GK (2nd team, 3rd team, 4th team,
5th team)- Hart (Krul, Vorm, Szczesny, Howard) This was a three horse race all
the way through the season with the English #1 barely edging out the two Dutch
backups because he was consistently the best goalie from start to
finish.
RB- Walker (Sagna, Man City's RBs
(Zabaleta/Richards), GJohnson, Ivanovic) In easily the weakest position in the
Premier League this year, Walker wins in a landslide because Sagna broke his
leg twice and Richards got hurt just as Zabaleta got back into form and took
his starting spot for the champions.
CB- Kompany (Skrtel, Kaboul, Distin,
Lescott) For towering center backs, these 5 were all dominant and had fantastic
seasons throughout the campaign. While Lescott was overshadowed by his superstar
defensive partner, Skrtel had arguably the most under
appreciated season of any one player in the league, and Kaboul made
everyone forget the brilliance of Dawson last year. Distin's year will be
remembered for his horrific backpass which led to their FA semifinal exit to
their Merseyside neighbors, but there is a reason why Cahill said he's been
Everton's player of the season. Kompany deserves special mention because he was
the most valuable player on the best team and established himself as the best
defender in the world.
CB- Coloccini (Koscielny, Ferdinand,
Evans, Vermaleen) These skilled defensemen are the few players in the league
who combine intelligent defending with fantastic skill on the ball. Ferdinand's
rolling back the years combined w Evans' drastic improvement from last season's
mistakes kept Man U in the title race til the last day of the season (which
few, including me, thought possible after Vidic's early season torn ACL).
Koscielny won my award for most improved player of the season (with Evans
coming in 2nd) and Coloccini has quietly become one of the most complete center
backs in the world. Most non- Newcastle supporters don’t quite realize how good
Coloccini is, but for those who watch him week in and week out, we know
how skilled and valuable he is to the team.
LB- Baines (Assou-Ekoto, ACole,
Evra, Enrique) Enrique was the best left back in the 1st half of the season,
Evra was the best LB in the world as of last year, and Cashley was the best LB
in the Champions League, but this was a two horse race by season's end. Baines
edges out BAE for the first team spot because as good as the left sided
combination of him and Bale were in the 1st half of the season, the combination
play of Baines and Pienaar (who is such an inferior player to Bale that Spurs loaned
him out to his former club in the middle of a Champions League race) was that
much better.
RCM- Valencia (Ramires, Cabaye,
Arteta, Larsson) In the hardest decision of the entire squad, Valencia starts
over Ramires because, while both are under appreciated superstars who can do it
all, Valencia's crossing is so superior to Ramires (and every other winger in
the PL) that his injury midseason couldn't knock him off the top spot. Cabaye
is a younger, harder tackling version of Arteta and Larsson kept the Sunderland
ship from sinking when O-Neill took over midseason.
CDM- Toure (Parker, Fallani, Song,
Tiote) And this is why the team of the season's should be done after the season
is over (what a crazy idea I know). While Parker missed the end through injury,
Toure carried his squad to the title. Toure, even with his lackadaisical,
no show matches throughout the campaign, is such a beast among men that when
he's on, he's purely unstoppable to play against. Fallani deserves credit for
much more than his hair and Song's greatly improved passing range made him much
more than your typical "Makelele" type player.
LCM- Silva (Bale, Modric, Britton,
Carrick) Silva's first half domination of the league was so utterly brilliant
that he could of sat out the entire last couple months of the season and still
would of beat out the 2 Spur superstars. Britton had a "xavi" like
passing rate for Swansea's extremely successful first season up and Carrick's
wide range of skills seem to always go unnoticed.
CAM- Rooney (Mata, Sessegnon,
Dembele, Ben Arfa) Rooney's ability to do everything on the pitch extremely
well was the main reason a "weak" Man U team ended the season on 89
points. Let me repeat that. 89 points!The same number of points that would have
won the title almost every other year, but yet, people still seem to love
bashing on the best English player since.....hmmm Sir Bobby Charlton? For some
reason, Sessegnon and Dembele seem to get overshadowed by their scoring
teammates Larsson and Dempsey respectively, but a child could watch a
Sunderland v Fulham game and tell you who the two best players are....and
they're not white.
CF- Van Persie (Adebayor, Holt,
Dempsey, Yakubu) Yakubu carried what looked like an MLS team for the first half
of the season, while Holt and Dempsey couldn't stop scoring on some
very average Premier League teams. Adebayor missed his usual number easy
scoring chances and sitters, but his work-rate improved and
his spectacular hold up play was vital to Tottenham's success. For
RVP check the MVP.
