Welcome to the Guardian’s fifth annual index of ineptitude, a catalogue of calamity, a prospectus of the piss-poor.
As each season draws to a close, the best moments, players and teams of the year are all charted, celebrated and cheered. Which means that what comprises most of the rest of the Premier League experience is missed.
So here is a (not always serious) commemoration of cackhandedness: here’s where to cheer goalkeepers who help the opposition, those who can’t score from 12 yards, players given cards for removing their shirts, and professionals who can’t even throw the ball to a teammate. Let’s face it, those moments are just as entertaining as the 30-yard screamers.
Opta’s statisticians have provided the raw data, we’ve interpreted them and then handed out points in, if we’re honest, a more arbitrary than scientific fashion. Still, what emerges is the glorious throbbing vein of inadequacy, incapability and incompetence that runs right through the Premier League and it deserves to be celebrated long and loud.
Who will join 2014-15 champions QPR, 2015-16 title winners Aston Villa, 2016-17’s supremos Hull City, and last season’s Watford as the year’s most incompetent side?
1) Throwing the ball to the opposition
The difficult part of football is controlling a spherical object, often at speed, with either feet or head. The easy bit is picking it up with both hands, having a breather and throwing it to a teammate. But every year the ineptitude index has to highlight the teams yet to master the art of the simple throw-in. OK, some are high-risk long balls lobbed hopefully into the box, some are low percentage throws into an attacking area. But most are simply chucking the ball at someone wearing the same shirt with your hands. Cardiff City have thrown the ball to their opponents a mind-boggling 309 times, or a touch over nine times a game. That’s once every 10 minutes. They get a 10-point fine, while the next worst – Brighton – get eight, Huddersfield six, Newcastle four and Everton, Leicester, Southampton and Watford share two points each as, bizarrely, they have all done it 157 times each.
2) Yellow card for removing a shirt
It was on 1 July 2004 that the law banning players from removing their shirts was introduced. Only a handful of current Premier League players had started their careers by that point – so nearly every player this season has spent their entire professional life under the yoke of this (quite silly) law. It is top ineptitude to break a law everyone, everywhere knows about. However let’s not clamp down too hard because where would we be without this sort of thing? Opta does not specifically carry figures for shirts removed, but classes it under excessive celebration. So, any team that has done it once gets a free pass, any team that has done it twice is fined five points (Cardiff, Arsenal, Manchester United, Brighton and Wolves – both Raúl Jiménez) and any team so ludicrous as to have done it three times gets a 10-point penalty. Well played Leicester (James Maddison, Harry Maguire and Demarai Gray).
3) Conceding a 90th-minute (or later) winner or equaliser; blowing a two-goal (or more) lead
A tip for Southampton when they are next ahead at the 90 minute mark: hoof the ball into row Z, make three substitutions, hell, line up in the goalmouth. Because they have conceded a decisive goal four times as matches go into added time. Burnley, Leicester and Newcastle have managed it three times and 15 other teams have also achieved it, four of them twice. Only Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Crystal Palace have avoided such calamity this season. We’ll hand out five penalty points for each time a team has conceded decisively on or past the 90-minute mark.
Meanwhile, three teams have twice been two goals up at some stage of the match but went on to lose or draw. Well played Brighton, Everton and Southampton, you can have 10 points for that sort of behaviour. Burnley, Fulham, Huddersfield, Newcastle and Watford have done it once – a five-point penalty for each of them.
4) Goalkeeping incompetence
Keeping out goals is more or less the job description for a goalkeeper – so making errors that lead to them is, frankly, top bodging. Bournemouth’s Asmir Begovic is this season’s howler king with five errors leading to opposition goals. He’s closely followed by Everton’s Jordan Pickford (four errors) with Martin Dubravka, Alisson and Bernd Leno (three each) next. We’ll forgive anyone who has made two errors or fewer because, let’s face it, it’s a tough job, but we’ll hand out five points per mistake above that threshold – so 15 points to Bournemouth, 10 to Everton, five apiece to Newcastle, Liverpool and Arsenal.
Last season, half of the Premier League’s teams conceded possession more than 50% of the time from goal kicks. That has now come down dramatically, with only one over that mark, perhaps because more teams play it out from the back (Kepa Arrizabalaga, under the Sarriball cosh, loses the ball only 10.8% of the time from kicks, while Manchester City’s Ederson is next best at 11.9%). Some teams have a gameplan of getting the ball as far up the pitch as possible, which is fine, but hats off to Cardiff City’s Neil Etheridge – a fine shot-stopper with the distribution of a drunken Deliveroo driver – who loses the ball 59.7% of the time he hoofs it. We’ll give him a 10-point prize and a gentle reminder he can throw the ball if he likes. Watford’s Ben Foster (48.6%) gets eight points, Burnley’s Tom Heaton (43.4%) gets six points, Crystal Palace’s Wayne Hennessey (43.1%) gets four points and Southampton’s Alex McCarthy (41.0%) picks up two.
