EDIT: I'LL LEAVE THIS RATHER THAN DELETE IT BUT THESE POSTS SHALL NOW LIVE AT A NEW SITE CALLED FOOTBALLMETAPHYSICS.SPACE UPDATE YOUR MIND
[The graphic above is when club hero, the Scotsman
Bryan Gunn, who is perhaps responsible for Norwich City’s large Scottish
pipeline, airballed a pass back during a match against bitter club rivals
Ipswich Town back in the day. A sad moment which now lives forever in youtube
clips of footballing failure.]
[25-Man
Metaphysical Roster is a football metaphysics methodology utilizing dork
methodology of minutes played over the past 100 club competitive club matches
to determine which 25 players constitute the strongest psychic force on a
club’s current trajectory. Then intuitive analysis is conducted utilizing
football metaphysics, performed from an un-American soccer fan’s perspective.
We do this every 1st and 15th of the month, cycling through the 20 clubs
currently in the English Premier League, because it is the top domestic league
based in an English-speaking country, which as un-American miscreants, we were
all born to be saddled with this limited, segmented tongue of the global
colonizer, oppressor, and capitalizer. Also, it is what comes on TV here in the
USA most prominently, where we live. And yet, it is really important we clarify
we hate English, and also America. Maybe we hate ourselves. Our panel consists
of chairman Raven Mack, director tecnico Paul Robertson, and director rudo Neil Bulson. Our individual contributions to this 5000 words of gibberish will be
noted by our name at the end of the blurb. If you enjoy this absolutely free
internet content from an un-American soccer perspective, venmo me tips
@ravenmack23. You may also enjoy the Sportsball 69 podcast.]
Let us discuss the football metaphysics of this
Norwich City football club, which overtook all others and climbed to the top of
the English Football Championship table this past season, to earn re-entry unto
the very Premier League they were banished from multiple times over the years.
They were one of the original Premier League clubs in 1992, but since a 2005
relegation, have bounced all around, mostly in the Football Championship, but
with four other seasons in the Premier League (most recently 2015-16) as well
as falling all the way down to League One once (2009-10). A couple years back,
they hired their first non-British Isle manager in their long history, bringing
in German Daniel Farke, who tbh has the foreboding physical aura of a Cormac
McCarthy protagonist, which fits perfectly within the larger aura of Norwich
City. You see, football metaphysics is not about pretending to know football,
and analyzing pyramids with reverse metrics. It’s about the simple yet powerful
tendrils of human existence somehow connecting in ways that make sense. And a
foreboding German dude taking over a scrappy bunch of less-than-premier players
on a club that – despite the national historical trend of boring blues and reds
– sports bright yellow and green, as homage to their Canaries nickname, but
such that an actual aura of something different is created, even if by
accident. I tend to buy the most garish football tops I can to sport as
everyday dirtgod apparel, whatever is on the most clearance priced price, and
Norwich City always comes up in these searches. Such beautiful colors, and who
the fuck wouldn’t want to be a canary?
This past season, of the three promoted clubs,
only Wolverhampton was able to hold onto Premier League status, finishing a
strong 7th. The other two (Fulham and Cardiff City) crashed back out. All three
clubs promoted the season before held on, but two of them have struggled, and
one was dropped this past season. And the season before that, two of the three
promoted clubs were immediately relegated again. So Norwich City is attempting
to escape this up-and-down status, and repeat the success of the previous
Football Championship champion Wolves, and exorcise their own failure demons of
bouncing back and forth, being a club not quite Premier League, but too good
for the Championship. Are they equipped to do so? Wolves kept their core club
intact, adding a few key upgrades. The two paths to success are to do that (if
strong enough core), or stand relatively pat with what you have, plus pick up a
few dudes from this season’s relegated clubs, and hope to finish outside the
bottom 3 next season.
