I miss you like crazy, every hour of every day
(Surprisingly, I didn't really suffer from loss of Saturday matches this year. The difference between the horrible episodes of football withdrawal that I experienced last year is that this year I went on holiday in June and July so it feels like the season just took a 2 week break rather than two months.)
Just over a day (two for my beloved Utd) until the new Premier League season kicks off. There's surely going to be some drama, thrills and goal keeping spills. It wouldn't be the Premier League if there wasn't a little bit of crazy every now and again.
Now, I know Goal.com is as much loved around here as much as Marmite is in our house but bear with. They actually had a very funny piece about what they think is going to happen in the Premier League. I thought we could do with a bit of light hearted humour so here it is.
Warning, it's a bit of a read but honestly it's so worth it.
Goal.com sent this correspondent to the future in a time machine in order to find out how the 2011-12 Premier League campaign would go down. However, this correspondent accidentally hit the reverse button and ended up in August 2010 and had to sit through the whole of last season again before making up this pile of nonsense.
So if you want to know how the upcoming season will pan out, then please do not read this article as you will be sorely disappointed.
AUGUST
9th: This article is published and, within 10 minutes, Goal.com is accused of being anti-Arsenal/Manchester United/Manchester City/Tottenham/Real Madrid/Barcelona/Chelsea/Liverpool/Everton/Crawley Town/your five-a-side team.
19th: Manchester City gazump United for Wesley Sneijder. The Dutchman, who arrives at the Etihad Stadium in a gold-plated limo with a big sack of £100 notes slung over his shoulder, says he chose them because they have the greater history, before being flown out of the ground in his new luxury helicopter made out of chocolate.
31st: The window shuts and Arsenal have not signed a defender. Gunnersaurus is named in Arsene Wenger's 25-man squad as an emergency centre-back.
SEPTEMBER
1st: Cesc Fabregas's move to Barcelona falls through and we all have to put up with that hobo for another year. Carlos Tevez also fails to make a move anywhere and retires from professional football to be closer to his family in Argentina.
20th: David Moyes quits as Everton boss to take up a role in a West End musical version of Lord of the Rings. "I'd just been at Goodison for too long and with no money available to me," he reflects. "Besides, how could I possibly turn down the opportunity to bring Gollum to life?"
28th: Gareth Bale undergoes surgery to have his ears pinned back to improve his straight line speed. The operation is a success, and he can now sprint the length of the pitch five seconds quicker than previously.
OCTOBER
1st: Mario Balotelli gets his first start of the season for Manchester City away to Blackburn. However, he gets lost on his way to the pitch from the dressing room and misses kick-off, earning himself a two-week fine.
10th: England confirm qualification for Euro 2012 with a win over previously unbeaten Montenegro, but Fabio Capello is still called a useless clown by the majority of the papers because he has a funny accent and looks a bit like Postman Pat.
15th: Liverpool take on Manchester United at Anfield and Nemanja Vidic and David de Gea hurl up their guts in front of the Kop after Andy Carroll leaps in the air and unleashes a last-minute noxious beer fart in the six-yard area.
NOVEMBER
5th: QPR boss Neil Warnock instructs his players to get themselves sent off when they host Manchester City. Asked whether he has brought the game into disrepute, the gruff manager simply knocks out the interviewer and spits into the camera.
28th: Kenwyne Jones's right nipple is the league's top scorer with 11 goals (all from set-pieces) scored from a cumulative distance of one foot away from goal for Stoke City.
30th: Andre Villas-Boas dismisses reports that the Chelsea squad are not taking him seriously due to his young age and explains that a recent training ground incident that saw him tied to to the crossbar while senior members of the squad took shots at him was merely a "team building exercise".
DECEMBER
1st: A stray Kevin Davies elbow lands to the side of Owen Coyle's head in training. The knock causes the Bolton boss's speech to slow down dramatically, meaning that for the first time in his life he now pauses between words ratherthantalkingreallyreallyfastlikeheusedto.
10th: Joey Barton, enraged after not being nominated for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, refuses to pay his TV licence and is sent to prison for a month.
26th: Roy Hodgson turns up for the Boxing Day game against Manchester City sporting a lovely Christmas jumper knitted by the wife. It has a big dog on it and he looks proper chuffed.
31st: Balotelli caps off a memorable personal year by joining Twitter. He immediately posts a picture of his man bits and is fined two weeks' wages by Manchester City and his account is closed down.
JANUARY
1st: As the transfer window opens, Tevez comes out of retirement in Buenos Aires by signing for Inter, claiming that this will enable him to be closer to his family in Argentina.
14th: QPR lose their FA Cup third round replay to a pub team after Warnock picks a line-up with the average age of just 13.6 years. Asked whether he has demeaned the competition and angered the fans by putting out such a joke XI, Warnock tells the millions of TV viewers around the world that they can "**** the **** off if you think I give a **** what you bunch of ***** think". He is fined by the FA for putting out a terrible team, for swearing on television and for being a ginormous ass.
