PFA Team of the Year Shows Why Chelsea Shouldn’t Win The Title

April 29, 2008

David James (Portsmouth)
Bacary Sagna (Arsenal), Rio Ferdinand (Man Utd), Nemanja Vidic (Man Utd), Gael Clichy (Arsenal)
Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal), Cristiano Ronaldo (Man Utd), Ashley Young (Aston Villa)
Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal), Fernando Torres (Liverpool)

This weeks PFA awards, which named Ronaldo as the best player in the Premiership for the second year, honoured those players who have been the best all season in their respected positions. Awards obviously went to players from Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal, and even Aston Villa and Portsmouth got in on the action.

However, not one player from the title-chasing juggernaught that is Chelsea was present.

Does this show how unworthy Chelsea are of winning the title? They have not played entertaining football meaning none of their so-called ’superstars’ have played good enough football to be named as the best in the league. Chelsea fans may claim that winning the league is a team effort but a quick glance back at the list and there are three players from Manchester United, three from Arsenal and two from Liverpool. This shows that these teams are just that: teams.

Granted it all boils down to how many points you get, but when it is this tight at the top and you have to make a choice, I’d rather see a team playing entertaining football win the title. Those are the teams people remember. The teams people are proud to call “the best in the country”. United’s Treble-winners of 1999. Arsenal’s Invincibles of 2004. These teams are remembered as they played glorious football en route to the title.

Will anyone say the same about Chelsea if they win the 2008 Premier League title? The PFA seems to think not.

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Comments

15 Responses to “PFA Team of the Year Shows Why Chelsea Shouldn’t Win The Title”

  1. F.B.
    on April 29th, 2008 1:29 pm

    “…, three from Arsenal,…”

    Erm, you might wanna count again matey.

  2. on April 29th, 2008 1:34 pm

    CORRECTION!….THERE ARE FOUR ARSENAL PLAYERS. GO GUNNERS!!!

  3. Kevin
    on April 29th, 2008 1:42 pm

    Maybe just maybe the bin dippers you call Liverpool can’t win the title because they only have two players, it takes a squad to win the title, same goes for the Arse. Chelsea have used their squad this season with so many injuries and the African cup of nations.

  4. jake
    on April 29th, 2008 1:48 pm

    maybe it is the reason that was stated on saturday. only about 4 of our players have started over 20 league games this year.

    if Cech, Terry, Carvalho, Lampard, Ballack or Drogba hadn’t been injured all the time (and Essien) or had there not been the african cup, we would have had a lot of players in that team.

    and yes, Chelsea have played crap the whole year with a whole load of injuries, yet we are joint top. just imagine what we can do when we actually play well!!!!

  5. Anonymous
    on April 29th, 2008 2:11 pm

    “Does this show how unworthy Chelsea are of winning the title?”
    WTF?!?!

    after 38 games, the team that finishes top are the team that deserves to win the title

  6. keka
    on April 29th, 2008 2:18 pm

    So according to your reasoning Arsenal should win the title, which proves your reasoning is false. Furthermore, if we would go with your system then the order of the premier league would be Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Aston Villa & Portsmouth. The only thing this tells s about Chelsea is that Chelsea have the strongest squad and that they had a lot of players absent for enormous amount of games, because otherwise Ballack, Essien, Riccy and/or Cech would’ve been in the list.

  7. Steve
    on April 29th, 2008 2:56 pm

    Jake, Chelsea haven’t played entertaining football (or well) since Rainieri left and it’s debatable if they did then. Your argument about some chelsea players making the list is also debatable - I might give you cech and maybe essien but the others are one dimensional. I find it ironic that the league that many claim to be the most entertaining may be won by one of the most dire footballing teams the country has seen in decades.

  8. Stuart
    on April 29th, 2008 4:30 pm

    Just shows you how much awards are worth!
    Not only have we had to contend with the ACN and an injury list unparalelled in the last ten years at Chelsea, but we have had a hopeless, alleged manager in charge.
    And still the rest of the PL have trouble in beating us!
    Well watch this space next year,IF we get rid of the Fraud.
    KTBFFH

  9. Shaba
    on April 29th, 2008 6:00 pm

    Oi Steve you donut, we played very entertaining football under Jose in his first and second seasons. In his first season we were destrying teams, scored the most goals, most wins ever in a season, won the league by January and a whole load of other records were broken. The second season we did the same and thats when the media started saying we were boring not because of the style of football but because we were so dominant at the start to the end and all that crap about Cricket being more interesting started because England won the ashes by fluke. And like Fergie said we raised the bar in the prem like no other team. I admit Joses third season was boring but we changed our system some we could accomodate Sheva and Ballack which completely changed the dimension of our game. And now we have Grant but we still are the force in the league who always compete for 4 trophys.

  10. jackrussell
    on April 30th, 2008 10:42 am

    can anyone tell me why Gerrard is in the list, what has he done this season?

  11. Avram
    on April 30th, 2008 11:44 am

    how can anyone say chelsea or any team for that matter not worthy - the points speak for themselves. To be in second after a season of difficulty is a tremendous effort. Loosing a manager, loosing most reguular starters to African Nations Cup, loosing captain and goalkeeper through injury for a long time and still fighting for league and Champs league! go ahead with your pointless team of the year and useless comments on who is “worthy” to win the title - the points speak for themselves - when are you gooners and scousers gonna realise that? So are you saying arsenal, and i am the first to admit they have played some very attractive football, deserve it more than chelsea or anyone else in the league? where has the attractive football got them? tropheyless AGAIN and off the pace for the league AGAIN - yeah they deserve it more than anyone!!!!

  12. Ed
    on April 30th, 2008 1:17 pm

    erm, ok then…

  13. peteborota
    on April 30th, 2008 1:43 pm

    None of Chelsea’s players deserve to be in the team, mainly because they have been missing through injury for a significant part of the season.

    Cech, Cavalho, Terry, Lampard, Ballack, Drogba, Bridge, Malouda, Cole have all been injured for at least 8 weeks. That’s why the sum of the parts is more important than indivdual perfromances. Chelsea’s foward line have less combined PL goals than Ronaldo. Wright-Phillips and Malouda have been woeful so it’s somewhat surprising and says alot for rest of the PL that Chelsea are the only threat to a free scoring Man United.

  14. Bos Ada
    on April 30th, 2008 2:26 pm

    We all know Chelsea won most of their matches by a goal margin and many coming from the last 10 minutes of the game. They haven’t played well this season whether entertaining or not. The only reason they are contenders is because of the expensive caliber of players they have. In fairness to them, they had a setback due to Mourinho leaving, but even before Mourinho left bad results were already pouring in. Injury is not an excuse because every team had that problem, if you say Chelsea didn’t play well because of injuries, then you are admitting Chelsea didn’t play well and shouldn’t win the PL. The truth is, the premiership league is most likely to win the best European league again this season but it will be a shame if Chelsea wins the league because their perfomance is below par and not entertaining at all. All these said, I believe a name is missing, Ballack played very well this season and deserves a spot in the PFA team of the year, other than that, Chelsea had a woeful performance and we know it.

  15. Kishor
    on April 30th, 2008 3:22 pm

    make no mistake there are 4 from arsenal!!
    this shows how close they were!!!

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