Related in spirit, I – Raven Mack the Dirtgod Imam
of Football Metaphysics – have brought on two fellow life scientists of the
metaphysical sporting arts, in my pals Neil and Paul, who will here forth
assist me in these expositions of English Premier League clubbings. I hope this
helps us maintain this schedule, and add to the compendium of Americans by
birth writing about the world’s football, in the hopes that Americans who love
the world’s football don’t have to keep reading such dumbass commentary that is
too American-centric to be good. It is fitting we relaunch this 25-Man
Metaphysical Roster according to the already established schedule on this day
of Champions League finales, when the world – even in America – is watching the
pinnacle of club football, while it features a pair of English clubs. [Raven]
#1: CHRISTOPH
ZIMMERMAN (his FIRST METAPHYSICAL
STAR, which is some shit we made it up for the dudes who finish first on these
lists) – Hailing from Dusseldorf, known for its fashion and arts scene,
young Christoph was sent to Borussia to make a name for himself, first with
Mönchengladbach, and then with Dortmund, but was stashed away on the reserve
teams in his native land. Sold to the English, he ended up in Norwich, which is
probably a far cry culturally from Dusseldorf, with its fashion and arts scene,
since Norwich is, well, Norwich, and is maybe most famous for producing carnies
like that Paige chick in WWE who rose to fame fucking the entire locker room.
Young, abandoned by his country, young Christoph nevertheless has been a
stalwart for Norwich City the past two years, and even put on the captain’s
stripe this past season as Norwich took the English Championship by storm. He
is 26, 6’4” of fine Aryan stock, and his entire life is laid out in front of
him, which is usually when shit goes bad, but the only way out of Norwich is
either fucking the right carnies or proving yourself a leader of men. Maybe
both. I don’t know. This probably isn’t the life he expected for himself. I
imagine he dreamed of staying in Germany and fucking their carnies, but life
isn’t fair, and sometimes you have to find yourself in new worlds, with new
carnies to fuck and you speak different languages but the fucking is all the
same, and out of that you find yourself the captain of a football team, the
center-back serving as the backbone for the whole fucking deal, and maybe that
is your way back home, or maybe you find you like it here, settle down with a
carnie, as much as one can anyway, and make a life of your own in a strange
land with strange people. Now thrust into the Premiere League, Christoph will
find whether this is home or whether home is just a bittersweet memory. Do the girls
in Dusseldorf still think of Christoph? Or is he just an exile making the best
of what life made for him? Does life wait for him or does life beckon from some
further place with its own carnies and its own fucking? These are the energies
Christoph Zimmerman brings to Norwich City. It is an energy that can go either
way, but fuck man, that’s just life. [Neil]
#2: JAMAL
LEWIS – Hailing from Luton, young Jamal is just that: young. 21 years
young. Oddly, he plays for the Northern Irish national team when he isn’t busy holding
down the left back position for Norwich City. I say oddly, because you wouldn’t
think a 21 year old black kid from Luton would rep the orange Irish way, but I
guess his mom is Belfast born, so fuck it, don’t listen to me when it comes to
making possibly racist assumptions. Young Jamal has spent his entire
footballing life in the Norwich City system, which means that he is part of the
heart and soul of their rise to the Premier League. He is not bought and paid
for, a mercenary from the continent, but true Norwich. There is a purity in
that, a clean energy, a positive energy that isn’t littered with past failures
or abandonments and not many of us get to go through life like that, so shit,
more power to him, I guess. But the world is just opening up for Jamal Lewis,
son of a wild Irish woman no doubt, and he hasn’t suffered his first pain yet.
