The English Premier League begins its season this afternoon (American time). Here’s what to know.
What’s Going On Here?
Soccer.
What Do You Have to Do with It? I Thought You Blogged About the NIT and Joe Kelly.
Well, I decided to become a Burnley fan four summers ago because I thought it’d be funny to choose the most irrelevant Premier League team at the time. What’s followed, as is the case in many areas of my life, is the joke turning into a full-blown love affair. Burnley was perfect for me. They were gritty. They played in a small town. They pissed a whole lot of people off with Dycheball. The new Burnley (we’ll get to that) may be more exciting, but little could match the thrill of shocking a good team with a 0–0 draw or sneaking past them 1–0 on a penalty (Liverpool, you know this well, Ashley Barnes is still your dad). When they got relegated, it only got better. Suddenly, they were shitpumping the little guys. It was like seeing the short fat kid at recess get sent over to the K-2nd Grade side of the playground and immediately commence with the kicking of ass. Burnley yeeted Blackburn’s soul off the monkey bars and then let out a barbaric scream and straightarmed the second chocolate milk they’d smuggled out from the lunchroom. It was glorious.
I’m In. What Else Is Happening?
Well, the league happens in England. That’s the big one on the island of Great Britain, in case you know what Great Britain is but you get England, Scotland, and Wales confused. Sometimes, Welsh teams have played in the Premier League in recent years, but it hasn’t happened often. This is because the Welsh teams suck. It’s sad, I don’t like it either, but they suck. Are teams from Guernsey allowed to play? That, I do not know. My guess is no. Otherwise, we would have teams from Guernsey!
So, How’s Burnley Going to Be?
Burnley has suffered a come-up. I say suffered because guys like this paid actor and I miss the 0–0 days. Now, Burnley’s got all this speed and all this quick passing and all this scoring and the backline isn’t Tarkowski and Mee and Pope so it’s not as much a brick wall and on aggregate, they’re better, but I have to worry about two ends of the field and I don’t like it. Off the field, they’re making all these splashes in the transfer market and they’re getting docuseries made about them and they let JJ and Kealia Watt in as a partial investor and I like JJ and Kealia Watt but I don’t like the YouTube vibe they’re prone to bringing to the place. More Malcolm Jenkins, please. No YouTube with that man!
Vincent Kompany, you are a very good soccer coach. Now please go get hired somewhere richer so we can bring back Sean Dyche and finish 16th every year for perpetuity.
Why Is 16th Important?
I did the math wrong (this is 20 minus 3, mind you) and 17th is the worst you can do without getting relegated. 18th through 20th get relegated, 1st through 4th go to the Champions League, 5th and 6th probably go to the European NIT, 7th probably goes to the European CBI. The European NIT is the goal for most. That’s actually kind of true. Tough to finish in the top four. Liverpool and Brighton made this year’s, and then West Ham got in through winning last year’s European CBI. There’s still a chance for Man City, Manchester United, Newcastle, and Arsenal to play their way in from the Champions League, though. The European NIT is great. So many routes in and out. Imagine seven English teams in the European NIT. That would be like a six-bid Big East.
Ok, You Can List the Teams Now.
Thank you.
In order of where at least one offshore sportsbook projects them to finish:
Manchester City
Urban Burnley, as they’re known, Man City got really good starting fifteen years ago when a group of Emiratis bought them and decided to simply outspend the rest of the world. Once Manchester United’s little brother, Man City is now known as the first club Vincent Kompany brought to glory (he played there). Or, again, Urban Burnley.
Arsenal
Located in London, Arsenal’s the team Americans like when they want to like a team with a chance of winning but they don’t want to jump on the team with the likeliest chance of winning. The coolest thing about these guys is that their mascot is a dinosaur named Gunnersaurus. The second-coolest thing is that they’re called the Gunners. I’m going to guess that has something to do with their name being Arsenal.
Liverpool
Liverpool got great for a couple years there, but Ashley Barnes is their dad and now they’re merely ok. My impression is that they have more fans in America than Arsenal does, but that’s probably because they were the Arsenal of a few years ago. The old rule was that Liverpool was the Red Sox and Man U was the Yankees. I don’t know if that still holds, but there are some similarities. Such as: John Henry and Tom Werner own both of them.
Manchester United
Much like the Yankees, Man U has dried up a little recently. Gotten stale. Gotten overshadowed by the Emiratis’ team. Manchester United is a symbol of the failures of England in both a pre- and post-Brexit world. That, or David Beckham got old. Did David Beckham play for Man U? That’s an assumption on my part. I’ve just always assumed he played for Man U because 1990s. Might want to look it up, but it’s kind of fun to wonder instead.
Chelsea
Chelsea plays in London, and it’s gotten pretty good recently. Won two European NITs. It plays at a stadium known as Stamford Bridge, which is not a bridge and is instead a stadium. Why is it named Stamford Bridge? I don’t know. Why didn’t our butts evolve to wipe themselves? History is full of mysteries. That’s why they call it mistory. Because it’s hard to see clearly. Like it’s enveloped in a mist.
