Two shockers on the final day.
We didn’t expect Theo Walcott to start instead of Giroud.
And we certainly didn’t expect, after three home games without a goal, to see Walcott score a hat-trick against an indifferent West Brom side.
Despite his outstanding performance in a 4-1 victory, which left Arsenal comfortably in 2nd place, insiders don’t think Walcott will start at Wembley.
And we didn’t expect Stoke to smash Liverpool 6-1.
As always, the last day of the season showed us some teams who were trying while others were already on the beach.
Stoke thrashed Liverpool 6-1 to put Brendan Rodgers’ tenure in further jeopardy. Were the players not competing to get Rodgers the sack?
Although Sakho is a pitiful defender, the most overpriced in the league, Emre Can has potential as an energetic midfielder who can create and maybe score.
While always bearing in mind that the competition for good players is more intense now than it’s ever has been, Liverpool’s recruitment has been remarkably ignorant and wasteful.
Rodgers knew that his friend Jose Mourinho, who had Balotelli at Inter, had deemed him “unmanageable” but Liverpool paid £16million and put him on big wages.
Hiring Balotelli is a sacking offence in itself.
Although I’ve spent a big chunk of my life with football managers since 1982, I’ve never met Rodgers.
However, that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.
I judge all managers by their team, by what they do, not by what they say, and I also judge a manager on what he doesn’t do, what he refuses to do.
Rodgers comes over as a headstrong, bulldozing character who is far too scripted. He’s not versatile enough, patient enough or flexible enough
On Sunday, after they were battered by Stoke, I thought he was finished.
Without Stevie G, the club lacks a personality.
Losing Gerrard and Sterling a year after losing Suarez looks, at this moment, catastrophic.
Last year Rodgers called Sterling “the best young player in Europe” but at the Britannia he was an unused sub who doesn’t want to be there and will be sold.
Last night we heard that owner John W. Henry is keeping Rodgers, who has finished seventh and second and sixth.
Stoke ripped Liverpool to shreds and scored some terrific goals.
But I won’t remember their six, just the one by the losers.
Stevie G got a goal back to make it 5-1, racing into a Rickie Lambert flick-on and placing his tidy shot across big Begovic. He gave us one more goal to remember him by.
Bottom line, that scoreline just sounds wrong and looks wrong.
Stoke 6 Liverpool 1 is just a mad scoreline, an impossible one. Even though I’m well aware of their flaws but this was a meltdown of epic proportions.
WHERE WAS THE PRIDE ?
Liverpool’s biggest defeat since 1963.
1963!!! 1963 was a longlonglonglong time ago.
A lot of ANR readers weren’t around when Harold MacMillan was Prime Minister, when Kim Philby defected from Beirut, when John Le Carre wrote The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, when the Beatles released their first LP, Please Please Me.
Manchester United beat Leicester City in the FA Cup Final at Wembley with goals by David Herd (2) and Denis Law.
Mark Hughes, the Stoke manager, was born in 1963.
The top four clubs in 1963 were Everton (champions), Spurs, Burnley and Leicester City.
The next best teams were Wolves (5th), Sheffield Wednesday (6th) Arsenal (7th) and Liverpool (8th).
So Bill Shankly’s Liverpool went down to White Hart Lane on April 15th, 1963 to play Bill Nicholson’s legendary Spurs team and got pulverised that day.
Tottenham hammered Liverpool 7-2.
Jimmy Greaves scored four goals, Cliff Jones two.
Match of the Day started the following season.
Highlights of one match : Liverpool 3 Arsenal 2 on August 22.