Who needs fourth place? Arsenal clinch hat-trick at our Alternative End of Season Awards

by | May 21, 2017 | Media

With Chelsea wrapping up the title with two games to go and N’Golo Kante being one of the least surprising double Player of the Year winners after his immaculate imitation of a wall in the Blues midfield, what prizes are we left with?

Many fans will be wanting more gongs and glamour, more sparkle and surprise at the end of the season.

But don’t worry, Le Buzz is here to help. We have donned our sequinned summer dresses and tuxedos – along with those next-to-new shoes that always shred our heels – to bring you our Alternative End of Season Awards.

And if we were to ask one club to guide you through the proceedings of our ceremony, there would only be one winner…

Best Programmes

West Brom take this prize by a landslide after papering over their mid-table mediocrity with some excellent match-day efforts…

Here are a few examples. A Blur beauty…

A Bowie tribute…

And an Oasis in the points drought…

Best/Worst Dive

Depending on which way your moral compass points, the best/worst dive has some outstanding contenders this season. Marcus Rashford’s effort against Swansea is highly commended/criticised, but the outstanding airborne atrocity comes from Tottenham’s Dele Alli, when he fell to win a penalty against Bournemouth…

Full marks for artistic impression, it was a perfect swan dive according to Jason Roberts…

Worst celebration

If you score a scorpion kick, what’s the worst thing you could do in celebration? Pretend to be a scorpion. Which is why Olivier Giroud wins the award for worst celebration. He did this (and even Gabriel looks embarrassed):

The best thing he could have done is not react – as if he does it all the time in training –  and grabbed the ball on his return to the half-way line as Arsenal were chasing a win at Bournemouth at the time.

However, we mustn’t be too harsh as he was clearly excited after scoring arguably the goal of the season.

Best Celebration

In third place, we have the studio reaction at BT Sport after Barcelona scored the aggregate winner in their epic 6-1 second-leg defeat of PSG in the Champions League last 16…

In second we have Danny Welbeck for actually celebrating after scoring against former club Manchester United for Arsenal, thereby bucking the irritating trend of paid professionals refusing all joy when doing something similar.

But the winner has to be Zlatan Ibrahimovic for his kung-fu kick after scoring against Swansea.

The only thing missing is seeing Phil Jones’ petrified mush. But we like to imagine it looked like this:

Worst excuse

Jose Mourinho wins the award for most excuses used: Poor pitch, player fatigue, injuries, lack of prep…. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sorry, drifted off for a minute. Let’s get to the point. The best individual excuse goes to Jurgen Klopp, of Liverpool fame, for this belter after the 0-0 draw against Southampton.

I know people don’t want to hear this but the pitch was really dry. We gave it all the water we had but, because of the wind, it was really dry. It was nobody’s fault, but it made it difficult to play.

Very much a First World problem there Jurgen, like not having a second helipad, so sympathy will be in as short a supply as water in the Anfield hoses.

Most undervalued player

Let’s face it, this is an award invented for those players who are simply not quite good enough to get a frontline honour. It’s up there with your ‘Most Improved Player’ and ‘Best Trier’ variations. Often it goes to footballers who put in the most effort, the ‘110 per centers’ who couldn’t create a goal against five blindfolded men, and run a lot.

Whatever. For Le Buzz, it has to be James Milner. If you look past his mock Twitter profile, he’s been outstanding for Liverpool this season. Not only was he shunted into a rickety Liverpool defence, it was made doubly bad for him as a right-footer when Jurgen Klopp asked him to play at left-back.

Yet the 31-year-old has settled in nicely, drifted in field to act as an auxiliary midfielder when his side is on the attack, defended solidly and, of course, slotted home several crucial penalties (until the Southampton game) to keep Liverpool lingering in Champions League contention.

So we are delighted to award Mr Milner this prize – especially as he will likely be on the bench next season when Klopp finds a more attacking player, with an actual left foot, to fill that slot.

Unsung Heroes XI

On the subject of those underappreciated players we have, in true alternative awards fashion, reserved a prize for our Unsung Heroes XI. And, obviously, we’ve also gone with an Unsung formation – the 4-4-2 which won Leicester the title last season but has since slipped out of fashion with the emergence of Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3.

Jordan Pickford; Kyle Walker, Marcos Rojo, Gareth McAuley, Nathan Ake; Gylfi Sigurdsson, Etienne Capoue, Oriol Romeu, Matt Phillips; Josh King, Andy Carroll

Worst haircut

Again Manchester United are highly commended for Paul Pogba’s numerous efforts this season. Particularly this snakey snip:

Pogba reveals new ‘snake’ haircut, new moves with France team-mates

But of course the winner, or should we say loser, is Hector Bellerin’s braided barnet…

Hector Bellerin’s new haircut is, erm, interesting

Best Doppelganger

Well, obviously it is this guy. So good he does it for a job.

PHOTOS: Iranian Lionel Messi lookalike is so convincing he had to be detained by police

Most tragic yellow card

There can only be one winner here – and Arsenal scoop yet another meaningless prize.

Like Rivaldo in the 1998 World Cup it’s the delay that makes it so delicious.

It is of course Alexis Sanchez’s feeble playacting after Leicester’s Christian Fuchs threw the ball at him from a throw-in. What a weally, weally mean man. Sadly we can’t bring you any footage of the event but the article below should give you a flavour of the episode.

Sport stars mock Arsenal’s ’embarrassing’ Alexis Sanchez: ‘Should be a ten-match ban’

Still, at least the forward was clutching approximately the right part of his anatomy.

And so, at the end of the awards, it’s finally some glory for Arsenal –  who scoop a hat-trick –  after just missing out on a Champions League place.

Sadly, we cannot replace the millions of pounds the club will lose for not being in the top European competition, but we do have a half-eaten bag of Haribo if you are interested?