Newcastle United
These fuckers.
Newcastle is owned by LIV Golf, and its stadium’s seats each contain one gram of dust from the ashes of Saudi dissidents. The northernmost Premier League club, Newcastle paid Burnley a lot of money for Nick Pope, and has some good fans scattered out around the globe. I don’t like them because of reasons I’ve mostly forgotten. Might have to go back to some 2021–22 blog posts to figure out what those are. I am anti-bonesaw, I think 9/11 was bad, but I hate no nation.
Tottenham Hotspur
My understanding of Tottenham Hotspur is that if you are calling it one word, you are supposed to call it Hotspur, but I call it Tottenham because I like calling teams by their location. It turns out—I just learned this while looking up something else—that my understanding was incorrect, and I was calling it the right thing the whole time, but some do just call it Spurs, which should not be used as a singular. England, you of all places should not be butchering the English language.
They play in London, I believe they’re traditionally the worst of the “Big Six” (the six teams capable of winning a championship—it’s all these seven minus Newcastle), but I just got something else wrong so I’m just going to move on.
Aston Villa
Owned by Aaron Rodgers’s girlfriend’s dad but run by his Egyptian business partner, Aston Villa plays in Birmingham, making them the only Premier League team to be based out of Alabama. They wear the same uniforms as Burnley, basically. This is because Burnley intentionally copied Aston Villa. Wanted to look like the then-champs. It was 1910! That was cool! West Ham did something similar.
Brighton & Hove Albion
Maisie Peters is from Brighton and Brighton’s uniforms are pleasing to the eye and they play a fun little brand of footie and they’re pretty good! But they really hate Jay Rodriguez. This last part is a problem. Jay Rodriguez is a Burnley. I like Brighton a lot but I must never say it. Because they hate me. Brighton’s on the south coast, and while that sounds like it’s probably a bummer of a beach, there are a lot of things in England that would be bummers if compared to the rest of the world. It’s England, though! It’s so Instagrammable! They have made a brand out of being cold and dreary. That’s why they call it mistory.
West Ham United
These are the guys Frodo cheered for in that Lord of the Rings spinoff where he goes to London after being expelled from Harvard due to getting framed for cocaine possession (yeah right, Frodo, I know you were doing blow, why else was it so hard to give up the ring) and joins the gang of his sister’s brother-in-law and swings his arms really weird in all the fight scenes, like he is throwing baseballs but was never taught how to throw baseballs. West Ham is called the Hammers. I like that. Also, lil history lesson here, they didn’t nickname themselves the Hammers just to avoid Ham jokes. Well, they might have, but they were originally named Thames Ironworks. Hard to get grittier than iron. It sharpens itself!
Brentford
These guys rock. They have Ben Mee, Burnley’s old captain (Burnley sold off a lot of guys when they got relegated and we thought it was because they needed the money but then the new guys they brought in were a lot better, which provoked all sorts of new questions). They recently got back to the Premier League for the first time since the 1940s. They did a little moneyball to get there. They are located in London, and I think they’re in West London, like Chelsea and Fulham. Arsenal and Tottenham are in North London. West Ham’s in East London. So’s Millwall, but you don’t need to know about them right now. *ominous music* **Frodo doing a line of coke off a steaming basket of fish and chips**
Crystal Palace
The last London club (besides Fulham, whom we’ll get to shortly), Crystal Palace is in South London, and its stadium is not made of glass but its neighborhood had a building made of glass? That’s how I understand it. Honestly, I know next to nothing about Crystal Palace. They’re just kind of there. Would be a great choice for most irrelevant Premier League team if choosing one today. I used to get them confused with Aston Villa, but that’s lessened with time. Alas. Time marches on. I found my first gray hairs last night. Of my life! I get why it makes people freak out. It was right before bed and I felt uneasy. Also might have been allergy medicine withdrawal, though. With the uneasiness. Not the gray hair. That was probably stress.
Everton
DYCHEBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!
The deal with Everton is that they used to be pretty worthy of scorn. They had a ton of money, they broke the rules about spending more money than they were making (a thing about English soccer that would blow a lot of American professional sports owners’ minds is that some owners want to spend more money than they’re making, all in an effort to win), they got away with it and Burnley got relegated instead of them. They were the epitome of underachievement, the rich kid who was so incompetent he didn’t even look rich. Worse still, they had a lot of American fans because for a minute there, they looked like they were about to go 2004 Red Sox or 2016 Cubs and do it with Tim Howard in goal. I couldn’t stand Everton. Love Roger Bennett, their most vocal American fan, but the club itself? Losers. Not in a good way, either.
Then, last winter, everything changed. Everton hired Sean Dyche, the former Burnley manager.
When a team this rich is hiring the coach Burnley fired, something wacky is going on, and sure enough, it got wacky. Immediately, Everton upset Arsenal, and two former Burnleyers—Dwight McNeil and James Tarkowski—had the assist and the goal.
