With the season now over, awards are being handed out to players and managers alike. While it’s obvious that Rooney will win Player of the Season and Ancelotti will win Premier League manager of the season (although in my opinion, it should be Alex McLeish) here’s some awards I’ve came up with.
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The “how do you like me now?” award: Emmanuel Adebayor for his restrained celebration vs. Arsenal. Second place goes to Carlos Tevez for his celebratory gesture towards the United bench in the League Cup semi-final.
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Not-so-satisfied fan of the season: Many fans leave a game disgruntled. We’ve seen fans throw their season tickets at the manager before. However, at Turf Moor this season, after watching his team capitulate in 22 mins against Manchester City, the undoubted winner is: Guy who punched the wall at Burnley!
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Save of the season: Would it be Reina for his magnificent double save against Everton? Or Van der Sar for his save from Fabrice Muamba’s scorching shot? No, my award goes to Emmanuel Eboue for his prevention of a certain goal vs Arsenal.
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The “not hiding the fact you’re sat in the wrong end” award: Have a look, if you can, at Florent Malouda’s goal in their 2-0 home win against Liverpool. You’ll see a shot of the crowd just after he scored. Specifically look for the two fans that are not sharing the delight of everyone else around them and are not disguising it very well.
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The “If the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats can do it, so can we” award: After our General Election here ended in a stalemate, two political parties with not a great deal in common have found a way to work together. I think they took their cue from a football match in the week before the election. The Gerrard-Drogba coalition combined to score Chelsea’s first goal and help Chelsea win the title that prevents Man United overtaking Liverpool for the most titles all-time.
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The “best impression of a politician/ attempted tackle” award: Only one winner here. Brian Jensen of Burnley for attempting to tackle Wolves’ Kevin Doyle with his head. Where did the beast get the inspiration for this tackle attempt? From Mayor of London Boris Johnson!
The managerial (in the Michael Scott/David Brent sense) appointment of the season: Has to be Brian Laws. When Owen Coyle jumped ship, Burnley had the conundrum of who to appoint as manager. Normally team in their position either go for a young up and coming manager or an experienced manager at the Premier League level. Burnley went a not-so-young manager with no Premier League experience who had just been fired from a club the division below. He somehow managed to take away the few things that Burnley were doing well and watched them plummet to such an extent that if they hadn’t won their final game of the season against Spurs, Burnley would have amassed less points than Portsmouth this season. Managerial Consulatant appointment of the year goes to Hull’s Iain Dowie.
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Signing of the season: Manchester United for signing someone named Own Goal, who became their joint second highest goal scorer this season with a whopping twelve.
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The “why the hell did you sign him then?” award: This goes to Rafa Benitez who decided to blow a big chunk of his transfer money on a midfielder nicknamed “crystal legs” who spent the first few months of the season injured. When he started to get a few minutes here or there, then the question was put to Benitez of when we’d be seeing Alberto Aquilani in the first team. His answer “He’ll play when the team starts playing better”. So congratulations are in order to him for signing a player for £18m that won’t improve the way the team is playing
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The Prince Philip award for improving foreign relations: Just days after the book outlining England’s World Cup bid was officially submitted to FIFA, a newspaper today (16th May) ran a story containing allegations that Lord Triesman, chairman of the FA and head of the England bid, allegedly said that Spain would drop it’s bid if rival bidder Russia agreed to bribe referees on their behalf. As a result of these outrageous accusations coming to light, Triesman today resigned as both chairman and as the head of the bid.
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Goal Celebration of the season: Jimmy Bullard for recreating Phil Brown’s infamous team talk on the pitch at Eastlands.
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The “Who fancies a pint?” award: Burnley’s Kevin McDonald after being substituted at half-time in their thrashing at home to Man City, promptly left the ground and headed to the nearest pub.
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The “when the hell did you become good?” award: This goes to Birmingham City’s Cameron Jerome, who against all odds has scored 10 goals this season. This surprised everyone, considering in his first spell in the Premier League, Cameron Diaz would have done better.
The "worst excuse for a bad performance" award: This goes to Match of the Day pundit Alan Hansen who blamed a terrible performance by Burnley's Clarke Carlisle on his appeaarance on game show "Countdown" a few days prior to the match. The show is recorded months in advance.
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Miss of the season: Only one contender here. He did well in his spell in the Premier League but sadly Landon Donovan will be remembered more for that miss.
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Can you think of any more?