MAY 12 — It’s been a strange season in the English Premier League, which comes to an end this weekend with pretty much nothing at stake.
Manchester City wrapped up the title weeks ago, and they will be joined in next season’s Champions League by Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool assuming the latter claim a point or more at home to Brighton on Sunday.
That would leave fifth-placed Chelsea in the Europa League along with Arsenal and the season’s surprise package Burnley, while Stoke, West Brom and Swansea (barring a 10-goal turnaround over Southampton) will be relegated.
Naturally, the majority of the focus will fall upon the teams at the top, where Pep Guardiola’s City have been so superior to everyone else that there’s never really been a serious title race to get excited about.
Despite that dominance, though, City will still finish the season with a slight sense of anti-climax as they wonder what could have been if they had reached the Champions League Final by winning their semi-final tie against Liverpool, who will finish at least 22 points behind them in the EPL.
After City, second place has been secured by a team who seem to have been given nothing but criticism despite that status: Manchester United.
It’s hard to work out Jose Mourinho’s team. Quite regularly they have looked truly dreadful and their style of football has been horribly dull, epitomised in their goalless draw at West Ham on Thursday night which had even the most devoted fan crying themselves to sleep in frustration.
Despite that, however, United have been good enough to finish in second ahead of two teams who have been lavishly praised for their lesser ‘achievements’ in the league, Tottenham and Liverpool.
Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino is widely regarded as one of the best managers in the game, and strongly tipped for the Real Madrid job when it becomes available, while Jurgen Klopp is receiving similar plaudits and Mo Salah is being hailed as one of the best players in the world despite appearing in a team which will finish at least eight wins behind the champions.
That doesn’t seem quite right and, in normal circumstances, you would expect Manchester United fans to feel rather hard done by with the almost unanimously negative analyses of their team’s season, but in fact it appears that many of them are among the biggest critics — even though United have succeeded in finishing above everyone except the runaway champions.
It’s all a rather strange state of affairs, but ultimately our long-term judgements of the campaign will be largely shaped by the two remaining big games: next weekend’s FA Cup Final between United and Chelsea, and the following week’s Champions League Final between Liverpool and Real Madrid.
If United overcome Chelsea while Liverpool suffer a sound beating against Real, our conclusions will be much more positive for Mourinho’s men and far harsher on Klopp and co — with the reverse being true if the opposite results occur, of course.
That’s not the right way to assess an entire season, which should really be judged on its entire body of work rather than just one game, where small margins can make all the difference between success and failure.
But it’s inevitable, especially for clubs with the tradition of United and Liverpool, that only silverware will be counted at the end of the day.
Of course, though, there are different expectations at each club, so Tottenham can regard a top-four finish as a success while United would only be truly happy if they won the title.
So how do you rate the season? Has it been a good one for United? I think most people would say no, not really. But for Tottenham? Yes, very good — even though they will finish below United in the table, were knocked out of the FA Cup by them and exited the Champions League at the same stage.
That, of course, contradicts the previous statement about silverware being all that matters… so now I’m confused. How do you judge a season? Winning trophies? Attractive football? Ideally both, of course… but if you can only pick one, it’s surely just a matter of personal taste.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
