If you don't want to know the score, look away now: What to expect in the Premier League this season, month by month We built our own flux capacitor and slammed it into a knackered
Ford Ka (it was as much as the budget allowed) to zip forward to August
2012, and this is what we found...By Nick Price
Goal.com sent this correspondent to the future in a time machine in order to
find out how the 2011-12 Premier League campaign would go down. However,
this correspondent accidentally hit the reverse button and ended up in
August 2010 and had to sit through the whole of last season again before
making up this pile of nonsense.
So if you want to know how the
upcoming season will pan out, then please do not read this article as
you will be sorely disappointed.
AUGUST
9th: This article is published and, within 10
minutes, Goal.com is accused of being anti-Arsenal/Manchester
United/Manchester City/Tottenham/Real
Madrid/Barcelona/Chelsea/Liverpool/Everton/Crawley Town/your five-a-side
team.
19th: Manchester City gazump United for
Wesley Sneijder. The Dutchman, who arrives at the Etihad Stadium in a
gold-plated limo with a big sack of £100 notes slung over his shoulder,
says he chose them because they have the greater history, before being
flown out of the ground in his new luxury helicopter made out of
chocolate.
31st: The window shuts. Arsenal have
not signed a defender and Gooners start tearing up north London.
Tottenham release an official club DVD showing that their riots earlier
in the month were better.
SEPTEMBER
1st: Cesc Fabregas's move to Barcelona falls
through and we all have to put up with that hobo for another year.
Carlos Tevez also fails to make a move anywhere and retires from
professional football to be closer to his family in Argentina.
20th: David Moyes quits as Everton boss to take up a role in a West End
musical version of Lord of the Rings. "I'd just been at Goodison for too
long and with no money available to me," he reflects. "Besides, how
could I possibly turn down the opportunity to bring Gollum to life?"
28th: Gareth Bale undergoes surgery to have his ears pinned back to improve
his straight line speed. The operation is a success, and he can now
sprint the length of the pitch five seconds quicker than previously.
Speed monkey | Bale goes on to represent Team GB at London 2012 in the 100m sprint
OCTOBER
1st: Mario Balotelli gets his first start of the
season for Manchester City away to Blackburn. However, he gets lost on
his way to the pitch from the dressing room and misses kick-off, earning
himself a two-week fine.
10th: England confirm
qualification for Euro 2012 with a win over previously unbeaten
Montenegro, but Fabio Capello is still called a useless clown by the
majority of the papers because he has a funny accent and looks a bit
like Postman Pat.
15th: Liverpool take on
Manchester United at Anfield and Nemanja Vidic and David de Gea hurl up
their guts in front of the Kop after Andy Carroll leaps in the air and
unleashes a last-minute noxious beer fart in the six-yard area.
NOVEMBER
5th: QPR boss Neil Warnock instructs his players to get themselves sent off
when they host Manchester City. Asked whether he has brought the game
into disrepute, the gruff manager simply knocks out the interviewer and
spits into the camera.
28th: Kenwyne Jones's
right nipple is the league's top scorer with 11 goals (all from
set-pieces) scored from a cumulative distance of one foot away from
goal for Stoke City.
30th: Andre Villas-Boas
dismisses reports that the Chelsea squad are not taking him seriously
due to his young age and explains that a recent training ground incident
that saw him tied to to the crossbar while senior members of the squad
took shots at him was merely a "team building exercise".
Smells like team spirit | Chelsea just ignore this man throughout the season
DECEMBER
1st: A stray Kevin Davies elbow lands to the side
of Owen Coyle's head in training. The knock causes the Bolton boss's
speech to slow down dramatically, meaning that for the first time in his
life he now momentarily between words
ratherthantalkingreallyreallyfastlikeheusedto.
10th: Joey Barton, enraged after not being nominated for BBC Sports
Personality of the Year, refuses to pay his TV licence and is sent to
prison for a month.
26th: Roy Hodgson turns up
for the Boxing Day game against Manchester City sporting a lovely
Christmas jumper knitted by the wife. It has a big dog on it and he
looks proper chuffed.
31st: Balotelli caps off a
memorable personal year by joining Twitter. He immediately posts a
picture of his man bits and is fined two weeks' wages by Manchester City
and his account is closed down.
JANUARY
1st: As the transfer window opens, Tevez comes out
of retirement in Buenos Aires by signing for Inter, claiming that this
will enable him to be closer to his family in Argentina.
14th: QPR lose their FA Cup third round replay to a pub team after Warnock
picks a line-up with the average age of just 13.6 years. Asked whether
he has demeaned the competition and angered the fans by putting out such
a joke XI, Warnock tells the millions of TV viewers around the world
that they can "**** the **** off if you think I give a **** what you
bunch of ***** think". He is fined by the FA for putting out a terrible
team, for swearing on television and for being a ginormous ass.
