that meant they sneaked out of the last-day relegated party before it even got started. Sunday won’t even be a straight shoot-out between Swansea and Southampton now considering Swansea are three points short of Mark Hughes’ side and ten goals worse off. If they get out of that one, I’ll write Monday’s column naked live on camera.
Harry Kane scored the goal that beat Newcastle United and confirmed Tottenham will be playing Champions League football, no doubt briefly, next season. That gives us one less thing to worry about on what is going to become a very dull Super Sunday.
In fact, the only thing of interest is between Chelsea and Liverpool now. Only one place in the Champions League remains up for grabs and Liverpool head into their game against Brighton on Sunday with only a two-point lead over Chelsea, who travel to Newcastle United. I’ve done some basic maths and looked at some probabilities and have concluded that there is unlikely to be a 16-goal swing in Chelsea’s favour meaning a point for Liverpool will be enough no matter what Chelsea get up to. But, if Brighton win and Chelsea win then the Champions League finalists will need to beat Real Madrid to secure qualification for next season’s competition. Admittedly, there are less dramatic ways to qualify.
We kind of knew this already, but Arsenal are utterly spineless. Having put on the kind of show you would expect them to put on when the cameras are all watching the ‘merci Arsene‘ carnival, they then went out and stank the place out against Leicester City, a team that are doing everything they can to get their manager the boot. At the weekend the talk was of young Konstantinos Mavropanos being the next Tony Adams. Funnily enough, that chat has died down this morning after the Greek got himself sent off after a mere 15 minutes. Leicester won 3-1. Puel to stay? It’s much harder to sack him after that.
Manchester City have collected the record amount of points in a Premier League season following their 3-1 win over Brighton. It was Yaya Toure’s last home game as a City player and he was presented with some gifts after the match to say thank you. Unfortunately, for people like me, none of the gifts were a cake.
David Moyes has got more front than the pier in the aforementioned Brighton. He sat there in yesterday’s press conference, keeping a straight face, telling the gathering that ‘he needs to see if West Ham can match his ambitions’ before committing to next season. Ambitions, David? Your only ambition has to be to see how much longer you can get away with keeping a job in the Premier League, no? Moyseh went on to say he ‘needed to see that West Ham could qualify for Europe’. Well, David. The only way they are going to achieve that is by getting rid of you, so maybe that’s your answer? You can always rely on the Scot to bring up his win-ratio which he feels makes him a sought after gaffer and he made it very clear he has other offers on the table. The door is wide open for Gold and Sullivan to get a decision right for once, after the final whistle against United tonight. They won’t, of course. This Moyes sales pitch will have exactly the effect he wanted.
Much more importantly than David Moyes trying to play poker with the West Ham board is the news that Sir Alex Ferguson is out of intensive care and is on the road to recovery. This is great news but what wasn’t so great was the pathetic line of questioning around the subject aimed at Jose in his press conference yesterday. Come on guys, don’t make us look better than you, seriously.
Ah yes, I nearly forgot to come back to this. Now, the Guardian rarely engage in completely made-up tittle-tattle, so there must be at least a microfibre of truth in the rumour that Everton have ‘lined up Arsene Wenger to replace Sam Allardyce’. I love Everton’s self-belief when it comes to where they think they sit in world football (just below West Ham I think in terms of self-ranking) but this has to be complete fantasy, surely? Arsene has said he does not see his future in England, though he has said he would prefer to keep managing. He couldn’t, could he? Mind you, at Everton he’d be given the freedom of the blue half of Liverpool if he finished 4th five years in a row and won the FA Cup once in a while.
If Big Sham’s final act at Goodison is to sign off on any deal that ends Wayne Rooney’s time there then maybe it would be harsh to label him a complete failure. Rooney’s people have been speaking to DC United of MLS’ people and a deal could be on the cards. It is great to see MLS doing everything they can to dispel the rumours that they are merely a retirement home for once decent footballers.
We should all get used to seeing Wolverhampton Wanderers linked to every available player over the summer. They plan to make their stay in the Premier League an entertaining one and if they can sign Jack Butland, Joe Allen, Yaya Toure and AC Milan’s Andre Silva just for starters then they could well achieve that aim of lining Mendes’ pockets further.