That is still to come, and so it’s hard to trust in the spiritual energies of a
dude who’s had it all work out for him for the most part so far. What happens when
the Premier League stage is too big for him? What happens when his mom runs off
with Thin Lizzy or what’s left of them? Jamal Lewis’ test is coming, and
whether it makes or breaks him might tell the tale for Norwich City’s psychic
spirit energies. That is a lot to bear, but fuck it, there’s gonna be a
jailbreak somewhere in this town and Jamal and the boys need to be getting up
and going down. [Neil]
#3: TIM
KRUL – Krul is a Dutch GK who only came to Norwich City this past season,
but he (as all good GKs should) played every minute of every match in their
main competition. Krul historically has had some injuries, but did have
multiple seasons of Premier League lower-level consistency as the minder of the
posts for Newcastle United the early part of this decade. But he also spent a
lot of time on loan after injuries, and while part of Brighton & Hove
Albion Premier League squad in 2017-18, did not return to prominent role at
that level. While he does give the Canaries someone with immense PL experience,
this is exactly the type of philosophical choices that need to be made
ultimately to determine whether a club looks to simply survive the Premier
League (finish 13th to 17th) or make a move for a younger talent to try and
thrive like Wolves did this past season. I imagine they’ll stick with Krul
happily and hope for the best. [Raven]
#4: MAX
AARONS – I'm always a mark for the young scrappy defender on the lower level
Premier League clubs. Personally, this is the Alfie Mawson rule, but that might
vary per your personal rooting interests. Max Aarons is that dude for Norwich
City, came up through youth academy and they've been his only professional club
(thus far). Turned 19 in January, which means he was born in the 2000s. Also
his full first name is Maximillian, which I can get behind because my
government last name is built off that same linguistical framework. He got the
Football Championship Young Player of the Year award, but that also means he's
getting attention from elsewhere, notably from Tottenham. Seems like a prime
choice to be signed then loaned back for a season to the club he got sold from,
because he's not gonna be starting for Spurs, and they're gonna want him to get
some PL experience. [Raven]
#5: TEEMU
PUKKI – In writing these profiles, I’m naturally going to be drawn to
ex-Celtic players—dudes that I have actually watched play throughout a number
of matches. So appropriately, my old bhoy Teemu is up first. To be honest, I’m
both pleased for him and surprised as fuck that he broke out as big-time
goal-beast with Norwich—30 strikes in 45 appearances is damn impressive. When
he was with Celtic, he seemed to be in that non-scoring forward/striker
mode—pull the defense out of position with some solid movement and then open
things up for a strike partner or some roaming midfielder (what Football
Manager labels the “defensive forward” or the “false nine”, I guess). I
remember supporter-folk were excited because we picked him up from Schalke
(Bundesliga!!!). But Schalke are to me one of the most boring clubs in
football, maybe because their dull blue and white colors remind me of the
Indianapolis Colts from when I followed American Concussion Ball as a kid. So
Teemu never really made the breakthrough at Celtic, although you could tell
there was a halfway decent player in there, of some sort. So he goes back to
his Scandinavian roots, with Sweden’s Brondby (which maybe was fraught, given
Swedes think Finns are degenerate trash and not really Scandinavian, or some
such national-racist bullshit). He gets better and better there for a couple
seasons, then claims his move to the English promised land (albeit the
Championship) and just goes goal-wild. Maybe it has something to do with
appearance, because at Celtic he seemed like this fuzzy little smiling
tow-headed moppet, instead of some Finnish tundra-beast. But now he looks all
unkempt, balding but hairy. That’s a thing, in my years of watching
football—I’ve noticed many a player that was only at his best if he looked like
he’d been battling pneumonia while living in a dumpster attendant’s shack.
Clean them up (shave, haircut) and if they didn’t play like absolute shit, they
were at least noticeably diminished. Anyway, good luck Teemu—maybe he’s a bit
of a late (29) bloomer, but I suspect he’ll be back to running around but not
scoring in the EPL and then back down to the Championship, or maybe a return to
Germany and the lower reaches of the Bundesliga. [Paul]
#6: MARCO
STIEPERMANN – First time foreign manager is always gonna build his
philosophy through people who speak his metaphysical and sometimes actual
language. Stiepermann joined Norwich City as part of Farke’s first wave of
signings in 2017, and has helped establish their offensive style in the
midfield. He had 46 appearances out of 51 matches this past season, and with
just one season left on his contract, tacked on a two-year extension to
continue what they’ve done under Farke (hopefully). With Zimmerman as the
German anchor on the back defensive line, Stiepermann works as the main German
