In the cash-rich world of modern football, there is plenty of room for ridicule; Sport360 has it for you in abundance every Monday. This week, Off The Bar takes in the shame of the Europa League, the extremem survival skills of Tony Pulis and why Luke Shaw needs bubble wrap.
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ANTI-EUROPA LEAGUE BATTLE
If the Premier League was a party right now, everyone would have gone home – all the action has happened, your mate Steve has finally snogged Susie, the pet guinea pig is no longer being driven around in a remote control car, and wearing a dress belonging to the party host’s mother is no longer funny. Time to grab a taxi and head home before you fall asleep on the toilet…again.
But not for the officials running Premier League, who continue to lock the front door and jump on the table, wobbling from side to side, desperately declaring that the night is still young. Who are they kidding? With the Premier League title decided, the top four cemented, and two teams relegated, there’s almost nothing likely to be at stake on the final day of the season…except the biggest battle of them all – The ‘Please please please, let’s not win the last Europa League place’ Cup.
The battle to avoid the Europa League is hotting up. Both Southampton and Spurs trail by 2 goals.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) May 9, 2015
Yup, both Southampton and Tottenham are scrapping hard to avoid what is apparently the biggest shame in the footballing Universe, nay humanity itself – representing their club in the second tier of Europe. Both sides have gone toe to toe in this clash – each team losing convincingly again at the weekend to secure a run of two defeats and a draw in their past three games.
It’s certainly a beautifully poised battle to avoid 6th place at all costs. Southampton have the advantage as they sit just one point below Tottenham and have the far easier opportunity to mess up, given that their last game is against Manchester City.
Yet Spurs do have the crucial edge of holding a long-held hatred of the Europa League. For so many years it has been a foreboding whirlpool for them – sucking the time, energy and Achilles tendons from their side when they needed all of the above to get within touching distance of the Champions League. When they have needed to recuperate from an intense Premier League fixture list, they’ve been forced to embark on a level of foreign adventures that Christopher Columbus would baulk at – endless journeys to the far reaches of the planet, invariably returning empty handed, compass all over the place and full of an exotic list of injuries.
We must accept this is probably as good as it’s going to get this year. A few seasons back we had United and City fighting to the last seconds for arguably the most prestigious league title in the world, and instead this year we have two teams putting their bodies on the line to avoid Danny Rose or Ryan Bertrand pinging a hamstring on cold away trip to Dinamo Zagreb in the deepest darkest days of late October. You win some, you lose some.
TONY PULIS IS ‘THE ONE’
West Brom secured their Premier League status at the weekend with a typically hard fought draw against Newcastle United. Achieving that point against the best coach in the Premier League must have made it all the sweeter for Tony Pulis. The result of course means that Pulis retains his famous record of never having been relegated in his managerial career – that’s now 25 years and counting without being ejected down the football garbage chute.
It’s almost like Pulis and the dotted line above the relegation zone had a violent altercation many decades ago – a pub brawl over a pool hustle gone wrong or a back alley quarrel over an alleged affair. They just don’t mix at all. Whatever happened, the two have failed to look each other in the eye ever since. Beyond the Merseyside derby it’s one of the most ferocious rivalries in football.
Big props to Pulis for surviving yet again with plenty of room to spare, but we do hope one season soon he’ll go head to head with relegation up until the final moments of the final match. It’s a mouthwatering tussle to imagine and bound to deliver something comparable to the epic fight between Neo and Agent Smith at the end of the Matrix franchise. Yes, that’s right, when you boil it all down – the steely focus, the destined life of leadership, the seemingly immortal presence in the face of danger – Tony Pulis is Neo plus a baseball cap.
SHAW CUT SHORT AGAIN
BREAKING: Manchester United medical staff come up with groundbreaking way to keep Luke Shaw injury free! pic.twitter.com/EUmHBaqbSD
— Ben (@TurnCruyff) May 9, 2015
Luke ‘The Human Pinata’ Shaw is nursing more wounds this weekend. He swallowed an elbow from James McArthur and was stretchered off minutes later. Injuries have been the tale of his season, and it could be more of the same next campaign unless his muscles and ligaments can achieve more structural integrity than damp tracing paper. Remarkably, that’s now eight times that Shaw has not completed 90 minutes in the 17 starts he’s had this season.
You have to wonder whether this anti-completion kink will hurt Shaw in all walks of life – nearly but not quite hot cups of tea, a Sunday roast dinner without the potatoes, the back door never double locked at night – he must be a nightmare to live with right now.
Football fans have unsurprisingly mocked Shaw, suggesting he should be completely covered in protective bubble wrap or cotton wool. But that in itself is a danger – at this rate the mere act of applying the wrap could land Shaw with severe internal bleeding and the cotton wool would likely trigger a life-threatening rash. You can’t be too safe with this boy.
SUNDERLAND ARE ONE BIG DEFLECTION
The world is not flat, man can land on the Moon and Sunderland can avoid relegation this year – all three facts are arguably the biggest and most astonishing revelations in human civilisation. Off The Bar hasn’t yet checked but is pretty sure all anthropologists agree on that. That’s a fine testament to the jaw-dropping nature of Sunderland’s resurgence.
Three wins under Dick Advocaat have given the Mackems hope of survival despite having a midfield and defence as deep, leaky, rusty and immobile as the present day Titanic. They won with two very flukey deflections in their win against Everton on Saturday – and that seems entirely apt, for when you look at Sunderland this season, that is exactly what they are – a flukey deflection.
They scuffed their start in the league with an 8-0 trousering from Southampton, ricocheted away from goal under the last days of Gus Poyet before being diverted back goalwards off a striker’s backside (aka the appointment of Advocaat) and now look set to skid towards the base of the post, thwack the back of the diving keeper before bobbling apologetically over the line to somehow survive for yet another season.