To be honest, I think that was the only Everton game I watched last year. I don’t know if they’re playing the shitballing style for which Dyche is such an icon. I’m excited to find out, though. Sean Dyche rocks.
Fulham
I have a friend who’s a Fulham fan. He’s part of how I became a Burnley fan. I was a Fulham fan for a year, but only nominally. I didn’t blog about it. That’s how you know it wasn’t real. Anyway, Fulham did this thing for a few years where they kept ping-ponging back and forth between the Championship and the EPL, but then they stopped, and they stayed in the Premier League, and they were pretty good last year? Weird move. Thankfully, I have a hazy impression that their good players all got bought by the Saudi League. Hope their bones aren’t being used to make saws.
Nottingham Forest
The most delightfully-named team in the EPL, I have no idea how these guys didn’t get relegated last year. Mostly because I stopped paying attention halfway through the season when I got busy and Burnley was dominating the Championship to the degree that all I had to do was log onto The Internet™ each week and do a little victory lap.
Is Nottingham Forest where Robinhood did his robbing–and–giving–to–the–poor bit? Or do I just think that because he was a forest creature, like Bigfoot and Ulysses S. Grant? Looks like the city of Nottingham—and it’s unclear to me if Nottingham Forest is in the city or just outside it (perhaps in a forest?)—is in the East Midlands. What does that mean? My impression is that the Midlands are the area between London and Manchester, and that the East Midlands are the eastern part. I will have to confirm, though. My Burnley fandom has done wonders for stoking my British geography habit.
Wolverhampton Wanderers
The name here pisses me off. They should be *the* Wolverhampton Wanderers in conversation, but instead we have to talk about them as though Wanderers is a singular word and not a nickname. Some weird soccer tradition. They’re outside of Birmingham, but not the Birmingham in Alabama. They’re outside the Birmingham in England. They were pretty good when I first started following this, but they’ve gotten worse since. That’s my knowledge about the Wanderers. I call them Wolverhampton. I see them called Wanderers a lot. That pisses me off even more.
Bournemouth
Named the Cherries, Bournemouth is also on the island’s south coast but it’s kind of a long way from Brighton. More on the Cornwall side than the Dover side. Further from London, too. You know what this means. Don’t pretend you don’t know what this means.
Bournemouth would actually be the winner for most irrelevant team if I tried the same exercise as 2019 here. They’re bad, they weren’t promoted just this year, and they don’t play in London. The Cherries thing is charming and silly, too. Cherries! How delightful.
Burnley
Burn, baby. Burnley.
Luton Town
Hey, I know these guys!
Back in the first division for the first time since the 70s, Luton is known as the Hatters. Hatters. Not haters. Common misunderstanding when seeing it written down. Town used to make hats. You gonna fight about it? The other thing I know about Luton—maybe “know” is a strong word—is that I think it’s home to a budget airline airport. That’s what I think is going on up there. It’s a little outside London. Again, I think that, I don’t know that. I don’t really know how to boundary London. Is Luton in the metro area? Is it a suburb? Are there villages within London? I’m running out of steam, guys. This is the most productive morning I’ve had in weeks and it is wearing me out.
Sheffield United
At long last, Sheffield United. They play at the oldest major footie ground in the world, and they’re called the Blades (Sheffield used to make cutlery, as a city, that was its industry), and they are different from Sheffield Wednesday but damn, is that a good name, we really need Sheffield Wednesday to make a comeback. Sheffield United was just promoted back to the EPL, alongside Luton and Burnley, and they’re a little ways east of Manchester on the map. The haters (not hatters) seem to think they and Luton (hatters, not haters) are likelier than not to go right back down, but the haters didn’t spend a few months watching EFL Championship soccer. Fuck ‘em up, Sheffield. Just not Burnley. Lose badly to Burnley, please. As we established should be the case. (Sheffield beat Burnley 5–2 once last year and it was upsetting.)
You Got Any Predictions?
Am I supposed to have those?
I Don’t Know, These Season Previews on The Internet™ Often Have Them
Ok, here goes:
- Champion: Man City
- 2nd–4th: Liverpool, Man U, Aston Villa
- 5th-6th: Brentford, Burnley (if something weird happens in the FA Cup and Burnley needs to finish 5th to make the European NIT please amend this accordingly in your memory)
- 7th: Chelsea (would be funny in the CBI)
- Relegated: Wolverhampton, Fulham, Arsenal
- Top Goalscorer: Anass Zaroury (breakout year)
- How Badly Man City Will Beat Burnley Today: I’m going with 3–1. I want it to be 2–1, the most respectable Burnley result against Man City in years, but this feels like a crash landing. Also, they’ve put up four or more against us in more than half of the last eleven meetings, all Burnley losses. These guys have our number, and now that we play their style we’re fighting fire with much weaker fire.
Hey, Thanks Man. Now I Understand English Soccer.
No. Thank *you.* And you know what? Me too.