voice on the other end of the ball (along with Moritz Leitner and Tom Trybull),
which gives the club the shared voice of Farke’s vision, although not nearly as
obvious as the Portuguese visiting club that Nuno Espirito Santo built with
Wolverhampton. It’s still very interesting to see these various national
influences on English clubs at the top level. [Raven]
#7: ONEL
HERNANDEZ – Winger Onel Hernandez is an interesting figure with Norwich
City’s promotion. He’s German by national team identity, so it makes sense with
the Farke movement he’s on this club. But he’s not your stereotypical German,
being physically born in Cuba, and with Cuban heritage, having emigrated to
Germany with his ma dukes and sister when he was 6. In fact, with Norwich
City’s promotion, Hernandez will become the first Cuban to play in the Premier
League. And, the main reason he’s in the German national team system instead of
Cuba is because Cuban football only allows players based in Cuba onto the
national team. He also just got engaged to be married, announced on his Instagram,
where he has WILL YOU MARRY ME laid out in red rose petals for his girlfriend
at a resort in Bali. In fact, his somewhat oddball (by careful footballer
standards) social media presence made him a cult figure with Norwich
supporters. [Raven]
#8: EMI
BUENDIA – Norwich City is shockingly Eurocentric, with only two players on
their main squad with non-European national identities. But Buendia, one of
those two, added a lot with his presence. The young Argentine winger/midfielder
aided the club’s expansive attack immensely second half of the season, once he
was comfortable after joining last June. Beyond scoring threat, he was by far
the club leader in assists (18!), and just generally helped create their flow
of attack. Buendia previously played for Getafe in Spain’s La Liga, but his
form this past season has star potential (Norwich didn’t win a single match
this past season where Buendia didn’t play), so likely the club will enjoy a
limited window of this young man before he moves on to bigger and more
lucrative pastures (at a good profit to the club, which of course, is the
bottom line of this shit to a certain extent… capitalism ruins everything
around me, CREAM fuck the money, dollar dollar bill y’all). [Raven]
#9: BEN
GODFREY – Another top young defender who, with Aarons, gave Norwich City
the solid defensive line that allowed the offense to flourish. Godfrey's
getting a lot of interest from Man United now, and you gotta figure there's no
way Norwich City are gonna keep both Godfrey and Aarons, because let's be real,
they're not gonna turn down that money. If I was a young promising footballer,
I'd dread going to Man United right now. Then again, if I was a young promising
footballer, I wouldn't be ruled by metaphysical idealism; I'd be getting paid
the most I can, and fucking Instagram models without birth control. [Raven]
#10: ALEXANDER
TETTEY – So continuing with some
Scandinavian football metaphysics, we have Ghana-born but Norway-repping
Tettey. A product of the Rosenborg academy, he dominates with them for a couple
seasons as they perennially destroy the rest of Eliteserien, before moving on
to France (or more correctly, Brittany, because like England, France did its
Celt-oppressing colonial foreplay close to home) with Stade Rennais. Doesn’t
look like he was an automatic first choice, owing to injury bligh, while there,
though he did have a respectable number of appearances. Norwich picks him up
for about a million pounds, and he’s gone on to be a Canaries mainstay as
they’ve bobbed between the EPL and the Championship. Tettey fulfills one of
those ethnic-national football archetypes—the west/central African defensive
midfielder soul-eater; disrupting, destroying, harrying, and generally
oppressing any strikers or attacking midfielders getting notions within 40
yards of the goal. But Tetty looks like he has some subtlety, as my man has
collected the fuck out of some yellow cards over the years, but has yet to be
sent off in his entire career. I can’t get into some bullshit-anthropology
discussion in this limited space, but if I was building a team, a Ghana DM is
the way to go. (Irish dudes are also solid in this position, so maybe it’s an
Afro-Celt thing?) [Paul]
#11: TIMM
KLOSE – As I was gathering the minutes for the past 100 competitive
matches, I always start at the farthest end of this for these promoted clubs
that I don’t have any of the data for. So I can tell you that though he’s
sitting at 11th on this list, Klose was at one point a way more prominent front
and center player for this club. Norwich City signed this Swiss defender in
January of 2016, when they were in the midst of their last previous Premier
League season, desperately trying to restock during the midseason transfer
window to avoid relegation. It failed, and Klose went down with the club. He
was a starter in the majority of their Championship matches the for two
seasons, but this past one only started about half the time, and became more of
a sub than outright starter, as age has set in. But he also just signed a new
deal to remain with the club, and as one of their elder players, and one of the
only ones remaining from that last Premier League squad, he gives them guidance
