The Occasional Opinions End of Season Awards 2022/23
All serious awards, but some are a bit more unprofessional than others.
Fuck me that was a long season.
10 straight months of Football, nearly every day of the week, with little opportunity for fans to take a break, never mind the lads playing each game.
This was a season full of thrills and spills, bottling and full-throttling, bets and “BACK OF THE NET(s)”, celebrations and justifications for human rights violations. It had everything!
So let’s try to vaguely summarise the season as best we can through the form of giving out awards for arbitrary events/shit that I just want to point out/make fun of.
(Willing to buy and send awards to the winners if they’d like them)
The 22/23 “Master of Disaster”:
Who else…
Frank Lampard
Set Everton on path to their first relegation since 1950. Was the only manager to lose a league game to Nathan Jones. Sacked. Somehow failed upwards and was given the Chelsea job. Won 1 game in 12. Nearly put Chelsea in a relegation battle. Conservative Party (at time of writing) is 16 points behind in the polls.
This has been one of the worst years we’ve ever seen a football manager have.
If you ask him, none of this is Lampard’s fault. At Everton he blamed “Modern Footballers who communicate on social media instead of in the dressing room”. At Chelsea he made sure to state on his way out the door that “Standards have dropped.” And while these points may be true, it does not excuse Lampard’s dismal work as a manager. Hopefully this is the last we see of him for a long time, but knowing Frank’s luck, he’ll have another Premier League team to ruin within the next two seasons.
Have to credit him for his unwavering self-confidence.
It’d put Jake Humphrey to shame.
The Broadcaster - that most made me want to gouge my own eyes out - of the Year
Jake Humphrey
Speak of the devil and they shall appear.
This man has almost single-handedly ruined my enjoyment of European football this season. A rare man in that he unites the fans of every single team that’s fallen victim to having one of their games hosted by him in the BT Sports (TNT Sports? Have they changed yet?) studio under a lone banner of abject hatred of him as a broadcaster. To many, it is a complete mystery how his studio guests tolerate his cocksure - yet synchophantic - mode of delivery, and his constantly clear lack of research.
And that’s without even mentioning “The High-Performance Podcast”, which Humphrey uses as a vehicle to espouse the virtues of waking up at 4am, taking chances, and the empowerment of being a rich, straight, white man on LinkedIn, the worst social media platform out there.
To quote a recent post by him, “EVERY SINGLE DECISION YOU TAKE IS A VOTE FOR THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE”, and clearly, Humphrey just wants to be a knob.
He’s left football now, thank the lord.
This award will be named in his honour from now on.
Perform Highly in peace Sir.
Manager of the Season
Steve Cooper
Nottingham Forest were promoted last season in almost miraculous circumstances. They were the obvious first-choice to go back down this season. Then they decided to open up their coffers and stuff a whole load of new players into their squad. 30 in total across the season. The Premier League registration rules only allow for 25 players to be registered to a team at a time, so they were truly packing out the dressing room. They had signed some top talents, but even then, the majority of people had them going down. The effect so many signings in 2 windows would have on the overall chemistry of the team would surely be too much. The club had been dysfunctional enough, but adding this issue in was surely the icing on the cake.
And people were right. 13 points from 16 games by the new year had Forest languishing at second from bottom. That could have been enough to drag a team down completely.
It’s easy to forget, but Steve Cooper was on the chopping block nearly from the beginning of the season. Forest put tremendous faith in him, giving him a new contract in October 2022 at a time when many were calling for his head. Cooper paid back that faith. By the end of April, Forest had more than doubled their points total, and dragged themselves out of the relegation zone. In May, they went unbeaten. Draws against Chelsea and Crystal Palace, and crucial wins vs title challengers Arsenal and fellow relegation strugglers Southampton. When they needed to, the boys from the south bank of the River Trent stepped up.
The job Cooper has done has been incredible, dealing 30 new personalities in the dressing room, somehow managing to find the best starting XI from an abundance of players - just ask Tuchel and Potter how difficult that is - and all while fighting the threat of sacking.
He won’t be the choice of the majority, and for good reason based on where Forest finished, but considering the job he had to do, I believe he;s more than deserving of some serious plaudits.
Oh, by the way, future England Manager right there.
The “I half-read “Inverting the Pyramid” once so now I’m a Twitter Tactico” Formation of the Year:
This award takes the piss out of others, but it’s also a direct shot straight at myself.
3-2-4-1 - Manchester City
While the saying “formations don’t exist in football anymore” is a massive oversimplification, when it comes to Pep Guardiola’s teams, you can rarely ever nail his team down to one specific formation. When the teams roll out on the broadcast, they often have Pep’s team shaping up in what has become their most common in-possession shape – 3-2-4-1.
Between the 1890s and 1930s, most teams around the world used a front five. The pyramid and WM systems ruled that era. Now Guardiola has recreated this function with his own unique tweaks.
City have both evolved and devolved their tactics this season to fit their personnel, introducing new ways of playing within the same ideologies they’ve always held true to. One of those new introductions has been the directness they can now exude through Erling Haaland, and an increased emphasis on central overloads that work to find the big man up top and simultaneously stretch the width through the wings.
They’ve also innovated the ‘Inverted Fullbacks’ tactic that they’ve used over the years, with John Stones now stepping into midfield whether he be at centre-back or full-back, and turning that 2+3 into more of a 3+2 for greater defensive security. It’s a masterstroke from the master once again.
