You would have to be living a very sheltered life not to have noticed that the Premier League this season is one of the best and the brightest for years. Mainly because it is not permanently dominated by the Big Six – though admittedly one of Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea is almost certain to win the title. But exciting, unpredictable, well-managed sides like Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth, Fulham and Brighton mean that more or less any side can beat any other.
Sam Konstas is pencil thin and doesn’t look old enough to get served in the Bush and Tucker tavern in his native Sydney
Though bafflingly Manchester City can hardly be relied on to beat anyone right now. They’ve had their problems, not least with poor Kyle Walker, who has used his speed to father a large number of children with different women. His mistress, with whom he had a couple of kids (not to be confused with the four he had with his wife), is called Lauryn Goodman and she hasn’t taken kindly to failing to clean Walker out of all his money. ‘He will be an overweight bald nobody soon,’ she said pleasantly of the City defender, though some would argue that the champions’ present problems can be attributed to the fact that Walker is heading that way pretty sharpish.
Even Chelsea, a side that often Chelsea fans find it hard to like, have been playing some fabulous, vivid football. I especially like their three youthful frontline players – Noni Madueke, Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson – who make the game seem as enjoyable to play as it should be to watch. Madueke is of Nigerian descent, though he was born in Barnet, and you can’t get more English than that. He has recently fallen foul of Chelsea’s transformative manager, Enzo Maresca, for not working hard enough in training and you can’t get more English than that either.
Palmer was woefully underused by Gareth Southgate in England’s foiled campaign to win the Euros in the summer, but is now playing some of the best football in the Prem. He has time when there doesn’t seem to be any, perfect balance, wonderful vision and an agreeably developed personality as a faux-idiot. They all play with great freedom, a far cry from the much copied City coaching strategy, so that Phil Foden, say, knew more or less exactly what blade of grass to stand on depending where the ball was. And I am looking forward to seeing a lot more of Thomas Tuchel this year. Dear old Gareth was very good for changing the culture and being liked by everyone but, as we know, he didn’t actually win anything. What is exciting and novel about Tuchel is that he has a very good record of winning knockout games, after planning shrewdly and assiduously for them. Could Thomas be the one?
Meanwhile, the world’s best three cricketing nations have three very young, and very assured, batsmen pulling in the crowds. Sam Konstas, who is just 19, is opening the batting for Australia and biffed the best bowler in the world, Jasprit Bumrah, back over his head for six, as well as cheekily ramping him over the keeper for more boundaries. He is pencil thin with a pencil thin moustache and doesn’t look old enough to get served in the Bush and Tucker tavern in his native Sydney.
The oldest of the three is India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal, 23, another opener, with a fabulous back story (extreme poverty, camping on the pavement in Mumbai and flogging street food to earn enough to play cricket) and a joy to watch on the field. The third is England’s Jacob Bethell, 21, who, it would be fair to say, wasn’t the product of extreme poverty: he was born in Barbados and went to Rugby School. Bethell is now exciting Aussie fans in the Big Bash League, making some solid scores while the Aussie frontline bowlers are otherwise engaged with the series against India. Great news for the Ashes. Hopefully.
Comments