more than minutes. Plus, I have to admit I’m a sucker for dudes that do the
double “m” thing at the end of really normal ass names. Although also there was
a shitty pretend good restaurant in the small town I used to live in, the kind
of place that works the rural American marks by offering “prime rib” or
“seafood” specials, who also did the double “m” Timm thing, and now mid-blurb
I’ve completely changed my mind. But being I went through the emotional labor
of this thought process, I’m not deleting this part of the blurb. In fact, you
should pay me for my emotional labor (Neil and Paul, too, to be honest). The
venmo is @ravenmack23. [Raven]
#12: TOM
TRYBULL – The young Trybull was another German import that came with Farke
taking over in 2017. Norwich City moved from mid-table to top the second half
of this past season by becoming an offensive force (which actually was pretty
enjoyable to watch the couple times I caught them). Trybull, echoing the German
keys theory I have posited to Farke’s success, was an important fulcrum of that
shift, as he was near the top of the Championship in tackles, creating offense
to move forward to the passing machinations of Moritz Leitner or Emi Buendia,
which ultimately fed a goal-scoring growth led by Pukki. It will be interesting
to see how this holds up with better Premier League defenses, or if the
chemistry that came together second half of this past season can stay sweet
with the addition of new players. Then again, that’s always an issue. It’s
fucking football. [Raven]
#13: MARIO
VRANCIC – One of the most studied realms of football metaphysics for me
personally has been football and the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Because of my
own spiritual paths, I’ve come to follow especially close Bosnian dudes,
because that often means “white” Muslim, or somebody forced into Yugoslav
diaspora who is Croat or Serb but chooses to identify at national team
allegiance level with Bosnian multiculture. Vrancic’s story is the latter,
moving to Germany as a wee tike, and eventually making it onto Bundesliga Mainz
squad as a teen under Jurgen Klopp. When Klopp went to BvB, he brought Vrancic
along. So the dude has pedigree. But beyond this, he’s part of Norwich’s
collection of deft passing offensive options in the midfield. What sets Vrancic
apart is his missile of a left foot, which in fact nailed the goal that sealed
Norwich’s promotion. This past six months, it has seemed as Vrancic has grown
scruffier, he has grown stronger. I hope the Premier League bump causes this to
ascend into full-blown sweaty longish hair bearded Balkan spirit warrior, in
the non-superclub nether regions of the English Premier League, where such
forces can exist nicely without being forced into semi-retirement on a crowded
Big 6 squad. [Raven]
#14: MORITZ
LEITNER – Leitner is a German striker who was supposed to be Borussia
Dortmund's next big thing, but got loaned out a number of times, most notably
to Lazio. Finally he was sold off to lower level Bundesliga club FC Augsburg
January of 2017, but didn't even make a first team appearance. That caused him
to land in Norwich on loan January of last year, where he actually, you know,
played. He got a permanent transfer before last season started, but he hardly
came across as a dude worthy of the #10 kit, though he did make himself a
supporter's hero by scoring an equalizer late against bitter rivals Ipswich
Town in the East Anglian derby. [Raven]
#15: TODD
CANTWELL – Cantwell joined the Norwich youth academy at age 10, and it's
been his only club, outside of a loan to a Dutch club right after he made his
senior debut. A young homegrown talent in a crowded midfield likely not gonna
get a lot of PL playing minutes, but they can't get rid of a homegrown hero,
can they? Of course not; they extended his contract. In a sport full of people
not from England but during this time of UKIP-style blind nationalism, you're
not gonna let an English kid (who is uhhh "traditional" English) slip
away, even if he'll rarely get quality time in the Premier League. [Raven]
#16: KENNY
MCLEAN – Here is all you need to know about this fool Scotsman named Kenny
McLean – when Norwich City had their parade through town to celebrate their
Championship title and promotion to the Premier League, McLean was drunk off
orange Mad Dog 20/20, and declared himself the mayor of Norwich. That’s quality
fucking metaphysics. [Raven]
#17: GRANT
HANLEY (previously ranked #17 for
Newcastle United on 01-Dec-2017) – Oh man. Grant Hanley. Let me just say,
that in the same way Landon Donovan embodies everything that is wrong with US
soccer, Grant here does the same for Scottish football. There are like 20
slight-variations of Grant Hanleys bouncing around the nether reaches of the
English football system. Generic central Scotland urban belt name? Check.
Scottish, but not Scottish like “Angus MacTavish” or some shit. As an aside, I
bet there’s like 50 Northern Virginia/Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle/Atlanta
suburb upper middle class white kids names Grant Hanley, waiting to play
lacrosse and hopefully get pepper-sprayed all-to-fuck when they get too
han[d]ley with some poor young woman. Came through the Rangers youth setup?
