CREDIT: LASZLO SZIRTESI / ISTOCK EDITORIAL / THINKSTOCK
The loss of Liverpool's Steven Gerrard has left the team trying to create what they used to have, just one of the many things currently going wrong in the Premier League

A Negative Review of Premier League Teams (Pt. 1)

Usually I take this column space to catch readers up on the latest news coming out of England’s top flight of football. In the absence of news, I like to fill it with statistics, player profiles, or any other opportunity to express my love of the beautiful game.

But this week, in the wake of sitting through five of the driest matches I have seen in a long time I’m not too happy with the Premier League. So, inspired by a postgame rant with a buddy, here is what I hate about each of the twenty Premier League Clubs.

Arsenal

Want to know the height of arrogance? Having an entire Wikipedia article devoted to a single season that is what Arsenal has for their precious ‘Invincibles’. Sure, going through an entire season unbeaten is an impressive achievement, but it was more than a decade ago, so it’s time we move on.

What followed that impressive season was the longest trophy drought in the club’s history and it was only broken with an FA Cup. Ever since Thierry Henry left, they’ve been hanging around the top four like an alumni quarterback at a high school house party, desperately trying to stay cool.

Aston Villa

Aston Villa is just a boring club all around. A few years ago they looked like an exciting young team, climbing up the table and putting pressure on the big boys. Then, like Cinderella at midnight, the finery fell away and revealed the rags underneath. Aston Villa has spent the last few seasons openly flirting with relegation only to be saved by the virtue of being less crap than some others.

Bournemouth

Nothing is as sickening as a fairytale story coming to life and that is all Bournemouth is. Sure, it’s magical that the club has moved from financial ruin to the top flight in less than a decade. Yes, they’ve made an impressive start to life at the top.

But what I hate most about Bournemouth is their manager. Eddie Howe is only 37; he’s a child managing in the Premier League and makes me question the direction I took in life.

Chelsea

Chelsea is a scummy club from top to bottom. Ask a supporter and they won’t have a clue what the club was up to in 2003, but they’ll talk your ear off about their great saviour Roman Abramovich.

Who is this saint, blessed by the football gods? A Soviet-era criminal accused of billions of dollars worth of blackmail, fraud and more than a few gangland murders. He then pumped all of that wealth into Chelsea, forever changing the financial landscape of the league and managing to buy the title in the process.

You can win titles, but when your manager’s press antics are more entertaining than any on-pitch performance, your club deserves all the crap that gets thrown at it.

Crystal Palace

Do we really need another club based in London? Of course we don’t, but Crystal Palace stubbornly holds on to their Premier League status. Their biggest claim to fame recently is developing Wilfried Zaha, a striker sold to Manchester United only to fail so spectacularly they sent him right back where he came from.

Appointing the stubborn Alan Pardew and a strong start to the season has only fuelled the delusion that the club belongs in the top flight and I can’t wait to see them fall back where they belong.

Everton

Everton, in my opinion, is the absolute worst. Being the less successful club from Liverpool has made them spiteful; their club has so little success that supporters are happier with a Liverpool loss than an Everton win.

I had the misfortune of meeting a few players while in the city and I learned one thing; if you’re visiting the country and support Liverpool, you are simply not welcome. At first I was confused and then it hit me. Everton is so pointless that half the city doesn’t even notice them.

Leicester City

A historically average club striving hard to reach the mediocrity that is their divine right, Leicester City defies the odds by continuing to stain the Premier League with yet more blue shirts.

In their 131 years’ history, The Foxes’ trophy cabinet totals three domestic cups, the most minor of major honours. Leicester City barely made the news for football reasons, but quickly became the hub of Premier League racism and sex scandals.

Liverpool

I could fill a whole column with the issues I have with Liverpool. Still desperately clinging to the ’80s when they were the top dogs in Europe, decades with their head in the sand has left the club scrambling to restore an essence of pride.

Led by a man who seems more at home in a Ricky Gervais sketch than a press conference, the squad may be the most expensive, boring team ever assembled. A recent trend of losing each year’s best player to another club and the loss of legend Steven Gerrard has left Liverpool a sad shell of what it should be.

Manchester City

Manchester City used to be an inconsequential blip on the football spectrum, until the royal family of the UAE purchased them. Truly absurd amounts of Dubai dollars have turned the team into a new age powerhouse full of overpaid and overhyped kids built around an aging core of players who were world class at other teams.

Like a teenager who suddenly won the lottery, Man City all of a sudden thinks they’re the coolest kids in school and it’s kind of working.

Manchester United

The all-conquering powerhouse of the ’90s had everyone in North America who discovered football around my age instantly pledging their loyalty to the team, mostly thanks to the presence of David Beckham.

It’s real easy to say you’re the fan of the team that wins all the time and watching supporters have to rationalize a seventh place finish two years ago was very entertaining.

The rest of the teams will be covered in next weeks Interrobang with “Everything Sucks: A Negative Review of Premier League Teams (Pt. 2)”.