Chelsea sealed the title, but who will join them in the top flight?
Guy Bailey
Editor’s Note: Guy Bailey writes columns for The Yanks Are Coming throughout the Barclay’s Premier League season. In those columns, he’ll discuss the happenings overseas in the world’s most popular sports league, as well as The Championship, where many Americans ply their trade. Guy offers a unique perspective on the league as a Brit who lived for a long while in the United States before moving back to Teeside a year ago. He can be reached at guyrbailey@gmail.com and you can follow him on Twitter all EPL season.
Recapping two weeks that will set up the final run to promotion and relegation. Let’s start with the more recent.
Mour, Mour, Mour, how’d you like it?
So Chelsea are the champions. We had to wait until Sunday and a scrappy although controlled 1-0 at home over Crystal Palace when you might as well have given them the trophy after Eden Hazard’s tame penalty rebounded back to him, hit him on the head and went into the goal. The Eagles made a game of it but this was a celebration in waiting and it felt from then on that this was going to be a game of the motions. So it proved and Jose gets his hands on the EPL for the first time since 2005/06.
Arsene Wenger’s club appears second best, and decidedly so.
Manchester United blew the opportunity to push into second, surprisingly losing 0-1 at home to well drilled West Brom so Arsenal look most likely to claim the best of the rest title winning 3-1 at Hull City not Tigers. Most impressive as their form had been good of late but the Gunners found their extra gear as they have so many times before this season. Man City won 1-0 at Spurs, Liverpool dispatched QPR to a probable return to the Championship after a season, undoing 80 minutes of hard work allowing Steven Gerrard to head home late, minutes after missing a penalty in what could be his last goal at the Kop. Southampton missed the chance to cement their Europa League place losing 2-1 to a spirited Sunderland team in a must-win encounter for the Black Cats, buoyed by news that Burnley lost at West Ham and the increasingly desperate/comical plight of neighbours Newcastle.
After eight straight defeats, John Carver had drilled his team to withstand an early all-out assault from a hungry, revived Leicester City so of course they conceded within 38 seconds of their own kick off. More shambolic defending and token attacks led to a 2-0 half time deficit in a game when they were truly lucky to get nil. A clumsily conceded penalty early in the second half made it three nil and the challenge then became to stop it becoming an American Football score. Troubled centre half Mike Williamson then became confused which sport he was taking part in, assumed it was the WWE and clattered Luke Vardy into a camera unit while the nippy Leicester striker was off the pitch. An apoplectic Carver hung Williamson out to dry afterwards accusing his own player of deliberately getting himself sent off in order to be suspended for two out of the three remaining games so he wouldn’t have the pressure of playing and getting a result. Strong words and for this correspondent half right. He did deliberately go for the man but purely in the terms of doing him rather than as part of any machiavellian masterplan. I don’t think Williamson could spell it. Or plan come to think of it. The hapless geordies found themselves down to nine men minutes later as Daryl Janmaat followed Williamson with another wild swing while on a booking. The Dutchman can be thankful Carver is from Earth and not Krypton otherwise he would have been incinerated given the stare he received burning into his neck as he trudged down the tunnel and some brief respite from the barracking and catcalls of their own supporters. Even slunking out of the stadium back onto the coach they were met with abuse and cries of ‘Cowards!’ from the long-suffering fans. They still have three games to go, two at home to West Brom and West Ham, who haven’t scored a goal since Game of Thrones returned, and a trip to QPR who in all likelihood will be relegated but can a team devoid of any spirit, heart, desire or discipline rouse themselves in an increasingly hostile and unforgiving arena to drag their sorry carcass over the line?
Boro will be the favourites to weather the playoffs. They lead Brentford 2-1.
The Championship season rounded off with more high drama at the top end.
Watford needed to better Bournemouth’s result at Charlton over Sheff Wed at home and while both were winning, the trophy was heading to Hertfordshire and Vicarage Road until an injury time equalizer from the Owls gifted Bournemouth the title after they ran out 3-0 winners at Charlton Athletic. The playoffs resembled a waltzer fairground ride with places being swapped on a minute by minute basis.
