THIS COLUMN HAS become increasingly persuaded of the merits of The Banter Heuristic, a theory that probably began on Twitter but has evolved to feature on respected publications like the Financial Times and The 42.
The Banter Heuristic is a predictive theory that states that, in any scenario, the funniest, dumbest outcome is the most likely to actually transpire.
Its application been seen for years in British Politics: The Brexit Years but it’s also found in this year’s edition of Britain’s most significant contemporary cultural export: the Premier League.
The latest proof will be seen at the Etihad Stadium tomorrow afternoon, as Big Sam Allardyce suddenly finds himself thrust into the role of protagonist in both the title race and the relegation battle.
Prior to answering Leeds’ bat signal, Allardyce had been forlornly presenting a podcast called “No Tippy Tappy Football”, where he continued to bridle against the perception of him as a dinosaur while leaning frankly into it.
Now he’s playing the same hits at pre match press conferences, saying at his unveiling that, “far too many people think that I am old and antiquated, which is far from the truth. I might be 68 and old, but there’s nobody ahead of me in football terms. Not Pep, not Klopp, not Arteta.” (As Barney Ronay pointed out: alphabetically, he is correct.)
That Leeds have ended up going from Marcelo Bielsa to Allardyce is utterly mad and an indictment of how they have been run – but more of that later.
Let’s be honest here. It is this kind of frantic mismanagement that keeps us watching.
Pep v Big Sam in a game rife with meaning? Mr. Murdoch, please take my money.
Allardyce is a fabulous Premier League character, encapsulating the weird confidence of his own country: blithe and fragile all at once, convinced of his own sophisticated brilliance if only the rest of the world would realise it. (Big Sam also voted for Brexit, but in 2021, when at West Brom, admitted the new immigration laws prevented him from signing certain players. The modern history of Britain is contained in this man.)
Allardyce will be paid £3 million for his four games in charge if he keeps Leeds up, even though they are not yet in the relegation zone. It is absurd money in one respect, but that fee will be cheap if Leeds get to mainline the Premier League’s wealth for another year.
The appointment of Big Sam at Leeds is not so much a Plan B as a Plan Nil. This is not a plan, it is the last punt of the desperate gambler. Maybe it will work out, maybe it won’t. Either way, it exposes Leeds as having totally lost their way from the appointments of Marcelo Bielsa and Jesse Marsch and the attendant construction of their squad to suit a frenzied, high-pressing style.
But it’s wrong just to pick on Leeds here. They are among a majority of clubs who have totally lost their way off-field this season.
Has there ever been a dumber Premier League Year than 2022-23?
Southampton will go down, made to pay for the bizarre interregnum of Nathan Jones, who got into as many verbal spats with the manager of Havant and Waterlooville as he won games. Leicester sacked Brendan Rodgers and are at risk of becoming one of the best sides to be relegated in years. Everton narrowly stayed up last year, then sold the bulk of their goals in Richarlison and Anthony Gordon, and unsurprisingly find themselves in the same position again this time around. Arnaut Danjuma completed a January medical but somehow ended up at Spurs.
Meanwhile, it’s like Andy Warhol said: in the future, everyone will be a Nottingham Forest player for 15 minutes. Having signed a new squad in the summer, Forest finally found some rhythm before the World Cup but then signed 11 players in January and destabilised the whole operation again.
Wolves underperformed, sacked Bruno Lage, and eventually got out of trouble. West Ham underperformed, are on the precipice of escaping the same trouble, and defied fans’ calls to sack David Moyes.
Crystal Palace embraced a fresh, long-term future by replacing Roy Hodgson with Patrick Vieira, and then, at the first sight of trouble, abandoned it all and replaced Patrick Vieira with Roy Hodgson.
Liverpool’s once-perfect transfer strategy has abandoned them too, and their exhausted, under-resourced midfield spent much of the season careening from one implosion to another.
Spurs and Chelsea, meanwhile, played out a high-quality, 2-2 draw at the start of the season, made famous by a delightfully juvenile clash between Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte. Both sides have since been linked with a kind of epic dysfunction. Conte eventually stormed out of Spurs with a kind of post-modern flourish, weaponising memes against his own side as he trashed his players in a wild rant after drawing with Southampton. “This is the Tottenham’s story”, he riled, echoing Giorgio Chiellini’s deathless “this is the history of the Tottenham”.
Spurs then ended up in the novel position of sacking an interim manager, Cristian Stellini paying for going 5-0 down inside 21 minutes at Newcastle.
And as for Chelsea… well, Todd Boehly promised he would be a disruptor. But as Frank Lampard sat in the bowels of the Bernabeu, unable to categorically deny he was appointed on the word of James Corden, one realised that the entity Boehly has disrupted is the one for which he paid more than $4 billion. They have signed so many players they have had to extend the dressing room, as players were getting changed in the hallways. (Given nobody has been quite sure of who is coming and going at Chelsea at the moment, we can only hope this became titled the Corridor of Uncertainty.) The best that can be said is that it looks like Tuchel had done enough to keep them up.
Even some of the better performers have been stalked by a kind of berserk energy. Man City will probably win the title, but how else to describe their fans unveiling a banner supporting a lawyer who will fight their case against the competition itself? Newcastle, meanwhile, have had a successful season on the pitch but have taken sportswashing to a lamentable new place in literally playing in the colours of Saudi Arabia.
Elsewhere, two sides who can reflect well on this season, Bournemouth and Manchester United, still managed to lose 9-0 and 7-0 at Anfield.
So we make it that only Arsenal, Brighton, Aston Villa, Brentford and perhaps Fulham – some referee jostling aside – who can reflect with an uncomplicated satisfaction on the 2022-23 season.
Too much money makes people desperate, while as one-time philosopher Sepp Blatter once remarked, “Football makes people mad.”
It’s a heady mix.
But hugely entertaining all the same.
Premier League fixtures (KO 3pm unless stated)
Saturday
- Bournemouth v Chelsea
- Man City v Leeds
- Wolves v Aston Villa
- Spurs v Crystal Palace
- Liverpool v Brentford (5.30pm)
Sunday
- Newcastle v Arsenal (4.30pm)
- West Ham v Man United (7pm)
Monday
- Fulham v Leicester
- Brighton v Everton (5.30pm)
- Nottingham Forest v Southampton (8pm)