Fans & following: EPL

The English Premier League has started its fresh season. With new season come new fans. Because they have decided to follow the game, they have to choose a club to support. Fans mostly are armchair experts fooling themselves to believe that their vociferous ‘support’ from Hill Road, Brigade Road, Salt Lake or GK-II in anyway makes a shard of a difference to the proceedings in England. It doesn’t. Yet they choose. For all the fellow collegians are choosing and all the office employees are too. Besides, girls respect a football follower more. Every boy and his uncle knows that.

The game run by BCCI Mafioso is too mainstream and to show that you are in a different league, club football especially EPL is the way to go. In doing that, people end up making the wrong choices. Then again, the reason to choose maybe varied– say your crush on a star player or that your arch enemy supports club A so you end up with Z or that you follow that your group does. Doesn’t matter, you can do a switch to the opposite camp and no one will call you fucking Van Persie. Maybe this list will help in going through the options.

Arsenal is an underachiever, at the same time the club is an over-achiever. The sort of team that just guarantees to give you heartburns with their unpredictability, as they oscillate between prodigious brilliance and school boy faux pas. The Invincibles of 2003-04 have long gone. Each year they built something and see their players lured by deep pocket clubs. It is as easy as luring kids with candy. You can’t win the league with a bunch of kids, except if the kids are Manchester United’s Class of 92’.And Sir Wenger, O Professor, you don't win anything for financial fairplay and non abuse of capital. In Arsène you trust, in Arsène you will rust. So will the trophy cabinet.

Chelsea, masters of parking the bus. Or in John Terry’s case barking racial slurs. Yes, finally they are Champions of Europe.. but wait till they crash out of Champions League or play against Barça, whichever comes earlier. Like a rich playboy who doesn’t settle for one glam girlfriend, Chelsea doesn’t settle for the best of coaches. How else would you let José Mourinho, Gus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti go? Their game is not visually attractive, and they are not even the best club in London, leave alone England or Europe. And one more thing, they aren’t the richer club in the deviously, sinisterly labeled El Cashico game vs Manchester City. A legacy of financial profligacy – Roman Abramovich and Stamford Bridge. Some one make him watch Moneyball.

 White Hart Lane is a breeder park for bigger clubs. A bed and breakfast inn until you find a cozy apartment. Quite similar to their North London neighbours Arsenal, they play with visual flair only to end up as unlucky losers. I digress. The important question is – how long are Gareth Bale and Scott Parker staying? Shall we ask manager André Villas-Boas? What i learned from Titanic is that rats jump a sinking ship and try to find a Parisian bakery. Seriously, Tottenham and Arsenal have much in common. It’s just that they have been perennially warring siblings…alright cousins…alright neighbours who can’t see the other succeed.

June 08’was a time when the crude oil prices hit $140 dollars/barrel. It was also a time when you could fill the entire of Manchester City supporters in a single Etihad flight. Then came Sheikh Mansour to build the most expensive collection of horrendous looking players you can find- Lescott, Tevez, Balotelli, Zabaleta and the works. City fans in India should not complain about an oil price hike, if they have some moral fiber, because that is what finances their ‘great’ club that has won a grand total of 2 EPL titles in 44 years. Naturally, there has been a sudden sprouting in City fan base and they can give United fans a run for their money in terms of being obnoxious weeds. City have stolen the Poznań and have ruined a song like Hey Jude. It’s true, what they say - petrodollars can’t buy you class.

Liverpool. You can’t say I support them because they win. And they are not even underdogs, you can root for. Liverpool are just have beens who only occasionally really show up for their big games. They play to cancel other team’s advantage and not to maximize their own. When they can’t, they wail and moan. Even Sir Matt Busby would be tired of this bunch who still live in the 80s when a pint was much cheaper and they were still at the fecking perch that Fergie knocked them off. Honestly if you want to pick a team from Merseyside Liverpool, pick Everton. David Moyes is one good guy. 

 Manchester United has a philosophy of intimidating referees unless he goes by the name of Howard Webb. United is not a bad club, they try and try and try until they have the injury time goal- by hook or crook or sinker. You want to irk them, just say Paul Scholes is not the greatest midfielder of his generation. They have a youth program, they use home grown talent, have financial strength and a decorated recent past. But the fans are snooty and give the club a bad name. You will seldom find a United fan who will not be a jerk. Most have never kicked a football farther than 50 yards but would still buy overpriced official jersey that looks like a table cloth. The original Glory hunters whose tweets end with #GGMU.

And remember,anybody can beat anybody in EPL. It is just that sort of a league, just look at last season’s circle of results.