Season in the sun

[undyingking]

So another football season rolls to a close. As is by now traditional, back in August various people predicted who were going to be the Premiership top 5, and whom relegated. Who was rightest? -- or leastest wrongestest?

The predictions:

undyingking:

1. Man Utd
2. Chelsea
3. Spurs
4. Liverpool
5. Arsenal

Rel: Derby, Wigan, Bolton.

dr_bob and also jiggery_pokery:

1. Man Utd
2. Chelsea
3. Liverpool
4. Arsenal
5. Spurs

Rel: Derby, Birmingham, Wigan.

gbsteve:

1. Man Utd
2. Chelsea
3. Arsenal
4. Liverpool
5. Spurs

Rel: Wigan, Derby, Birmingham.

metame:

1. Man Utd
2. Chelsea
3. Liverpool
4. Arsenal
5. Spurs

Rel: Sunderland, Derby, Birmingham.

mrlloyd:

1. Man Utd
2. Liverpool
3. Chelsea
4. Arsenal
5. Spurs

Rel: Derby, Birmingham, Sunderland.

ubiquitous_cat:

1. Liverpool
2. Man Utd
3. Chelsea
4. Arsenal
5. Spurs

Rel: Birmingham, Bolton, Derby.

The actual results:

1. Man Utd
2. Chelsea
3. Arsenal
4. Liverpool
5. Everton

with Spurs finishing 11th.
Rel: Derby, Birmingham, Reading.

So using the famous undyingking rank correlation coefficient, the scores are:
gbsteve 2.68
metame, dr_bob, jiggery_pokery 2.76
mrlloyd 2.90
ubuiquitous_cat 3.10
undyingking 3.69

Congrats to new contestant [Bad username or site: gbsteve, @ livejournal.com] who was spot on apart from hopelessly overestimating Spurs like everyone did.

As for the relegation, everyone but me (doh!) got Derby and Birmingham, and no-one got Reading. So we'll call that a 6-way tie.

Reflections:

So the self-perpetuating oligarchy at the top cements itself a bit further. Can you see anyone breaking into the Champions League places, short of via takeover by billionaire? It seems that unless the team can already offer Champions League footbal, they can't attract enough decent players to have a squad strong enough to actually compete for it. Everton have been the nearest consistent challengers over the last few years, but they really don't look all that close. Ten years ago, Arsenal won the league with 78 points -- this season that would have scraped 4th place.

We (West Ham) had a strange sort of season. We started well and by January were pretty much comfortable, but after that we were basically patchy (to be polite) and did just about enough to stay in the top half. It seems churlish to be disappointed with that finish when last year we were almost relegated, but it's more the manner of the weakness in form -- eerily reminiscent of the manager's Charlton teams of yore. With players coming back from injury and Ashton (the English Zidane) at last returning somewhere towards his true quality, we should have been out-competing smaller clubs like Blackburn and Portsmouth, if not nipping at the heels of Villa and Everton.

Over the summer I'd like to see some of the injury-prone dead weight that we panic-signed cleaned out, and if Bellamy isn't going to be fit again (as seems likely) then we need a prolific striker who's either tall, fast or both, to play alongside or in front of Ashton: Zamora and Cole aren't really of Premiership-top-half quality. Peter Crouch would be a good target -- under-played at Liverpool, he's always scored goals when he's been first choice, but would he take a step down as far as us? The fans will demand more next season, even if the biscuit barons who own the club are more patient.

What are you hoping for from your team before next season?

Comments

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

There's a theory that any of the top four could blow it, even if "doing a Leeds" seems unlikely:

Man U - Sir Alex Ferguson has to retire eventually. Even Sir Bobby Robson did. Real Madrid suffered for three or four seasons due to inconsistent leadership.

Chelsea - Roman could get bored and pull out, at which point the future of the club is completely up in the air.

Liverpool - either half-owner could pull out and mire the club in all sorts of confusion, uncertainty and debt.

Arsenal - noting that they came third, not fourth, "the theory" runs along the lines of their wage structure being insufficient to attract the best talent.

Can you see anyone breaking into the Champions League places, short of via takeover by billionaire?

The status quo is more likely to change by organisational upheaval (Champions League gets revamped when the rich clubs tell UEFA to stuff themselves, England somehow get a fifth entry...) than by anything else. Oh, and there's QPR, but if this turns out to be the breakthrough club then it rather adds weight to your theory.

did just about enough to stay in the top half

Supposedly you have remained tenth since January. The very epitome of mid-table respectability!

What are you hoping for from your team before next season?

Roy Keane to buy fifteen more players, only to discover that eleven of them don't have the right character and two of the correct four not to have Premiership talent. And yet, just a couple more seasons with a net plus two more talented, correctly-charactered players per season and we might get somewhere...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I guess implosion is something to hope for, although that seems a bit negative.

The Arsenal thing is a bit strange: I'm surprised they weren't prepared to pay more to accommodate Flamini, if that really was all it was. It's great to be continually shipping in fresh young talents -- but if you ship them out again just as they're getting experienced enough to start actually winning things, that seems a bit counter-productive.

I will be interested to see the kind of player who wants to come and play for Roy Keane over the summer. It certainly will call for a bit of character.

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

It's not like Flamini was at the top of their wage structure. I think it's more a case of Wenger deciding he wasn't as good as he thought he was. And I'm not about to set myself up against Arsene when it comes to judging talent...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

If he made the same judgement about Ashley Cole, he certainly seems to have been right about that...