The ‘Joey Barton award’ for services to stupidity, irony and stupidity again
THIS ONE CAN only go to one Joseph Anthony Barton, for going all Willard on Sergio Aguero’s Colonel Kurtz on the last day against Manchester City.
Joey had labelled himself a pacifist in one of the 143,342 blatherings he posted on popular social networking site Not Bebo, giving camp football pundit Mark Lawrenson and his Match of the Day brethren even more opportunity to furrow those magnificent brows and scowl, “oh Gareh, do we not like that?”
The ‘Roberto Carlos award’ for physics-defying wonder goals
Papiss Cissé’s second goal against Chelsea, a strike so magnificent that even Didier Drogba had cause to shake his head and say to Alan Pardew, “ah here, ah jaysus, that was somethin’ else, wha’?”
YouTube credit: Kiranfrank
The ‘Pulp Fiction losing out to Forrest Gump award’ for ridiculous awards decisions
The PFA voted Kyle Walker – the Tottenham full-back who tired quite badly towards the end of the season, before scoring a cracker against Blackburn – as its Young Player of the Year ahead of Sergio Aguero. While the 23-year-old striker was yet to score the goal that won the league for Manchester City, he had already had a magnificent introductory year in English football.
The ‘three sheets award’ for how being drunk can improve your English
David Luiz. Champ.
YouTube credit: Best videos
The ‘happy accident award’ for correctly replacing a sacked manager
This one goes to everyone’s favourite, cuddly, weirdly stubbled oligarch. Old Roman did the right thing in shifting the unpopular Andre Villas Boas for a man that West Brom sacked last season, with Roberto di Matteo lifting Big Cup and Medium Cup in glorious circumstances. For a man who claimed on his appointment that he has no friends in the game of football, he’s a very popular boy.
Which makes his inevitable ousting all the more perplexing.
The ‘Venky’s/Les Reed award’ for replacing a perfectly capable manager with a member of the public
Mick McCarthy was shown the door by Wolves in February after a run of poor results, and replaced by a man still being incorrectly dubbed ‘Terry O’Connor’ by taximen the length and breadth of the country. The former assistant failed to win a single game, Wolves finished bottom, and somehow Steve Bruce (Games as Wolves player: 0. Games as Wolves manager: 0) was to blame.
The ‘Corey Feldman award’ for needing to hone one’s acting skills, somewhat
Andy Carroll thinks that being within 15 yards of James Perch automatically spells the word ‘PENALTY’. It doesn’t.
YouTube credit: Mr BoywondersBack
The ‘Edmundo award’ for services to complete and utter nutjobbery
Why always him? Because he burned his bathroom down, turned his garden into a racetrack for quadbikes, got into a swordfight using rolling pins, slept with a former prostitute, made an appearance at Andrea Stramaccioni’s first Inter Milan press conference, donated £200 to a local church and had a walkabout at a prestigious college. And that was all OFF the field.
The ‘fish in a barrel award’ for worst Liverpool player of the season.
“Martin Skrtel, Lucas, Martin Kelly, Daniel Agger, Craig Bellamy. You five can go home. Now, the rest of you, what the hell was that? West Brom? Wigan? Bolton, for the love of thunder?”
The Reds’ season was a mish-mash of awfulness, apathy and bumbling uncertainty, mixed with some impressive cup runs and a touch of reputational suicide. Central to everything and nothing all at once was Stewart Downing, who would have struggled to kick snow off a rope.
The ‘Charlie Adam award’ for being good at football until moving to a bigger club
One can argue that a bigger club would be suited to a man of Grant Holt’s carriage, but that transfer request at Norwich smacks of something he’ll regret in a year’s time.
The ‘we did not expect him to be that good award’ for being better than anyone thought.
Not Papiss Cissé, who had banged them in in the Bundesliga. We’re talking about Nikica Jelavic, who managed to do what James Beattie, Andy Johnson, Louis Saha and Yakubu couldn’t do on any sort of consistent basis. The Croation joined Everton from Rangers in January and promptly tucked away 11 goals, finishing as the club’s top scorer in the league and overall.
The ‘credit to the game award’ for being unquantifiably brilliant
Vincent Kompany.
