The drama simply never ends
The Premier League season is officially over, but if you thought were one second that the intrigue, arguments and online opinions were going to slow down, you were wrong.
On Friday the Premier League announced its list of nominees for the Manager of the Season award, with a four-man list consisting of Liverpool’s league-winning manager Jurgen Klopp, Chelsea boss Frank Lampard, Leicester City’s Brendan Rodgers and Chris Wilder of Sheffield United.
As with anything even remotely relating to football, the choices were greeted with calm and considered understanding, and that was that. I am of course taking the piss, because the nominees have provoked a furious response online.
The nominations are in!
Vote for your @BarclaysFooty Manager of the Season: https://t.co/Pog06329vc#PLAwards pic.twitter.com/tV08RbWRZf
— Premier League (@premierleague) August 7, 2020
Crucially for many people, the exclusions of Burnley’s Sean Dyche and Wolves’ boss Nuno Espirito Santo have been viewed as something of a clanger.
Nuno led Wolves to yet another ridiculously impressive campaign domestically, guiding his team to seventh place, and just seven points outside of the Champions League places. They also remain in the latter stages of the Europa League.
Dyche, meanwhile, while not playing the sexiest style of football in the world, once again guided Burnley to stability in the form of a 10th place finish, all of this while working with a tiny core group of players which has not seen the level of recruitment and refreshment that he would prefer.
Across Twitter, people expressed their annoyance at the choice of Lampard in particular over Dyche and Nuno, with many pointing to the consistently expectation-shattering seasons the Clarets have experienced under Dyche.
Lampard ahead of Sean Dyche… you know, the manager of the team who are constantly favourites for relegation and had three keepers on the bench at one stage because they had no other players, the only team to earn points at Anfield, and finished top 10… https://t.co/DL4kDhdkoK
— BladesPod (@bladespod) August 7, 2020
Trying to work out how Frank Lampard finishing 4th with Chelsea, with a squad valued at £726m, is more impressive and worthy of praise than Sean Dyche, with a squad valued at £178m, somehow managing to finish 10th with Burnley….. pic.twitter.com/XLVYecY0xO
— Lukeyash (@LukeAshworth5) August 7, 2020
https://twitter.com/Millar_Colin/status/1291706304772345863?s=20
As per data from @FiveThirtyEight this was the predicted PL table at the start of the season.
Let's look at where some managers finished:
Klopp +1
Pep -1
Ole +3
Lampard -1
Rodgers +3
Nuno +2
WILDER +11
Dyche +6
Hasenhuttl +3At least 5 more deserving managers than Lampard #MOTY pic.twitter.com/wzKKLNkht0
— Not Sensible At All (@SensibleUtd) August 7, 2020
There were raised eyebrows too about the inclusion of Brendan Rodgers, whose Leicester City side were as high as second at one point in the season, before relinquishing a 14-point lead over Manchester United and eventually finishing outside of the Champions League spaces that they had occupied for so long.
https://twitter.com/UTDFuture/status/1291692617432932352?s=20
Safe to say that Lampard and Rodgers are the darlings to the English media, always getting compliments and praises. Shocked that Dyche and Hassenhuttl were not nominated for the manager of the year. It be like that sometimes.
— Asif 🇵🇸 (@Asif9707) August 7, 2020
In truth, whoever else was going to be nominated alongside Jurgen Klopp was always going to be little more than window dressing, with the Liverpool manager an absolute certainty to win the award after guiding the Reds to their first league title in three decades.
Still, it’s nice to have something to moan about on a Friday afternoon.