21st: Having not overspent on a vastly overrated British player in a while, Kenny Dalglish buys Lee Cattermole for £20m. Presenting him to the media, the Liverpool manager says: "With only having Steven Gerrard, Lucas Leiva, Raul Meireles, Charlie Adam, Jordan Henderson, Jonjo Shelvey, Joe Cole, Christian Poulsen, Jay Spearing and Alberto Aquilani, it's important that we have more options in midfield."
31st: Arsenal finally sign a defender; unfortunately for the club's supporters, it's Sol Campbell. Meanwhile, Harry Redknapp says there's "absolutely no way in hell" that he'd make a move for a player on deadline day. At one minute to midnight he offers West Ham £2.50, store credit at Argos and a couple of second hand Wii games for Scott Parker - an offer that Davids Gold and Sullivan instantly turn down. Redknapp fumes: "We tried our best and we thought we gave them a fair offer, but obviously those clowns don't know what one of those is, do they?!"
FEBRUARY
1st: Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish becomes absolutely the most hated man in Birmingham by leaving Aston Villa to go back to Birmingham.
14th: The romantics write love letters about Swansea's gorgeously free-flowing football. "They're what the purists want to see," says some pompous prig of a writer, ignoring the fact that the Welsh side are deep in the brown stuff of the Premier League.
25th: Rumours that Andre Villas-Boas is not being taken seriously by his squad gain further credibility as the 33-year-old is locked into a toilet at half-time against Bolton.
26th: Arsenal and Norwich meet in the League Cup final, with Gunners thrilled at the prospect of taking on relatively easy opponents as they bid to end their trophy drought. To avoid a repeat of their cock-up a year ago, Wojciech Szczesny and Laurent Koscielny allow Sol Campbell to deal with everything that comes into the box. As a result, Norwich win 4-1.
MARCH
1st: Steve Bruce cannot fathom why so many of his defenders are getting injured while training with Titus Bramble, who is now automatic first-choice centre-back after starting the season behind a dozen players a million times better than him.
4th: Blackburn's owners sack manager Steve Kean, despite the team riding high in seventh, because the Scot announces that he is going vegan and thus cannot appear in one of Venky's ridiculous adverts. Noted chicken nugget fan Rafael Benitez takes over at Ewood Park.
15th: Mike Ashley sells Newcastle to a local consortium consisting of Ant 'n' Dec, Jimmy Nail and a large group of unknown bare-chested fat men. They immediately sack Alan Pardew and replace him with Alan Shearer. They do not win a game again all season.
27th: Ryan Giggs announces that he will stay on for another season despite barely figuring for Sir Alex Ferguson, who explains that the Welsh pensioner's decision to carry on playing means he will not have to buy a midfielder in the summer. Manchester United fans protest the manager's reluctance to spend by wearing red scarves as opposed to the green and gold scarves they use to protest the Glazer ownership.
APRIL
3rd: Joey Barton makes his millionth tweet of the season and proudly boasts of how much he has grown up over the past two years. On the same day he calls a 12-year-old a 'helmet' for having a different opinion to him.
15th: After a series of tabloid exposés, Gareth Barry is named England captain by virtue of being the only player in the squad not to have had an illicit affair.
30th: Despite being out injured for the last four months, Gareth Bale is named PFA Players' Player of the Year, PFA Young Player of the Year, and the Football Writers' Player of the Year. Barcelona table a £150m opening bid that Harry Redknapp labels "an insult" to Tottenham.
MAY
5th: Chelsea defeat Wolves to win the FA Cup final at Wembley. As Villas-Boas is about to lift the trophy, John Terry throws him over the barrier and into the stands below. The rest of the players point and laugh as the Portuguese boss, lying twisted on the floor, insists that he was in on the joke and that is shows just how much togetherness there is in the squad.
10th: Martin Jol reveals he has a ridiculously deep voice as a result of smoking 50 cigarettes a day since the age of three. Nobody is surprised.
13th: The final day of the Premier League season sees QPR, Norwich and Wolves relegated. Neil Warnock, whose side was long sent down having picked up just one point, calls Kenny Dalglish "a despicable Scottish tramp" for putting out a weakened team that loses to relegation-battling Swansea.
Manchester City win the league but are docked 20 points for financial irregularities, as are second-placed Manchester United, third-placed Chelsea, and fourth-placed Liverpool.
The penalties see thrifty Arsenal jump from fifth to first. Wenger credits principles and Microsoft Excel for the club's success - everyone else just calls him a tight-fisted, lucky sod.
28th: Carlos Tevez announces his intention to leave Inter in order to be closer to his family in Argentina.