The day started with Middlesbrough in third, still with an outside chance of promotion if they could engineer a 19-goal swing against Bournemouth, Norwich City in 4th due to play arch Anglia rivals Ipswich Town in 5th with a damaged Derby County limping into the playoffs in sixth. Brentford and Wolves remained hopeful and hungry although they would need to win and hope Derby didn’t sweep aside a bored Reading. Ipswich went into an early lead at Blackburn and Norwich soon followed to leapfrog Boro who were finding it hard to grab a breakthrough at home to Brighton. Then things got interesting as Derby conceded and Wolves scored simultaneously to see the Midlanders leapfrog them into sixth. Minutes later Brentford also took the lead at home to Wigan putting them in the box seat on goal difference, only a goal now behind Ipswich who had switched off and gone behind at Blackburn Rovers. Derby missed a penalty and then went a further goal behind themselves to leave a team that was top of the table only two months earlier on the outside of the dance looking in. Norwich cantered on to beat Fulham 3-1 while Middlesbrough ground out a 0-0 stalemate with Brighton to secure 3rd and 4th respectively. Brentford added two more goals, as did Wolves but Ipswich lost 3-2 at Blackburn allowing Brentford to leapfrog them into fifth, setting up a two-legged contest with a brooding Boro while every neutral got their wish as Ipswich sealed sixth and two ‘old farm’ derbies against their Norwich neighbours to the north. Derby gave away a penalty ten minutes from time and went down 3-0 causing their shell shocked fans to leave, genuinely stunned to be on their holidays and not on the road back to Wembley. Manager Steve MccLaren would remain in charge despite a heavily rumoured approach from Newcastle to take over for the last three games of the season. The ex Boro and England manager probably calculating that on current form, he could be back in the Championship with a new club but woefully underprepared, underfunded and with a hostile crowd. Derby fans will grant him one more season to try and turn things around, the next boss at Newcastle will be lucky on a week-to-week basis to have one more game.
Watford were the first to secure promotion.
30/04/15
Up n Down
The makeup of next season’s EPL is starting to take shape a little more as the automatic promotion places from the Championship were sealed after another week of high drama in the infinitely more entertaining and unpredictable league below the big one. Watford were the first to cement a return to the league they last graced in 2007 beating Brighton 2-0 in a mid-table game which left chasing Norwich City and Middlesbrough, who themselves served up a nervy 0-1 encounter the previous week needing victory to keep the season alive for another week. Norwich were leading at lowly Rotherham 1-0 with three minutes to go when the Millers equalized and reignited their own dented survival hopes having being docked three points for fielding an ineligible player only 24 hours before.
This left Middlesbrough to keep the pressure on and pressure was in plentiful supply at Craven Cottage as Fulham led 3-1 with 20 minutes to go, Boro also down to ten men with a reckless penalty given away. The Teessider’s steel spine survived and turned the screw on the fragile Fulham backline pulling back twice to equalize before injury time. With the ground and the Cottagers rocking, Jose Mourinho’s former assistant manager, Aitor Karanka, channeled the younger, Porto incarnation and threw Boro’s keeper forward for a late corner to try and force a winner, although a draw would have taken them into second.
Football’s inevitability drive cranked into action once again as Fulham broke from the corner to literally steal a winner and leave Boro looking at the playoffs which was confirmed 48 hours later when Bournemouth beat Bolton 3-0 to grab the second automatic spot pending a 19 goal swing between them away at Charlton and Boro beating Brighton by an equally unlikely score although their record victory of 9-0 was over the seasick Seagulls but with Boro doing the double over three of the four playoff bound teams and hammering Ipswich at home in the other, they will be favourites to grab the third place.
But who would they replace?
Sunderland and the Foxes meet this week in a match with relegation implications.
QPR and a safe and bored West Ham could not force a goal so the spotlight switched to Turf Moor were Burnley saw their season pivot in the space of 59 seconds. Michael Turner hitting the post with a penalty before a sharp Leicester break saw them sweep down the field to steal the win with a Jamie Vardy winner giving the Foxes their fourth consecutive win and with flatlining Newcastle coming to town on Saturday, most likely a fifth.
Newcastle lost again, their seventh defeat in a row and with teams below them picking up points, 35 now looks a mighty soft target to rely on in the survival battle. Hull City will also be a concern, winning 2-0 at the vastly improved Crystal Palace and following it up with an equally impressive 1-0 over Liverpool in midweek to put four points between them and Sunderland who slipped into the red zone despite picking up a good point away at Stoke City. Any good news will be welcome at the Stadium of Light at the moment with star winger Adam Johnson being charged with three counts of sexual contact with a minor. Aston Villa remain in trouble despite a spirited performance at Manchester City where they lost 3-2 and should have had a goal allowed to stand at 2-2 when Benteke had a harsh offside call go against him, just before Fernandinho remembered he was a highly paid footballer and got the W for the citizens. Spurs drew 2-2 at Southampton to keep the chase to avoid the poisoned chalice of the Europa League open while Manchester United appropriately performed as a David Moyes team at Everton in a decidedly lukewarm 0-3 loss.
It almost feels remiss to mention that Chelsea drew 0-0 at Arsenal in a game that would still be scoreless if they were playing now, which fortunately- they are not.
As noted, Guy Bailey writes on the Barclay’s Premier League for The Yanks Are Coming. Want more Guy Bailey? We highly recommend his new book, Blessay From America, a collection of writings on football and life made while living in America, where he married a southern belle and saw his son born, which you can purchase here.