CF- Aguero (Ba, Suarez, Welbeck,
Cisse/Jelavic) Cisse and Jelavic were arguably the two most successful winter
signings in PL history so, even though they didn't play the first half of the
season, they deserved a shared spot here. Welbeck was able to wrestle away the
starting spot from last year's player of the season, Chicharito, and Suarez's
racist ways overshadowed how incredibly hard he is to defend. Ba carried
Newcastle's attack for the first half of the season, while Aguero carried Man
City's attack throughout the season even with Dkeko's lack of a touch,
Balotelli's burning of houses, and Tevez's unwillingness to listen to anyone
but his agent.
Honorable Mention- Foster, Terry,
Scholes, Dyer, Moses
Manager- Pardew (Rogers, Lambert,
Moyes, O-Neill) To start the season on an eleven game unbeaten streak and end
it in a Europa League spot is more than even the most optimistic Newcastle
supporter (me!) could have dreamed of and Pardew deserves great credit for
achieving this with so many squad changes over the last year. Rogers and
Lambert, with drastically different coaching styles, were able to take two squads
that looked destined for a relegation scrapfight, safely into midtable for basically
the whole season.
MVP- Van Persie (Kompany, Rooney,
Aguero, Coloccini) Even with his end of season slide, RVP was the only player
to carry his Champions League team throughout the season as he stayed off the
treatment table and dominated the league this year. He had one of the few
years that all strikers dream of where he was able to combine brilliant all-around
play and easily lead the league in scoring. If it wasn’t for RVP’s brilliance,
Arsenal would have been lucky to have finished in the top 8 this year.
LVP- Downing (Carroll, Torres,
Adams, Nani) Oo how all that money John Henry has wasted on those overpriced
Liverpool signings in the past couple years I could have bought an entire team.
This was a two horse race between the two worst Liverpool flops, Downing and
Carroll, but Downing got the edge in least valuable player of the year because
to end the season with 0 goals and 0 assists as an attacking midfielder is an
absolute travesty.
Best Summer Signings- Vorm (Ba, Cabaye,
Larsson, Aguero) Ba had this spot all but wrapped up by midseason but then left
for the African Cup of Nations and never was the same. He went from potentially
being one of the best signings of all time (a top four EPL forward who was
bought for FREE) to not even one of the top two attacking players on his own
team. I still don’t know how Cabaye, a France International who was the
lynchpin in Lille’s championship winning team last year and only cost a cool
4.5 million, was not sought out by more teams over the summer. But Vorm was my
summer signing of the year because a 1.5 million dollar goalie, who has around
ten more solid years left in him and is already one of the top goalies in the
PL, just does not come around every so often.
Best Winter Signings- Cisse
(Jelavic, Scholes, Pienaar, Sigurdsson) Hands down the best winter signing
season in PL history. While last year’s top two winter signings cost a combined
85 million, these 5 cost a combined less than 15 mill and each played a million
times better than any winter signing of last year. I can go on and on about how
big the free loans/signings of the three key midfielders, Sigurdsson, Pienaar,
and Scholes, were, but this all came down to the goal scoring prowess of
Jelavic and Cisse. Jelavic was able to bag 11 goals in only a couple months for
Everton and Cisse scored 13 goals in his first 12 games for Newcastle.
Biggest Injuries- Lucas (Wilshire, Holden,
Vidic, Sagna) Sagna’s broken legs caused Arsenal all sorts of defensive
problems, but Wilshire’s injury was a bigger blow because with Fabregas’s
departure his creativity in the middle was Arsenal’s only chance for a title
run. Due to Evan’s huge improvement this year, Vidic’s torn ACL didn’t hurt Man
U as much as first thought, but Holden’s ACL injury was felt far more as Bolton
got relegated without his intelligent, middle of the park play. Lucas’s torn
ACL in the beginning of the season was the biggest injury of the bunch, because
he was on the tear of his life and was quickly forming into the best CDM in the
world.
Best Goal- Cisse (Crouch, Ben Arfa,
Suarez, Aguero) Aguero’s quality of goal was average but it was the most important
goal in PL history so it had to be here. Suarez’s half-line chip shot gave him
one of the best hat tricks I have ever seen. Ben Arfa’s full field turn, run,and toe poke wasn’t even his best goal of the season (his best was this in the
Cup), but it was unbelievable in its own right. Crouch’s “never touched the
ground” wonder volley was out of this world for such a lanky character. And
Cisse’s final goal of his magical season just makes u feel well… just… speechless.
