Another Season in the Books

6911 set up for proper last day viewing

Thanks mostly to the Leicester-Tottenham match, the live table did change by the minute during Sunday's final matches.  Newcastle continued their Alfred E Neuman-like (What, me worry?) end to the season.  The Union win again with less than their best.  And now all we have to look forward to is a month of June full of Euro 2020 2021.

Depressingly Familiar

At two points on Sunday, Leicester had a place in the Champions League.  Jamie Vardy gave the Foxes an early lead against Spurs with a PK.  Coupled with Chelsea's struggle against Aston Villa, a win would have gotten them fourth.  Harry Kane temporarily put that to rest with a late first half tally.  But Vardy got a second PK to restore Leicester's hopes, especially with Villa up 2-0 on Chelsea.  And then it fell apart.  Schmeichel surrendered an own goal on botched corner and Bale added two more late to seal a 4-2 win for Spurs.  Chelsea's 1-2 loss to Villa was irrelevant at that point.  Thus we are left with top four of Man City, Man United, Liverpool and Chelsea.

Turns out Spurs needed that rally to get their own ticket for Europe next year (albeit in the less desirable Europa Conference League).  Until Bale's goal put Spurs in front of Leicester, Arsenal were holding the seventh spot thanks to a comfortable lead over Brighton.  West Ham had left no doubt about sixth place with their convincing 3-0 win over Southampton.  So the Europa picture is Leicester and West Ham in the Europa League and Tottenham in the "tertiary level" Europa Conference League.

Leicester again lose out on Champions League on the last day of the season.  West Ham at least is a newer face in the top seven, recovering nicely from last year's relegation threatened 16th place finish.

What Were We Worrying About?

With a 2-0 win over Fulham, Newcastle finished 12th with 45 points.  Are you kidding me?  Seven weeks ago they were 17th with 28 points, just two outside the relegation zone.  The Magpies took 17 points from the final nine matches; extrapolate that over a 38-game season and you get almost 72 points and a top four finish.  Easy there Sparky. Nine of those points came against bottom of the table competition.  On the other hand, eight points did come against top seven sides, so it wasn't just bottom feeding.

We are left with the question of how could a 45-point, 12th-place season be so incredibly stressful.  Part may have been the schedule.  A bigger part is likely injuries, including covid-19 related absences.  We can't ignore that the only significant piece of January business, acquiring Joe Willock from Arsenal on loan, paid off big time (more on that below).  Unfortunately, the solid finish could lead to complacency Tyneside.  See, we were fine except for injuries.  We don't need to make changes.  Yeah, except Callum Wilson and Allan Saint-Maximin look to be injury prone and the early signs from Mikel Arteta are that he has no intention of making the Willock deal permanent.  No, the worst thing would be to stand pat - that would pretty much guarantee another season on the brink.

Aston Villa Are the Mid-Table

Not in the mid-table.  They are the entire mid-table.  The win over Chelsea gave them an completely creditable 11th place finish with 55 points.  It's 10 points down to the next spot - Newcastle - and every team below them was relegation threatened until late (well maybe not Wolves).  It's only four points up to 10th place Everton but every team above them was a serious candidate for Europe (well maybe not Leeds).  

Villa went from 17th and incredible escape last year to this 11th place finish.  What if Grealish hadn't missed so many games?  Looking over the fixtures he missed, we might conservatively give Villa seven more points.  With 62 points, they would have been in the hunt for at least a Europa League spot.  We can only hope management takes the summer window seriously.  Hang on to the key players like Targett, Cash, and Konsa, find someone to replace Douglas Luiz, add some depth.  This team could challenge for top seven with some judicious spending.

Loanee of the January Window - Lingard or Willock?

This is an incredibly tight contest.  Willock had eight goals in 14 games, averaging a rating of 7.13; Newcastle averaged 1.25 points per game in those 14 games versus 1.04 in the other 24 games.  But Lingard was probably better.  He had nine goals and four assists in 16 games, averaging a rating of 7.22; West Ham average 1.875 points per game in those 16 games versus 1.45 in the other 22 games. He also played all but 14 minutes of those games.  Newcastle went from relegation threat to a comfortable 12th place finish.  West Ham got a 6th place finish and a Europa spot.  However, they were already in the hunt before Lingard showed up; Jesse just made sure they stayed there.  The Newcastle bias of the BFS panel shows through and the award goes to Willock,  as we feel he made more of difference to the Magpies final standing than Lingard did.  But ya done good too Jesse.

Separated at Birth

We had thought about posting this for a few weeks but held off on pointing it out, until Dennis said he saw it too.  When exactly did Tottenham sign Jack Sparrow?  And will he be back next year?  Guess it might depend on who Daniel Levy picks as his new manager.

Good Thing That Wasn't NYCFC

Glesnes in action: BFS choice for PoM

Or somebody comparable.  For the second straight match, the Union looked mediocre versus mediocre
competition.  But for the second straight match, they escaped with a 1-0 win, this time against DC United.  Quite a few passes that were not intercepted as much as sent directly to the opposition.  Some communication breakdowns that led to shockingly easy scoring opportunities.  And again, not making the most of the chances they generated.  Three things stand out for me.  There was a moment of brilliance on a through ball from Monteiro to shuhBILLkoh, with CATSpurr calmly finishing the play.  Blake had his usual result saving save.  And a big shout out to Glesnes for always being in the passing lane to disrupt the DC United attacks.  At whoscored.com, they had Blake above Glesnes (8.0 to 7.7) but we would have gone with the Norwegian.  We also got a quick look at new addition Daniel Gazdag.  Hard to draw much from the appearance, except that he showed up ready to play, even just for one match.  He probably won't be back until July after the Euros.  

Conversation That Could Have Taken Place But Didn't

Dennis:  Who's the player on DC United wearing 20-20?

Steve:  Brendan Hines-Ike

Dennis: What's the deal with his number?

Steve: Everybody knows Hines-Ike is always 20-20

Conversation That Could Have Taken Place and Did

Bob K: Did you say Spurs owner Daniel Levy had trouble getting out of jail?

Michael B: No, I said he misspent the Bale money.

Not Istanbul (Not Constantinople) [apologies to They Might Be Giants]

The Champions League Final was originally to be held in Istanbul.  But with Turkey on the UK red list for travel fans of the both finalists - Man City and Chelsea - would not be allowed to attend.   The clubs proposed Wembley but UEFA staff would have had trouble getting exemptions to fly to London.  So the compromise city was Porto.  With Portugal on the UK green list, about 6,000 fans from each club will be able to attend.  That match is this Saturday at 3 pm on CBS (the main network).  City are prohibitive favorites.

The Europa League final looks good with Villareal taking on Man United.  That one is on CBSSports at 3 pm on Wednesday.  United are the favorite here too but I wouldn't count The Yellow Submarine out.

The Union have one more match - home against Portland - before a long international break sets in.  That's Sunday at 7 pm on FS1.  They better bring their A game or it might not be pretty.  

The USMNT is gearing up for a busy second half to the year.  Nice article here from Axios (hat tip BFS La Liga correspondent Bob K).  You might want to take a moment to acquaint yourself with the roster.  Nice to see two ex-Union names (McKenzie and Aaronson).

And of course, Euro 2020 kicks off a year late on June 11 with Turkey taking on Italy at 3 pm.  Group stage matches every day from 6/11 to 6/23.  Knockout games most days until the final on July 11th.  

We're going to take off until 6/11 when we'll present our thoughts and viewing plans for the Euros.