Check. Made a couple dozen appearances for the Scottish National Team, in which
he was part of a backline travesty that got wacky-sax destroyed by some Baltic
or Balkan national team? Check. Yet still gets picked by the succession of
shite Scotland managers because he plays in England and/or has a Rangers
pedigree? Check. Hanley somehow got appointed captain of Norwich, but then
promptly got injured and then couldn’t get back in to the starting 11. Which is
probably at least 50% of why Norwich is getting promoted. I supposed he’ll
probably be cover while the club tries to survive the EPL, but I’d bet on
Hanley pitching up in lower Championship/League 1 after another season, or
maybe heading back to Scotland with a mid-upper club like Aberdeen or Hearts (though
hopefully his English-experience will tempt Rangers into paying some stupid fee
and wages for his less-than-mediocre ass). My final thought on Grant here is
that the Scottish Football Association finally got some damn sense and
appointed a hyper-competent manager in Stevie Clarke. Though supposedly
healthy, I see that Hanley didn’t make Clarke’s call-up cut for some important
Euro qualifiers, so I’m taking this as the expected sign that Hanley and his
ilk are finally excised from the national setup. [Paul]
#18: ANGUS
GUNN (previously ranked #16 for
Southampton on 15-May-2019) – Gunn was a Norwich City youth academy kid,
local wonderkid who was absorbed into Manchester City’s youth academy factory
at age 15, where he remained as part of their stockpiling/hoarding of football
talent. Two seasons back, he was finally given a chance to shine as a senior
team player, on a season-long loan back to his childhood club, where he
appeared in every match for the Canaries (only dude to do so), endearing
himself to club supporters as a homemade Anglian hero. Of course, he was only
on loan, and this was just Man City giving him a showcase to finally move him,
so he went to Southampton, where he has appeared sparingly as back-up to Alex
McCarthy. No diss to Tim Krul, but it’s hard not to want Gunn to comeback to
the Canaries, and play for his childhood club in the Premier League, AGAINST
MANCHESTER CITY! WHERE HE MAKES A WIN-PRESERVING SAVE IN THE FINAL SECONDS AND
THEN IMMEDIATELY RUNS OVER WITH HIS GIANT ASS GK LANKY BODY AND BEATS PEP
GUARDIOLA INTO AN SHRUNKEN ACCORDION NECK CARTOON MESS TO THE CHEERS OF ALL THE
DRUNKS AT CARROW ROAD! [Raven]
#19: JAMES MADDISON (previously ranked #15 for Leicester City
on 15-Jan-2019) – A midfielder from Coventry, James Maddison is only 22
years old, but he’s already managed to blow through not only Coventry but
Norwich City and found his way to Leicester City like a quick passing storm.
I’m not sure what sort of psychic metaphysical energies are still lingering
from James Maddison in Norwich, but to be honest, with a name like James
Maddison, they are probably well rid of him. I’m not saying that he is the
reincarnated soul of former American President James Madison, but I can’t say
that he isn’t either, and since Madison is one of the OG Founding Fathers, no
one needs a psychic legacy of old Virginian plantation stock. The father of the
Constitution is the sort of thing that sounds good, but not when you look at it
from the perspective of marginalized people, for whom the Constitution was
merely a codification of an existing oppressive capitalist oligarchy. What does
this have to do with James Maddison the young footballer, or more specifically,
for Norwich City, who fucking knows. It can’t help, but since he isn’t even
around anymore, it probably can’t hurt either. James Madison was a slaver, he
even complained late in life when the Northern states tried to curtail the ways
of the slaver south. Fuck him and his plantation. [Neil]
#20: IVO
PINTO – A wanderer, Ivo Pinto comes from the small town of Lourosa,
Portugal. From there he no doubt dreamed of making his way to the big city,
maybe fucking some Brazilian girls with his Portuguese paternalism, but life
doesn’t always go the way people want it to. Fuck, it almost never does. And so
Ivo Pinto knocked around Portugal before being sent off on loan to Romania,
where he actually managed to land in the Champions League for Cluj, but a loan
is a loan and he was sold off to Croatia, where his Portuguese charms were
likely wasted on the Zagrebian ladies who cared nothing of Portugal and laughed
as their Croatian gangster boyfriends slapped around the queer kid from the
pervert Iberian peninsula. He then moved on to Norwich, where he tried to find
a home, a place where he belonged, as the right back for their football team.
But poor Ivo again finds himself being sent away, unable to enjoy the Premier
League sluts, and is now back with Dinamo Zagreb. Maybe this time he will find
a home, a place to root himself to and be a hero, but he’s pushing 30 and it
probably doesn’t get better from here. Not wanted by his home country, tossed
out of Romania and then England like a gypsy, barely tolerated in Croatia, Ivo
Pinto’s energies aren’t looking so good. But that is his problem now, not
Norwich City’s. [Neil]
#21: JOSH
MURPHY (previously ranked #15 for
Cardiff City on 15-Apr-2019) – Longtime Norwich City player in the first
part of this decade, along with his twin brother Jacob, both as wingers. Josh
even made 9 Premier League appearances for the Canaries back then, while Jacob
never did. But they separated paths, and Jacob ended up at Newcastle United,
where he’s been playing in the Premier League the past two seasons. Josh was
excelling at Norwich City, so was moved to Cardiff City this past season, as
part of that bastard club’s attempt to build a Premier League-quality roster.
Their efforts failed, and after a single season of being at Premier League
level with his twin bro, Josh is back to the Championship, while Norwich City
is back up. He’ll likely get sold off to some other Premier League club, but a
return to Norwich City is looking unlikely. [Raven]
#22: HARRISON
REED – Reed is actually a midfielder for Southampton, but he spent the
entirety of the season before last on loan to Norwich City, thus he made this
list. It's actually good to see how much of Norwich's 25-man metaphysical
roster is signed to the club, and not them winning promotion with a handful of
loanees and former PL washouts. It gives you hope they might be able to
continue their success, and somewhat duplicate what Wolves did this season. I
mean, it's gonna be hard to finish that high (7th is like winning the PL minus
the big six clubs, which also is why Leicester City winning it a few seasons
back is even more impressive in retrospect), but Canaries look equipped to not
be in a relegation slog. Maybe. [Raven]
#23: JORDAN
RHODES (previously ranked #23 for
Middlesbrough on 01-Apr-2017) – Ahh, Grant Hanley on the flipside of the
halfway line. Rhodes is yet another archetype—the tallish Scottish “striker”,
that was actually born in England, who “puts himself about”…..and maybe scores
one goal every five games or so. See also: Sheffield Wednesday’s Steven
Fletcher and Raven’s Swansea boy Oli “Burn-Dog” McBurnie for comparable
examples of the genre. Rhodes went hog-wild for several seasons with
Huddersfield and Blackburn, such that I can recall a fair bit of Celtic
supporter chatter about bringing him up to Glasgow. Followed by the usual
recitation of how interested the player supposedly is, to play for such a
glorious club that he also probably supported as a child, yet Celtic can’t pay
either the asking price or the player’s wage demands (because of England’s
standard lucre). In fairness, I think Rangers also have to deal with the same
narrative in regards to whatever English-based troglodyte they’re coveting. But
Rhodes’ appearances and productivity absolutely nose-dived, and you start
getting Celtic chatter about “reviving his career in Scotland” and…fuck man,
it’s really hard to mire yourself in following the SPL. He’s also done fuck-all
for the Scottish National Team (which he qualifies for on some super-tenuous
technicality about living there for a few years as a kid, despite being English
as fuck). Rhodes is done—even after going back to Sheffield Wednesday when his
loan is over. They’ll probably be looking to unload him, and I really do not
want to hear anymore shit about bringing him to Celtic. [Paul]
#24: NELSON
OLIVIERA – The second half of the season is when the Canaries really
started firing on all cylinders, surpassing Leeds United as the top club in the
SkyBet Championship. (I have refrained from using the sponsor title but I
didn't feel like typing the long thing out that time just now, which caused me
to then type this out, which means ultimately I fucking lost, again, because of
succumbing to capitalism.) That second half of the season, Oliviera was seen as
surplus, and loaned out to fellow Football Championship (ha!) club Reading.
There was talk of a permanent transfer now, but it hasn't happened yet. If he
was surplus at second level, he's definitely gonna be football detritus at the
top level. [Raven]
#25: DENNIS
SRBENY – Yet another German. How does Brexit prejudice apply to Germans? I
guess that question assumes one thinks of Germans as blonde-haired fair-skinned
Germans, not the diverse reality of German citizenship in 2019. It’s weird how
enculturated all these fucked up things are in our heads. Is that just an
American thing? Obviously not with Brexit and Marie Le Pen and even the
Brazilian dude and Filipino dude and fuck man what a time to be alive. (Any
time is what a time to be alive though, tbh.) In conclusion, YET ANOTHER
GERMAN. (See y’all on the 15th!) [Raven]
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