On The Ball with Mark Wheat: Into the Final Week
by Mark Wheat
May 05, 2014
On the Ball with Mark Wheat is a Monday feature on The Current that celebrates the connections between music and soccer, with an eye to the past weekend's results. Listen this Monday at 4 p.m. (note special time this week) as Mark plays the music selection of the week.
So, we're all set for the final week of the season, if Man City win their game in hand Wednesday against Aston Villa, Championship Sunday will be a straight showdown between them facing West Ham at home, and Liverpool playing Newcastle at home. NBC are amazingly showing every game on 10 different channels — I didn't even know they had that many!!
If Man City win as they should, their opponents have nothing to play for; City will be Champions if they win their last games — BUT if they lose one of their games, then it's Liverpool who go top! That would be a fitting way for this stunning season to end: Suarez bagging a few more goals and winning the League — he's won everything else as a player this season! Named today as Player of the Year by the Football Writers in Britain after winning the Players award last week.
Many of you commented that we couldn't leave him out of a team of the year that we started to piece together last week. But I'm afraid I'll have to, just because of his dramatic antics. He's had an admittedly astounding season, but awarding him honors seems to condone his attempts at cheating, which bring the game in to disrepute. I would much rather have his companion Sturridge in my All Star Squad. He's second in the league-scoring table behind Suarez, seems like a genuine guy and at only 24, has had a breakout year, which holds even greater promise after failing to gain a first-team spot at both Chelsea and Man City. I've considered three more of the Liverpool squad for my team: Sterling, Gerrard and Skrtel, whose 7 goals add to his value as a stalwart in defense. I've always liked the way Gerrard plays, but this year he's been moved into a more defensive position and still managed to score 13 and have 10 assists. He might be too close in type to YaYa Touré, my captain, but I'd love to see them try to play together.
Man City's captain Vincent Kompany would be my other central defender, which might make it too may captains on my ship!?! City's Aguero would have to be considered, too; named in the ESPN World XI last week, he might have scored more if he'd been fit all season. Last week, Sean B, a City fan, suggested Silva too; I'd agree, but the creative midfield positions are perhaps the toughest to decide. As the Watford supporter said last week, Aaron Ramsey would be in my team if he'd been fit all year, and Scooter was all about Lallana, an obvious choice for me, too. CJ said Hazard should be in and I would go along with that, although he seems to have lost something over the long season. Yesterday he couldn't influence a Chelsea side that seemed flat, on the day that they had the chance to stay in the title race. That was disappointing; with all the characters they have in the side, the team as a whole seemed bereft of it at a crucial moment.
OTB Reader Mark Olson in the comments last week suggested Arsenal's Ozil, which I would go along with, too, if he'd played more. At least he seemed still engaged on Sunday, with perhaps one eye on Wembley for the FA Cup Final. Everton's loss on Saturday meant that Arsenal will be 4th, and it was funny to hear the commentators suggest that Everton were torn about trying to win; if they had, it might have sent the title to Liverpool, their crosstown rivals.
Just imagine, though: Every time a 'Pool fan would boast of winning this title, the Everton fans would be able to retort, "Only because we beat City for ya!" Derek, our local Everton fan put forward Baines and Coleman, their dynamic duo at fullback, for the All Star squad. I would agree completely if Pienaar had played more. When he's in the team, Baines looks better on attack, so let's play the young Luke Shaw in that position instead. His Southampton are the surprise team of the year; indeed their manager Mauricio Pochettino might push Liverpool's Brendan Rodgers for Manager of the Year considering the South Coast side's limited resources. It's significant that his side, producing at least two players who would be in my All Star lineup, is the only non-Top 4 team represented. Although I would like to personally add Norwich's Snodgrass to my squad, to. It's for purely personal reasons; his name for me always invokes the unique earthy qualities of the area around Norwich where I was raised. I always thought he must be a local boy, but bizarrely enough he was born in Scotland and is a lifelong Celtic supporter and might move there in the off-season. His work rate is massive and I enjoy his spirit, which the whole side showed in spades on Sunday, holding Chelsea to 0-0 at Stamford Bridge, killing off their title hopes.
The final place to decide is goalkeeper, and I agree with Scooter that Speroni of Crystal Palace deserves a mention in these dispatches, definitely aiding his team's amazing recovery; it will be good to see them grow in league stature next season. But I would have to go with Hugo Lloris. I watched the first game on Saturday to see if he still warranted inclusion in my side, and he won the Man of the Match award, even though his side lost 2-0 to West Ham!! Some of his saves were literally amazing; remember we featured a collage of his record number of saves in another game on the blog earlier in the season. I like the way he distributes the ball, too, always seeming comfortable in possession, which I think is a highly underrated asset for a keeper to have. It always strikes me that if your job is to JUST play football, even though you're a goalie, you should have enough time in your day to practice being good with your feet. It always stuns me when players seem only able to strike the ball well with one foot! Surely they can practice with the other in training so they're more adept? Speaking of which, I also considered for the team of the year his teammate at Spurs, Christian Erickson. With 7 goals and 8 assists, he's their most productive player of the season and showed on Saturday that he can play on both sides of midfield and kick with both feet!
SO … my All-Star Squad for the BPL 2013-14 season looks like this:
First XI:
Lloris;
Shaw; Skrtel; Kompany; Coleman;
Hazard; Yaya Toure; Gerrard; Lallana;
Sturridge; Aguero
Bench:
Speroni; Phil Jones (utility); Silva; Snodgrass; Rooney.
Manager:
Brendan Rodgers
What's yours? Tell me in the comments below.
Although I predicted at the turn of the year that they would go down, it was sad to see Cardiff succumb to relegation after only one year in the Prem with Sunderland's magnificent win at Old Trafford, partly because of my soft spot for Cardiff's manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, from his playing days with Man Utd. Fulham are down, too.
Norwich can only stay in the Prem if Sunderland lose both their remaining games and The Canaries win their last game vs. Arsenal, which is entirely probable as the Gunners will have their eyes on that FA Cup game a week later. So let's bid The Canaries a probable farewell by saluting their team song, which has the same title as this blog!!
The population of Norwich is 140K, at least 100K smaller than any other town represented in the Prem; as the ESPN team entry states, Norwich City are the "gentle souls" of the BPL, so it's a shame they couldn't hang on this year. Because it's so tiny, I don't know of any bands that come from there, but Beth Orton was born in the even smaller town of Dereham, which is on the road between Norwich and my old hometown of Kings Lynn, so on air tonight I will celebrate her with this song: