English Premier League 2022-2023 Review
It has been an incredible season of football, with every factor you'll expect from an exciting season. Beautiful football, amazing talents on display, week in, week out, a new crop of talents rising and some older faces cementing their spots. It has also featured the end of storied careers in English football, the most notable one for me being the potential exits of Arsenal's Granit Xhaka and Liverpool's Robert Firmino. These are players who have had their fair share of love-hate relationship with the fans bir at the end, managed to etch their names in history. Great servants of their respective clubs who I am sure will be fondly remembered.
The season also featured the resurgence of an old fan favourite, Newcastle United, whether you agree with their business model or not is story for another day but the club is one of oldest and most followed in England and I think if any club deserve huge cash injection, it's Newcastle. The hope, of course, is their history, relationship with fans and development of homegrown talents not become collateral damage to their new found appetite for success at the highest levels.
The joke of the season without a doubt is Chelsea football club. Anywhere you turn, Stamford bridge produced comedy gold. First, their problems started in far away Moscow, where the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin decided to invade neighboring Ukraine, a move many historians and experts call reckless, badly planned and executed. That one move created ripple effects around the world and made life very uncomfortable for Russian business owners around the world. The UK authorities forced Chelsea's then owner, Roman Abramovich under whom they've achieved the biggest success, to sell the club and thus began the biggest and fastest capitulation in modern football history. On paper, the new owners, led by Todd Boehly, looked like they were going to keep up with the policies of the previous handlers but everything they have touched have turned to dust. None of their signings have made any significant impact on the team, their first hire as manager, Graham Potter, was an absolute disaster and as if that was not enough, Potter's replacement at his old club has been an absolute revolution, so much, He's on the shortlist as manager of the year. Soon, Potter was gone and his replacement, Frank Lampard, has been such a joke, it makes sense he allegedly came highly recommended by the famous British comedian, James Corden.
The surprise for me, all season, was Arsenal's push for the league title. A young team with a young manager no one gave a chance to even make the top 4, at the start of the season, challenged for the trophy. Obviously, they couldn't hold on till the end but I have been baffled by the reaction from some section of football fans. Arsenal's courage deservesl commendation not scorn. First of all, all the teams started with a clean slate and all had a chance to challenge for the title, at the end only 2 teams did and if you're not the team who won, why do you think you have earned the rights to banter a team that actually challenged for the title, inspite of their lack of squad depth and inexperience at the highest levels? There is a lot of potentials in this Arsenal squad and with the right improvements, they will keep challenging for titles in years to come.
As for those who insist on making bottle jokes, there's a story of an Olympic athlete who came 3rd in His race and as people tried to make fun of him he said "there are only two people in the world who are better than me and if the jokes are not coming from them, I don't want to hear it".
The English premier league remain the most competitive and most entertaining league in the world and we look forward to an even more exciting season come August!
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