Finally, the premiership season’s curtain falls, with all drama and excitement of a fart in the bath. Ray Stubbs resigns himself to a summer’s hard boozing in the White Hart, Barnes Bridge. Mark Lawrenson returns to his second job as a counsellor in Strangeways prison, where his oddly effeminate Lancashire accent and hangdog expression of permanently unimpressed disappointment scours any remaining self-esteem from the inmates, who promptly top themselves and hence reduce overcrowding. Other former pros who graced the sofa this year, Lee Dixon, Peter Schmeichel, Gary Pallister, Nigel Winterburn et al., accept their status as utter nonentities whose only purpose now is to raise their spoiled children and worry about whether the builder who repaired their swimming pool ripped them off. Garth Crooks was last seen proboscis-deep in the prize winning bougianvillea at the Chelsea Flower Show and is now on the 10 Most Wanted list of the British Lepitdopterist Society (Enormous Net Division).
Talking Points:[ul][li]Team/Goal/Event of the season: Take your pick. It would be hard to see past the entire Arsenal team, and one cannot see them being competed with any more next season than this.[/li][li]Tranferz: Who do you want in or out?[/li][li]Red Thai Currying Favour: What a seedy business - I’m not at all sure this is the direction I wish football to take. Beneficial as it clearly would be for some foreign billionaire to hand over £60M and take no interest whatsoever in daily decisions, this is clearly skirting perilously close to extremely grubby politics. This bozo merely wants to fill his election TV news with an utterly irrelevant feel-good story to avoid having to confront genuine problems in Thai society, not least human rights abuses by government troops and officials.[/li]Be that as it may, Houllier must now make 4 successful signings and not drift further than 6 points from the league summit to keep his job, assuming he is not replaced this summer. Djibbril Cisse is one, a central defender like Mike Dawson of Forest another. Where we really struggle is attacking down the right. Like I implored last summer to no avail, I implore again: Buy Steed Malbranque! Buy Steed Malbranque! I believe that there is still such a thing as a “Liverpool” player, and that old Steed is genuinely it. (I further believe he should be paid a bonus to play his first game in a bowler hat).
[li]Euro 2004: We can open a new thread for the competition itself, but this will do for a lead up. Who should be in the England squad? I’d certainly put Jamie Carragher in there as a Jack of All Trades, but Ledley King is flexible too. Up front, it seems like Vassel vs. Defoe, although Rooney is way out of form right now. Owen finally looks like a world class player again, and Steven Gerrard might genuinely finish the competition as the most valuable player in the world - he simply dominates matches right now.[/li][/ul]
Finally, I’ll be awarding medals for the Straight Dope Fantasy League as soon as the final scores become available. Congrats to our sadly departed London_Calling for winning the last month.
after the first sentence. No snarkiness was intended