29th: Tevez signs for Chelsea.
Source
The writer clearly has zero love for Neil Warnock.
If the PL turns out anything like this it will be a season to remember.
Just over a day (two for my beloved Utd) until the new Premier League season kicks off. There's surely going to be some drama, thrills and goal keeping spills. It wouldn't be the Premier League if there wasn't a little bit of crazy every now and again.
Now, I know Goal.com is as much loved around here as much as Marmite is in our house but bear with. They actually had a very funny piece about what they think is going to happen in the Premier League. I thought we could do with a bit of light hearted humour so here it is.
Warning, it's a bit of a read but honestly it's so worth it.
Goal.com sent this correspondent to the future in a time machine in order to find out how the 2011-12 Premier League campaign would go down. However, this correspondent accidentally hit the reverse button and ended up in August 2010 and had to sit through the whole of last season again before making up this pile of nonsense.
So if you want to know how the upcoming season will pan out, then please do not read this article as you will be sorely disappointed.
AUGUST
9th: This article is published and, within 10 minutes, Goal.com is accused of being anti-Arsenal/Manchester United/Manchester City/Tottenham/Real Madrid/Barcelona/Chelsea/Liverpool/Everton/Crawley Town/your five-a-side team.
19th: Manchester City gazump United for Wesley Sneijder. The Dutchman, who arrives at the Etihad Stadium in a gold-plated limo with a big sack of £100 notes slung over his shoulder, says he chose them because they have the greater history, before being flown out of the ground in his new luxury helicopter made out of chocolate.
31st: The window shuts and Arsenal have not signed a defender. Gunnersaurus is named in Arsene Wenger's 25-man squad as an emergency centre-back.
SEPTEMBER
1st: Cesc Fabregas's move to Barcelona falls through and we all have to put up with that hobo for another year. Carlos Tevez also fails to make a move anywhere and retires from professional football to be closer to his family in Argentina.
20th: David Moyes quits as Everton boss to take up a role in a West End musical version of Lord of the Rings. "I'd just been at Goodison for too long and with no money available to me," he reflects. "Besides, how could I possibly turn down the opportunity to bring Gollum to life?"
28th: Gareth Bale undergoes surgery to have his ears pinned back to improve his straight line speed. The operation is a success, and he can now sprint the length of the pitch five seconds quicker than previously.
OCTOBER
1st: Mario Balotelli gets his first start of the season for Manchester City away to Blackburn. However, he gets lost on his way to the pitch from the dressing room and misses kick-off, earning himself a two-week fine.
10th: England confirm qualification for Euro 2012 with a win over previously unbeaten Montenegro, but Fabio Capello is still called a useless clown by the majority of the papers because he has a funny accent and looks a bit like Postman Pat.
15th: Liverpool take on Manchester United at Anfield and Nemanja Vidic and David de Gea hurl up their guts in front of the Kop after Andy Carroll leaps in the air and unleashes a last-minute noxious beer fart in the six-yard area.
NOVEMBER
5th: QPR boss Neil Warnock instructs his players to get themselves sent off when they host Manchester City. Asked whether he has brought the game into disrepute, the gruff manager simply knocks out the interviewer and spits into the camera.
28th: Kenwyne Jones's right nipple is the league's top scorer with 11 goals (all from set-pieces) scored from a cumulative distance of one foot away from goal for Stoke City.
30th: Andre Villas-Boas dismisses reports that the Chelsea squad are not taking him seriously due to his young age and explains that a recent training ground incident that saw him tied to to the crossbar while senior members of the squad took shots at him was merely a "team building exercise".
DECEMBER
1st: A stray Kevin Davies elbow lands to the side of Owen Coyle's head in training. The knock causes the Bolton boss's speech to slow down dramatically, meaning that for the first time in his life he now pauses between words ratherthantalkingreallyreallyfastlikeheusedto.
10th: Joey Barton, enraged after not being nominated for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, refuses to pay his TV licence and is sent to prison for a month.
26th: Roy Hodgson turns up for the Boxing Day game against Manchester City sporting a lovely Christmas jumper knitted by the wife. It has a big dog on it and he looks proper chuffed.
31st: Balotelli caps off a memorable personal year by joining Twitter. He immediately posts a picture of his man bits and is fined two weeks' wages by Manchester City and his account is closed down.
JANUARY
1st: As the transfer window opens, Tevez comes out of retirement in Buenos Aires by signing for Inter, claiming that this will enable him to be closer to his family in Argentina.
14th: QPR lose their FA Cup third round replay to a pub team after Warnock picks a line-up with the average age of just 13.6 years. Asked whether he has demeaned the competition and angered the fans by putting out such a joke XI, Warnock tells the millions of TV viewers around the world that they can "**** the **** off if you think I give a **** what you bunch of ***** think". He is fined by the FA for putting out a terrible team, for swearing on television and for being a ginormous ass.
