As we approach halfway, it’s already beyond doubt that this Premier League season is the wildest since the great 2015/16 caper and The 5000/1 Leicester Fairytale.
But when you think about it, this season has actually lifted some of that season’s most beloved storylines pretty much wholesale.
East Midlands side turn relegation escape into improbable title challenge under manager unfairly ridiculed for spell at Big Club
All right, Nottingham Forest were never as entirely f***ed last season as Leicester looked in 2014/15 but there were certainly times around that points deduction that it seemed very on. And technically they still ended up closer to relegation than Leicester did; both finished six points above the drop, but Leicester finished 14th with 41 points and Forest 17th with 32. Even allowing for deductions, Forest 23/24 were objectively a worse team than Leicester 14/15.
Now look at them. Forest that is. Don’t look at Leicester, it’s too depressing. Forest, though. Look at them. Bothering all the big boys in fourth having beaten Man United, Villa and Spurs in recent weeks, as well as Brentford away which is legitimately no-banter far more impressive.
Fine, they probably won’t actually win the title, but do you know how many people thought Leicester would sustain their own improbable gravity-defying act all the way to the finish line halfway through 15/16? That’s right, nobody. At that stage the two-horse race in which Spurs finished so embarrassingly third was actually being headed by Arsenal and Man City.
Defending champions going all the way entirely to sh*t
At least in 2016, Chelsea’s dizzying collapse could be put down to Mourinho Third Season Syndrome, a known condition even by that stage albeit one that had never quite delivered as spectacularly as it did then.
Guardiola Ninth Season Syndrome is an entirely new condition we are all experiencing at the same time. It may not be quite so actively toxic as MTTS, but the end results appear similarly catastrophic for the patient with City now inexplicably and wildly flailing around in mid-table after years of absolute dominance. The team that has won six of the last seven titles and finished second when they didn’t win it are currently seventh and falling like a stone.
The good news for City at least is that we can state with high confidence they will bounce back and win the title next season. The bad news for City is that they will have to appoint Antonio Conte to do so, and he’ll huff off a year later after acrimonious scenes in which someone laughs at his hair-hat while he complains darkly about having only been allowed to spend the wealth of a medium-sized nation on three wing-backs when he urgently required four if he was to have any chance of doing his job properly.
There will then be some tricky years containing an inexplicable second Champions League title but also a disastrous and for no obvious good reason repeated experiment with appointing one of the club’s former players as manager chiefly because the media love him for not being rude to them. In Manchester City’s case, this could also actually be actual Frank Lampard, which is a bonus.
Big Six blown apart
Chelsea recovered to finish tenth in 2016, but Liverpool finished a lowly eighth with just 60 points as Southampton joined Leicester in the top six.
Fair to say there are a couple of notable Big Six idiots for whom eighth place and/or 60 points currently represents a stretch target.
The good news for either of them should they make it is that good times must logically be just around the corner under an inspirational and charismatic manager who takes over part way through this difficult season and, sure, will need some time to replicate the success he enjoyed in his own league but absolutely has the requisite skills to do so if given time and backing from the board.
The even better news is that one of these two basket-case clubs might even have made such a managerial appointment already. The other, alas, has a big Australian fella who says ‘mate’ a lot in lieu of tactics or game management or defending.
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Big clubs relegated
An often overlooked element of the 2015/16 madness. The overwhelming and understandable fixation on the oddities in the top half means you might not even look all the way down to find both Newcastle and Aston Villa in the bottom three.
People are still hesitant around widespread use of the Big Eight moniker, with both those potential newcomers to the fold having a bit to do before they can even match Spurs. For all their clownery, Spurs have multiple Champions League qualifications to their name, a solid record of actually finishing in the top six (13 of the last 15 years) and our favourite quirkily Spursy achievement of never once in the Big Six era finishing last of those six clubs. Even when they have a dodgy year, someone has a dodgier one.
But there are also very good and obvious reasons why Newcastle and Villa seem a closer fit to be lumped in with the six than the 12. And in 2015/16, they both managed to get relegated.
All right, you might argue the current trio on course for relegation don’t quite match that big-club profile but that’s very disrespectful to a group that contains two of 2016’s top six. Two clubs in Leicester and Southampton who between them have managed four top-six finishes in the last nine seasons compared to Newcastle and Villa’s combined two.
North London club third in a two-horse race?
Throwing it forward here, and with Chelsea having adroitly achieved what Arsenal themselves did nine years ago in bottling the title race before it even really began around Christmas have created the tantalising possibility for Arsenal to go Full Spurs if they fancy it.
With the title itself now surely a two-horse race in which one horse is already really quite a long way ahead, the opportunity is there for Arsenal to do the funniest thing in their humourless history by stumbling over the line once their slender title hopes have evaporated entirely and being pipped to second place by Chelsea.
Just a shame Arsenal have already been to Stamford Bridge and thus cannot actually lose the title there as they spend the evening booting players up in the air and somehow not getting any red cards for it.
But there is a trip to Liverpool themselves in May that could absolutely fit the bill.
Could be scenes for the ages there. The Battle of Anfield. Declan Rice just repeatedly booting Mo Salah up the arse without good reason or, for some reason, any punishment whatsoever. Leandro Trossard standing on stricken players’ hands while the officials aren’t looking. VAR staying out of it because reasons. Arsenal even have recent history for throwing away two-goal leads at Anfield as a title chase implodes.