The John Arne Riise “Thunderbastard” of the Year
Michael Olise - Crystal Palace 1 - 1 Manchester United
When your team is a goal down to Manchester United in injury time, after a run of one win in your previous five games has pulled you into a relegation battle, it takes serious nerve for a 21-year-old to line-up a free kick from 25 yards and go for goal. Olise has the confidence of a man who knows his qualities, and set the ball down with the sole intention of picking out the top corner.
The France Under-21 winger thrashed the ball with his instep, allowing it to curl and dip with ferocity before clipping the underside of the bar (always makes a goal look better doesn’t it?) and bouncing beyond the line, leaving David de Gea with little chance. Goals are always better when the ball crashes off the bar. Selhurst Park erupted but Olise just stood there, perhaps lost in wonderment at what he had done.
Meanwhile I sat at home, jaw slack, gazing in wonderment, partly at my team’s inability to finish their opposition off, mostly at the size of Olise’s massive Magairlí (look it up yourself).
Best Season
Not the “Player of the Season”, but just, who had the best season possible.
Gonzalo Montiel
Imagine scoring the winning penalty in a major final for your club or country.
Imagine the elation, the pride your family and friends would feel for you.
Then imagine doing it for both, in the same season.
That’s what Gonzalo Montiel did this year.
Scored the winning penalty for Argentina in the World Cup final in December. Then, just a few days ago, he scored the winning penalty in the Europa League final for Sevilla.
How could you have a better season than that?
The Sir Alex Ferguson award for Squeakiest Bum
This award is given to the scorer of the most important late goal of the season.
Toby Alderweireld - Royal Antwerp
Moments like this are what Football is all about.
Toby Alderweireld fired in a stunning last-gasp goal to help Royal Antwerp win their first league title since 1957.
The former Tottenham defender - who joined his hometown club just last summer - equalised in the 94th minute from outside the box as Antwerp rescued a 2-2 draw against title rivals Genk.
After a long ball was played forward, it was laid off for Alderweireld who rocketed in an effort into the top left corner, sparking wild celebrations among his teammates.
Genk were leading the game 2-1 and if they had held on for the three points, they would have won the title.
Meanwhile, Union Saint-Gilloise were in pole position to become champions but collapsed late in the season, failing to win any of their final three games.
If I had a “Bottler” of the season, in a season full of them, it’d likely be Union.
The Micah Richards breakout star award
Kaoru Mitoma - Brighton and Hove Albion
Brighton are one of the most progressive, thoughtful and nimble organisations and one which has a very good scouting network, picking out an outstanding talent from the J-League. All of which is sensible, especially when you think he cost just £3million. Big clubs wouldn’t pay that for anyone on principle. Far too cheap to get their fans excited. Transfermarkt now values him at £22 million and that a) is a conservative valuation, and b) will only rise further.
He can play left wing or left midfield equally effectively and does crop up on the right occasionally. Mitoma is becoming a fan favourite because he is incredibly industrious and seems to have a great attitude. There’s not a hint of a strop or whiney pouting. And he does have lovely thick floppy hair, which can’t be discounted as driving the love.
With all the references like he is a university-educated footballer, in that his technique is fabulous, as though he has had it honed in a competitive college environment. As such he is absolutely at the right club. He hasn’t needed any time to adjust to playing in the Premier League probably because, contrary to what some pundits would have us believe, it is not some uniquely difficult, uniquely skilful or uniquely physical elite level. It is just football.
I love the way he can twist and turn a defender. Although most of his goals have been scored with his right foot, he looks basically two-footed, often feigning to cut in on his right, only to push it outside with his left, get a yard of space and cross it with his left. You never quite know which way he’s going to go and that is a tremendous asset to any forward player.
Mitoma is also surprisingly quick, surprising because you don’t think of him as a speed merchant but he moves across the ground like a will-o-the-wisp. On top of that, he’s far from being a lightweight and doesn’t get bullied off the ball easily and, as someone who has written a thesis on dribbling, naturally, he’s a very good dribbler.
He is one of the reasons Brighton are the most attractive teams to watch this season and when you consider how little he cost and how expensive far worse players are, he’s an absolute star.
The Peter Kay “AVE IT” award
Awarded to a player who just hoofed a ball away hilariously. Really I just wanted people to laugh at this moment as much as I have.
David de Gea - Penalty Save vs Fulham
This is just so unfathomably hilarious to me.
It was De Gea’s first penalty save since 2014. Obviously he’d be excited, that’s fair enough. But the way he gets back on his feet, runs over to the ball, just hoofs it into the stands, and then stares down the crowd after!
Ah lads, I’m rolling around the place here.
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFF of the Year
Alexa, play “My Way” by Limp Bizkit…
Tuchel vs Conte - Chelsea vs Tottenham
Hard to believe, especially now that both are no longer with the clubs this whole event happened with, but somehow this happened this season.
The two managers were in each other's face on the sidelines for much of this game with both making a point to celebrate in front of the other when their team scored.
Tuchel ran down the sidelines when Reece James put Chelsea ahead late on but Conte would have the last laugh courtesy of Kane's header at the death.
Frustrations inevitably boiled after the full-time whistle as both managers were shown red cards after an incident that will forever go down in Premier League folklore. The little Conte/Azpi tiff after too? Bellissimo.
And that’s it for this year’s Awards!
Mostly because I can’t think of any other good ones.
Stay tuned to the Newsletter for more pieces throughout the summer, including my predictions ahead of next season.
Enjoy your time away from ball, and stay safe friends.