Friday, May 25, 2012

Premier League Top 5 Everything

In order to fit the three best attacking players (Rooney, Aguero, and Van Persie) on my first team, this year I am going with an attacking 4-1-2-1-2 formation. While I first set up to just do a top 3 teams like they do in the NBA, I realized that there were too many good players this year to not just do a top 5. Cheers to the best year in Premier League History.


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.
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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.

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