21st: Having not overspent on a vastly overrated British player in a while, Kenny Dalglish buys Lee Cattermole for £20m. Presenting him to the media, the Liverpool manager says: "With only having Steven Gerrard, Lucas Leiva, Raul Meireles, Charlie Adam, Jordan Henderson, Jonjo Shelvey, Joe Cole, Christian Poulsen, Jay Spearing and Alberto Aquilani, it's important that we have more options in midfield."
31st: Arsenal finally sign a defender; unfortunately for the club's supporters, it's Sol Campbell. Meanwhile, Harry Redknapp says there's "absolutely no way in hell" that he'd make a move for a player on deadline day. At one minute to midnight he offers West Ham £2.50, store credit at Argos and a couple of second hand Wii games for Scott Parker - an offer that Davids Gold and Sullivan instantly turn down. Redknapp fumes: "We tried our best and we thought we gave them a fair offer, but obviously those clowns don't know what one of those is, do they?!"
FEBRUARY
1st: Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish becomes absolutely the most hated man in Birmingham by leaving Aston Villa to go back to Birmingham.
14th: The romantics write love letters about Swansea's gorgeously free-flowing football. "They're what the purists want to see," says some pompous prig of a writer, ignoring the fact that the Welsh side are deep in the brown stuff of the Premier League.
25th: Rumours that Andre Villas-Boas is not being taken seriously by his squad gain further credibility as the 33-year-old is locked into a toilet at half-time against Bolton.
26th: Arsenal and Norwich meet in the League Cup final, with Gunners thrilled at the prospect of taking on relatively easy opponents as they bid to end their trophy drought. To avoid a repeat of their cock-up a year ago, Wojciech Szczesny and Laurent Koscielny allow Sol Campbell to deal with everything that comes into the box. As a result, Norwich win 4-1.
MARCH
1st: Steve Bruce cannot fathom why so many of his defenders are getting injured while training with Titus Bramble, who is now automatic first-choice centre-back after starting the season behind a dozen players a million times better than him.
4th: Blackburn's owners sack manager Steve Kean, despite the team riding high in seventh, because the Scot announces that he is going vegan and thus cannot appear in one of Venky's ridiculous adverts. Noted chicken nugget fan Rafael Benitez takes over at Ewood Park.
15th: Mike Ashley sells Newcastle to a local consortium consisting of Ant 'n' Dec, Jimmy Nail and a large group of unknown bare-chested fat men. They immediately sack Alan Pardew and replace him with Alan Shearer. They do not win a game again all season.
27th: Ryan Giggs announces that he will stay on for another season despite barely figuring for Sir Alex Ferguson, who explains that the Welsh pensioner's decision to carry on playing means he will not have to buy a midfielder in the summer. Manchester United fans protest the manager's reluctance to spend by wearing red scarves as opposed to the green and gold scarves they use to protest the Glazer ownership.
APRIL
3rd: Joey Barton makes his millionth tweet of the season and proudly boasts of how much he has grown up over the past two years. On the same day he calls a 12-year-old a 'helmet' for having a different opinion to him.
15th: After a series of tabloid exposés, Gareth Barry is named England captain by virtue of being the only player in the squad not to have had an illicit affair.
30th: Despite being out injured for the last four months, Gareth Bale is named PFA Players' Player of the Year, PFA Young Player of the Year, and the Football Writers' Player of the Year. Barcelona table a £150m opening bid that Harry Redknapp labels "an insult" to Tottenham.
MAY
5th: Chelsea defeat Wolves to win the FA Cup final at Wembley. As Villas-Boas is about to lift the trophy, John Terry throws him over the barrier and into the stands below. The rest of the players point and laugh as the Portuguese boss, lying twisted on the floor, insists that he was in on the joke and that is shows just how much togetherness there is in the squad.
10th: Martin Jol reveals he has a ridiculously deep voice as a result of smoking 50 cigarettes a day since the age of three. Nobody is surprised.
13th: The final day of the Premier League season sees QPR, Norwich and Wolves relegated. Neil Warnock, whose side was long sent down having picked up just one point, calls Kenny Dalglish "a despicable Scottish tramp" for putting out a weakened team that loses to relegation-battling Swansea.
Manchester City win the league but are docked 20 points for financial irregularities, as are second-placed Manchester United, third-placed Chelsea, and fourth-placed Liverpool.
The penalties see thrifty Arsenal jump from fifth to first. Wenger credits principles and Microsoft Excel for the club's success - everyone else just calls him a tight-fisted, lucky sod.
28th: Carlos Tevez announces his intention to leave Inter in order to be closer to his family in Argentina.
29th: Tevez signs for Chelsea.
Source
The writer clearly has zero love for Neil Warnock.
If the PL turns out anything like this it will be a season to remember.