Premier League 2015/16 alternative awards: Goodbyes, bad buys and Arsenal being Arsenal all over again

LEICESTER may have snaffled up all the proper baubles, but who are the winners and (very many) losers in our Alternative EPL Awards 2016? Find out here ...

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The Yogi Berra award for déjà vu all over again

If the Leicester City story read like the script from a Hollywood blockbuster, Arsenal’s season was more like one of those endless replays of Friends that is apparently required to be running on some channel, somewhere, at every single moment for the rest of human history (the one where Arsene forgets to sign any outfield players, with predictable and hilarious consequences).

Top on New Year’s Day, with traditional sparring partners Chelsea and Manchester United out of the picture, the title was there for the taking.

But what’s that you say? A stumble in February. Check. Defeat to a big side in Europe knocking their confidence. No bother. Piers Morgan sticking the boot in. Of course.

And so, just as they have before, and no doubt will again, Wenger’s men limped home to their customary top four finish to a mixture of resentment, anger and resigned boredom in the stands. There’s always next year, eh? Oh, right …

Highly commended: Sunderland

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The Steven Gerrard award for protracted goodbyes

Every week saw another marker towards the final game to be played at West Ham’s now former stadium — Upton Park in most reports for the past 20 years, now slavishly referred to by its correct, nostalgic moniker, The Boleyn Ground in weekly dispatches.

We had the final FA Cup match, final FA Cup replay, final midweek game, final match against Swansea, final none televised Saturday three o’clock kick off in the rain in spring, etc ... and so on.

Wets Ham give the Boleyn Ground — and LVG — the fondest of farewells.

All building to a predictable crescendo of good natured bottling of motor vehicles, fireworks, Trevor Brooking in a Black Cab on the pitch and a bloody good game of football this week against Manchester United: the actual, bona fide final game at the ground. They won it, 3-2.

Highly commended: Manuel Pellegrini

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Leicester City award for being Leicester City

Leicester City

Strongly commended: Leicester City reserves

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Mark Zuckerberg’s recognition for services to social media

It was difficult to split the two premium goal getting talents of this Premier League season. And so it is perhaps fitting that both Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy had a hand in the finest execution of social media fuelled lols this year: Kane setting it up, Vardy smashing it out of the ballpark.

With an in-form Spurs side breathing down the leader’s necks in the home straight, and fresh from a near perfect thrashing of Stoke City that had raised the possibility of Spurs catching the runaway Foxes, Kane let his giddiness get the better of him, posting the following image/threat on his Instagram account (the message being that Spurs were a pride of lions stalking Leicester).

Vardy’s gleeful response as Spurs limped towards their chase-ending draw with Chelsea — made all the more sweet by the sparse annotation — was as clinical and on target as any of his 24 goals for the season.

Highly commended: Joleon Lescott

.... pic.twitter.com/nnwmRyOg6y

— Jamie Vardy (@vardy7) May 2, 2016

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The John Terry award for services to himself

John Terry. The Chelsea captain spat his dummy and stomped his feet when Chelsea failed to stick a fresh new contract in front of the 35-year-old’s face midway through a season in which he had been so down on his previous excellence that even chief apologist for him, Jose Mourinho, dropped him.

Then, after getting himself sent off and so actually missing the two final matches of his Chelsea career, he has, according to reports in the UK press, booked Stamford Bridge for the Monday after the season’s end for a kick around with his mates as a farewell send off. All class.

Highly commended: Alan Pardew

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The collapsible car, oversized shoes and red nose goes to …

In a season that saw Roberto Martinez charged with the responsibility for drilling a Premier League defence and Manchester City thinking a central defensive partnership of Eliaquim Mangala and Nicolas Otamendi had title contenders written all over it, this was a difficult field to prosper in. But prosper Aston Villa did, stinking out the place more emphatically than a skunk who choked to death on some particularly rank blue cheese, its carcass left to rot in the sun for a week. After being soaked in off milk. They stank really, really bad is the point I’m trying to make.

’Hold on Gabby, I think Burton is the other way, mate.’

After losing the goals and creativity of Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph (from a side that almost got relegated anyway) and spending the money that came in poorly — $15m for Adama Traore, really? — it was always going to be a struggle.

Ditching Tim ‘Tactics’ Sherwood was a reasonable response to a woeful start; replacing him with a man of no coaching experience of either the Premier League or a relegation battle in Remi Garde, less so. He didn’t last five months.

A toxic atmosphere at a grand old club run in to the ground by mismanagement and a foreign owner who seems to have little or no interest in the venture culminated in the first relegation of the former European Champions for three decades.

When the day finally came it was, said Joleon Lescott, “a weight off their shoulders”. Quite.

Highly commended: Chelsea

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The crystal ball award for misplaced assumptions

One national newspaper in the UK polled 11 of its football writers on the eve of the season to get their predictions for the nine months ahead. Of them, only two correctly tipped Leicester City to avoid relegation; five — yes five — of those who picked wrongly explaining their reasoning was based on the rank ineptitude of one Claudio Ranieri (‘No Nige, No Party’, one scribe joshed in reference to the Italian’s predecessor).

The paper in question remains unnamed here, because they were not alone. We all got it wrong. And if you claim otherwise you are a liar. You, me, everyone. We all fancied them to struggle and they made mugs of us all. And doesn’t it feel good?

Highly commended: Gary Lineker

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The SunSmart award for staying out of the limelight

Bournemouth were the Cinderella of all Cinderella teams when the tiny south coast club hauled themselves up in to the Premier League thanks to having a thoughtful, innovative and likeable manager, a squad of players harvested from the lower leagues and gelled together to form a whole greater than their sum and a team-ethic and commitment to playing front foot football that was as refreshing as it was unexpected.

And they stayed up. Not just stayed up, but stayed up with room to spare, despite suffering the type of injury run that would cripple squads of greater size and depth.

Marc Pugh and Bournemouth: further under the radar than a cold war submarine.

But … nobody cared. Really, what they’ve done this season has barely been given a mention. That’s Leicester’s fault, that is, and you thought they were the good guys of English football ...

Highly commended: Chelsea (second half of the season)

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The David Pocock award for sporting sabbaticals

The last but one goal that Eden Hazard scored in the league at Stamford Bridge was the one that won Chelsea the 2015 Premier League title. The last one he scored — an absolute beauty against Tottenham Hotspur — handed the 2016 honour to Leicester.

In between, the 2015 player of the year was basically absent, downing tools completely under the troubled end to Jose Mourinho’s second spell at the club, and taking his time clicking back in to gear under Guus Hiddink. He wasn’t the only Chelsea man whose form dropped off a cliff, but he started on the highest ledge before taking the plunge. Another absolute beauty against Liverpool confirmed his ascent - just in time for Belgium's tilt at the European Championships.

Highly commended: Gabby Agbonlahor

Originally published as Premier League 2015/16 alternative awards: Goodbyes, bad buys and Arsenal being Arsenal all over again