The Christmas and New Year festive period is one where the Premier League takes an opportunity to put its teams through the wringer as they play three games in a span of under 10 days.
A holiday grind like this is no doubt taxing, so here’s what the managers of the league’s current top six clubs are likely to wish for this Christmas.
Chelsea
Fixtures: Bournemouth(H), Stoke City(H), Tottenham Hotspur(A)
Wish for carnage in the Liverpool-City game
While Chelsea do enjoy a seven-point lead to second-placed Manchester City with Liverpool a further point behind, Conte would still like to pad up that advantage even more. Rather fortuitously for him, his two main rivals in the chasing pack take on each other in a New Year’s Eve showdown when the Reds host the Citizens at Anfield.
While digging into his Christmas pudding, Conte might be silently hoping that game delivers a six-goal thriller that ends in a draw, with perhaps a red card or two thrown in to further derail his competitors’ hopes of catching up with his Blues this season. That would be a positive note to usher in the New Year.
“And it was all yellow”
Coldplay’s hit track ‘Yellow’ is probably the in-track right now in the Chelsea locker room. Diego Costa is already going to miss the Bournemouth game on Boxing Day, so is N’Golo Kante. That’s what five yellow cards gets you. It could get worse though as three more Chelsea players are one yellow away from a suspension and they have two games to play before the December 31st amnesty rescinds it.
Pedro, David Luiz and Nemanja Matic need to be careful to avoid picking up another one for not only will it mean a missed game, but also some choice Italian words and festive seasoning.
Liverpool
Fixtures: Stoke City(H), Manchester City(H), Sunderland(A)
Buy Gary Neville a good steak
Jurgen Klopp has been involved in a war of words with those dastardly Mancunian Neville brothers over the performances of his new keeper Loris Karius. After Klopp sent a message to the elder brother saying he wasn’t certified to be a pundit because of how badly his managerial stint at Valencia went, Gary Neville responded saying, “I’m not a good chef, but I know a good steak.”
So, Klopp will take it upon himself to set this right once and for all and take Gary Neville out on the town to sample steaks, in the process revealing Gary to be a phoney and calling out his bluff. Having proved that Gary Neville doesn’t know anything about steaks, he would remark – “You know nothing, Jon Snow Gary Neville.”
Metal Santa
He already has the goofy smile. Now imagine Klopp with a red Santa hat over his head. He’s got a grizzled beard to go, too. Now if only he could grab hold of an electric guitar and put on an electric Santa costume, he would make for the most metal Santa ever. With Klopp’s well-known love for heavy metal indulgence in music and football, now might be the perfect time to unleash Santa Klopp.
Manchester City
Fixtures: Hull City(A), Liverpool(A), Burnley(H)
Kung Fu lessons for Aguero
Argentine striker Sergio Aguero is currently cooling his heels serving out his four-match suspension for attempting a cowardly kick at Chelsea’s David Luiz when the two sides met last month. Having seen this act of petulance, Pep Guardiola might have arranged for Kung Fu classes for Aguero noting that his kicking might need an outlet while also noting that it might help him improve his finishing in the long run.
Face masks of Claudio Bravo
Claudio Bravo is just about everybody’s favourite goalkeeper to have a go at. He moves his feet, they say he moves his feet too much, he stays still, they say he’s too immobile for a goalkeeper.
Whatever be the case, when City concede, as they have often done the last 60 days, Bravo’s name is quickly in the mix. So Guardiola would do well to order 20,000 face masks bearing the Chilean’s face and distribute it to all those in the Etihad Stadium to beat his detractors to the punch and proclaim ‘We are Claudio’. Bravo!
Arsenal
Fixtures: West Brom(H), Crystal Palace(H), Bournemouth(A)
Mesut Ozil charger
You know how sometimes your car battery gives up on you just when you didn’t want it to happen, like in the middle of nowhere or at night when you are most vulnerable, and you wish you had a portable unit with you which could charge it right up? Arsene Wenger must surely be shopping around for some such similar contraption which can be used to charge up his German playmaker as he seems to be doing the same thing as the battery – dying on them in the big games.
Either that or Wenger must be going through Ozil’s internet history to figure out what his pet peeves are in a bid to find out what could get him revved up again.
Of Stolen Christmas’
After two back-to-back defeats, away from home against Everton and Manchester City, Arsenal’s players have decided to cancel their annual Christmas party as they feel it would send the wrong message. According to the Mirror, they were due to go out in fancy dress for a night out on the town, but senior players Petr Cech and Laurent Koscielny were concerned about the message this would send to their fans and everyone else.
So, no Christmas party this year. Wenger though, probably already had a Grinch costume ready just in case the party went ahead, to play spoilsport by starring in the 2016 remake of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’.
New criticism of the refs
After the City game, Wenger had absolutely had enough of the fine referees of the Premier League. Having exercised every possible excuse of an allegation to hurl at the referees in recent years, Wenger will be looking for new innovative complaints to hurl at the men in black.
Tottenham Hotspur
Fixtures: Southampton(A), Watford(A), Chelsea(H)
Protect Walker, Vertonghen and Wanyama
Just like Conte and Chelsea, Poch’ has three players who are one yellow away from a one-game suspension. It’s three vital cogs too in Victor Wanyama, Jan Vertonghen and Kyle Walker. The only difference is that Spurs have only one game to get through as their next game after the Boxing Day encounter at Southampton will be in 2017 with the yellow counter being reset after December 31st.
Time machine
More than anything though, Poch would sure like a time machine with which he could go back to April 2016 and change a few things to ensure that his Spurs and not Leicester City end up winning last year’s title thus preventing the doomsday apocalypse that saw the ‘big four’ lose their bearings and bring in the Guardiolas, Contes and Mourinhos of this world that just made life a little bit tougher for his side.
Manchester United
Fixtures: Sunderland(H), Middlesbrough(H), West Ham United(A)
Out on a limb for Marcos Rojo
Jose Mourinho would make a heartfelt plea to Santa to somehow make Marcos Rojo’s right leg invisible on match days. That way when Rojo goes for his traditional Argentine welcome (read two-footed challenge) on an opposing player, the referees will still see it as only a one-legged challenge and not pull out the dreaded red card.
The Argentine might have gotten away with a few in recent games, but even Jose knows that this cannot go on forever. If you don’t see a two-footed lunge from Rojo the next three games, you know that Jose’s prayers have been answered.
Bigger water bottles
Jose would instruct the staff at Old Trafford to make sure that the bottles placed outside his technical area are slightly bigger and carry more volume than the regular ones so that when he kicks one in frustration it is less likely to go flying and in turn catch the attention of the fourth official. This way he would likely only end up with a sore foot, but he would take that as opposed to another banishing to the stands.