21st: Having not overspent on a vastly overrated British player in a while,
Kenny Dalglish buys Lee Cattermole for £20m. Presenting him to the
media, the Liverpool manager says: "With only having Steven Gerrard,
Lucas Leiva, Raul Meireles, Charlie Adam, Jordan Henderson, Jonjo
Shelvey, Joe Cole, Christian Poulsen, Jay Spearing and Alberto Aquilani,
it's important that we have more options in midfield."
31st: Arsenal finally sign a defender; unfortunately for the club's
supporters, it's Sol Campbell. Meanwhile, Harry Redknapp says there's
"absolutely no way in hell" that he'd make a move for a player on
deadline day. At one minute to midnight he offers West Ham £2.50, store
credit at Argos and a couple of second hand Wii games for Scott Parker –
an offer that Davids Gold and Sullivan instantly turn down. Redknapp
fumes: "We tried our best and we thought we gave them a fair offer, but
obviously those clowns don't know what one of those is, do they?!"
Pure hate | For the record, they aren't Spurs fans, they're astounded Arsenal supporters
FEBRUARY
1st: Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish becomes
absolutely the most hated man in Birmingham by leaving Aston Villa to
go back to Birmingham.
14th: The romantics write
love letters about Swansea's gorgeously free-flowing football. "They're
what the purists want to see," says some pompous prig of a writer,
ignoring the fact that the Welsh side are deep in the brown stuff of the
Premier League.
25th: Rumours that Andre
Villas-Boas is not being taken seriously by his squad gain further
credibility as the 33-year-old is locked into a toilet at half-time
against Bolton.
26th: Arsenal and Norwich meet
in the League Cup final, with Gunners thrilled at the prospect of taking
on relatively easy opponents as they bid to end their trophy drought.
To avoid a repeat of their cock-up a year ago, Wojciech Szczesny and
Laurent Koscielny allow Sol Campbell to deal with everything that comes
into the box. As a result, Norwich win 4-1.
MARCH
1st: Steve Bruce cannot fathom why so many of his
defenders are getting injured while training with Titus Bramble, who is
now automatic first-choice centre-back after starting the season behind a
dozen players a million times better than him.
4th: Blackburn's owners sack manager Steve Kean, despite the team riding
high in seventh, because the Scot announces that he is going vegan and
thus cannot appear in one of Venky's ridiculous adverts. Noted chicken
nugget fan Rafael Benitez takes over at Ewood Park.
15th: Mike
Ashley sells Newcastle to a local consortium consisting of Ant 'n'
Dec, Jimmy Nail and a large group of unknown bare-chested fat men. They
immediately sack Alan Pardew and replace him with Alan Shearer. They
do not win a game again all season.
27th: Ryan
Giggs announces that he will stay on for another season despite barely
figuring for Sir Alex Ferguson, who explains that the Welsh pensioner's
decision to carry on playing means he will not have to buy a midfielder
in the summer. Manchester United fans protest the manager's reluctance
to spend by wearing red scarves as opposed to the green and gold scarves
they use to protest the Glazer ownership.
He's back | And he wants buckets of nuggets on the sidelines. BUCKETS! NOW!
APRIL
3rd: Joey Barton makes his millionth tweet of the
season and proudly boasts of how much he has grown up over the past two
years. On the same day he calls a 12-year-old a 'helmet' for having a
different opinion to him.
15th: After a series
of tabloid exposés, Gareth Barry is named England captain by virtue of
being the only player in the squad not to have had an illicit affair.
30th: Despite being out injured for the last four months, Gareth Bale is
named PFA Players' Player of the Year, PFA Young Player of the Year, and
the Football Writers' Player of the Year. Barcelona table a £150m
opening bid that Harry Redknapp labels "an insult" to Tottenham.
MAY
5th: Chelsea defeat Wolves to win the FA Cup final
at Wembley. As Villas-Boas is about to lift the trophy, John Terry
throws him over the barrier and into the stands below. The rest of the
players point and laugh as the Portuguese boss, lying twisted on the
floor, insists that he was in on the joke and that is shows just how
much togetherness there is in the squad.
10th: Martin
Jol reveals he has a ridiculously deep voice as a result of smoking 50
cigarettes a day since the age of three. Nobody is surprised.
13th: The final day of the Premier League season sees QPR, Norwich and Wolves
relegated. Neil Warnock, whose side was long sent down having picked up
just one point, calls Kenny Dalglish "a despicable Scottish tramp" for
putting out a weakened team that loses to relegation-battling Swansea.
M
anchester
City win the league but are docked 20 points for financial
irregularities, as are second-placed Manchester United, third-placed
Chelsea, and fourth-placed Liverpool.
The penalties see thrifty
Arsenal jump from fifth to first. Wenger credits principles and
Microsoft Excel for the club's success – everyone else just calls him a
tight-fisted, lucky sod.
28th: Carlos Tevez announces his intention to leave Inter in order to be closer to his family in Argentina.
29th: Tevez signs for Chelsea.
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