Liverpool winning the Premier League in February is a mark of black, dark times, and however Mo Salah is up there with Messi and Ronaldo. Go figure
Total pith-head
Only the miserablist-for-money Barney Ronay could look at a Premier League table with Nottingham Forest in third and Bournemouth in sixth and pithily declare that this is all a bit dull and predictable.
So much for that excitingly bumpy, turbulence-fuelled Premier League season, all perky upstarts, crumbling certainties and unexpected shifts of altitude, which really did seem to be shaping up just a few short weeks ago.
Thats all still happening, Barney. There are still two pretty startups in the best six, and Manchester United are absolutely in 15th. No f***er predicted any of this. This is only premature entropy if all you care about is the Premier League title race and the easiest of Guardian page views.
Weve got Liverpool. We have an reassuringly ambitious level between fourth and seventh place. But we also havent had a right three- or four-pronged name culture for decades.
Obviously we cannot anticipate Ronay to consider as far up into the misty approaches of day as sepia-toned April 2024 when three team entered the final six games of the time separated by two factors. Is that not a suitable three-pronged name race? As for four-pronged, Mediawatch suspects that might have previous happened in 1972. We refuse to set that certain grass man on fire.
Lost in this woe is football navel-gazing is the fact that Manchester Citys last three titles have been won by two, five and one point ( s ). The name race being over in February is an aberration, not the culmination of a worrying design.
So when he writes that the Premier League does seem to have found an unexpected solution to fixture overload, player fatigue and the dilution of the spectacle. Too many activities? Just close the year as a challenge in February and sing out three months of semi-exhibition products, realize that he is basically saying that this seasons title race is over somewhat sooner than we all expected.
Does that make this a stagnant league? Does that mean that there should be a cap on salaries, even more rigorous transfer spending rules, incentives to build and produce a team rather than conjure one out of the fire, with the aim always of invigorating competitive balance?
After all, Forest and Bournemouth might argue that the competitive balance has been really quite invigorating, thank you.
The big question: How has Ronay written a treatise on a stagnant league without once mentioning the name of the club in third who last season finished in 17th? Its almost like it doesnt fit his lazy agenda.
Salah days
Mo Salah might be the current favourite to win the 2025 Ballon dOr but it is classic English exceptionalism to think that he is somehow nailed on for the award. Or a shoe-in as Richard Keys writes on his blog.
Oh the irony of Keys raging against the arrogance of so-called experts that live and work within the borders of the U. K. who think nothing beyond their territory matters and then suggesting Salah somehow has the Ballon dOr sewn up.
Over at the Liverpool Echo who can of course be trusted for an objective view on this subject Mark Wakefield writes that if Salah continues his current form until the end of the season, it would be one of the biggest shocks if he was not to win the Ballon dOr this year.
If Salah continues his current form and Liverpool win the Champions League, it would indeed be one of the biggest shocks. But should Liverpool only win the Premier League and Real Madrid win the Champions League as well as Liga it would be an almighty shock if Salah still won. It would be pretty much unprecedented.
The only two players who have won the Ballon dOr in recent history without winning either the Champions League or a major international trophy are Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. That is one very exclusive club of which Salah is not a member.
Two seasons ago Erling Haaland scored a ludicrous 52 goals as Manchester City won the Treble and he still missed out to Messi, Thierry Henry was undoubtedly the best player in the Premier League for several seasons and still did not win the Ballon dOr.
Jack Flintham of the Echo adds: If Los Blancos were to win the Champions League and La Liga, I dont think Salah will stand a chance of winning the coveted award. The shame is that a lot of weight will be added to the winner of that competition if Liverpool arent victorious, I can see Vinicius Jr or one of his teammates mopping up.
It really is a shame indeed that weight will be added to the winners of the competition to find Europes best team rather than just handing the award to Salah because he has scored the most goals in the Premier League.
But as we discovered in Mondays MediawatchSalah is setting and breaking all manner of records that are mostly just statistics.
Oliver Brown of the Daily Telegraph has been busy reading such statistics on X, proclaiming: Consider this: Salah has scored and assisted in 49 different league matches across Europes top five divisions. The only others to share that distinction? Yes, you guessed it, Messi and Ronaldo.
This, apparently, means he has staked a claim to be sculpted into the games Mount Rushmore, with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Sorry but for that kind of billing, we would expect a 32-year-old to have claimed more than one Premier League and one Champions League trophy.
We could genuinely name about 20 better players from the last 20 years, but Xavi and Andres Iniesta might want a particularly sharp word.
Brown continues: The barely believable reality is that his 41 league goal involvements, as goals and assists are fashionably packaged, have been worth 34 points to his club this campaign. Without them, Liverpool would be in the same position in the table as Everton: 14th. Instead, they are carrying the billing of champions-elect, 11 points clear of Arsenal, with their coronation come May almost a fait accompli. Across all competitions, he has had 51 goal involvements.
Barely believable? Its just bollocks, fella. This is not how football works and it really is the most reductive nonsense.
Browns piece is headlined Mohamed Salah is delivering the greatest season in Premier League history, which is odd when you remember Haalands Treble-winning feats of just two years ago, when the Chief Sports Writer of the Telegraph ( one Oliver Brown ) wrote that Haaland has the perspective to recognise that his absurd goal tallies are little more than ego trips without the trophies to match.
And yet here we are two years later, claiming that the debate is where Salahs season ranks among the greatest ever produced by a single playerwithout once mentioning Haaland, a man who definitely matched the ego trips with trophies.