5) Outfield defensive incompetence
No matter whether it’s an unlucky deflection, a heroic attempted block or the ball simply cannons off the back of your oblivious head, scoring a goal for the opposition is as bungling as it gets. But accidents happen, so a free pass to those teams to score just one but five points for each to score any past that threshold. So Fulham, Bournemouth and Everton get a five-point penalty for doing it twice, Spurs, Burnley, Manchester United, Southampton and Watford get 10-point penalties (three times each) and Wolves get a whopping 15 points for doing it four times (Conor Coady, with three own goals, is the league’s leader).
Similarly, conceding a penalty is classic incompetence – though not as bad as scoring for the opposition. We’ll award three points per team per penalty conceded. Brighton are the worst offenders with nine conceded, though Huddersfield (eight) and Fulham (seven) run them close. It’s bad news for Arsenal too, who move up our index thanks to six penalties conceded. It also gets the last couple of teams on the board (Chelsea, two conceded; Manchester City four conceded), while well done to Liverpool who have conceded only one.
Finally, let’s add outfield mistakes that result in goals. Cardiff lead the way thanks to Sol Bamba (three), Bruno Manga (two) and Harry Arter (two). A hat tip to Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka and Cédric Soares for popping up in this list for the second year running, particularly the former Southampton man who was unable to contribute past January after being bundled off to Inter. Three points per team, per error.
6) Missed penalties
Come on, it’s a free shot with one bloke to beat from 12 yards. So for Everton and Manchester United to have missed three each is Billy Smart-level clownmanship. Five points per miss is harsh but fair. Newcastle, Leicester and Bournemouth have missed two each, with Fulham, Cardiff, Manchester City, Arsenal, Southampton, Brighton and Palace on one each.
7) Failing to score
There is a lot that makes football overly complicated (statistical pieces such as these don’t help), but really there is only one point to the game: to put the ball in the net. Not doing it is the height of uselessness. So teams get a one-point fine for failing to score, which is bad news for Huddersfield who top the chart for the second year running after 18 blanks once again. Cardiff (15), West Ham (14), Fulham and Newcastle (13 each) follow and it also quite rightly gets Chelsea (nine) off the foot of the table. Outside the top six, if it’s goals you’re after, then Leicester, who failed to score only six times, are your best bet. Manchester City (twice), Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool (three times) were the best of the bigger guns.
8) Being a tosser
A catch-all category for simulation, dissent and red cards. There’s a two-point penalty per yellow card awarded for a dive, meaning Arsenal and Tottenham share the spoils with four dives apiece and eight points each. Huddersfield and Southampton (both from Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, the worst offender in the league) are next with two, with a host of clubs on one.
It’s a point for each yellow doled out for dissent, because no one needs to mouth off to the referee no matter how entertaining/tempting it is. Cardiff top the table with 10, with Arsenal on eight, and Leicester and Newcastle on seven each. Kasper Schmeichel, Kurt Zouma, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Victor Camarasa are the worst for it with three yellows each for the crime. Most polite clubs? Liverpool and Bournemouth with only one instance each.
Finally, red cards. A five-point penalty per red card as there are not many things more damaging to your team than having one fewer player than the opposition. Look away now Leicester fans, that’s a 25-point fine for your five red cards. Manchester United, Brighton, Everton and Huddersfield are on four each, while at the other end, goodie-two-shoed Chelsea are the only club without a single red this season (which may tell you something about their combative spirit).
9) Failing to find your own player in your own half
Giving the ball to the other team in your own half is, you would think, a bad idea. However since Leicester City won the league by letting the opposition have the ball, that’s less clear-cut – and the stats bear that out. Wolves have had a good first season back in the Premier League but top the charts for most unsuccessful passes in their own half. Fulham have had a shocking first season back in the Premier League, and are second in the chart. Arsenal, fourth in the league, are third worst in the chart. At the other end of the table, Manchester City are the best, as you might expect, but Cardiff, Burnley and Southampton are next. So that’s not definitive either. So we’ll do away with this for this season and instead introduce a one-off special award for Chelsea.
Maurizio Sarri’s side have been rotten yet are somehow the joint most competent side, so let’s sort that out. Since 2003-04, this season’s Chelsea are fourth in the table of teams with the most possession across a season (behind Manchester City’s three Guardiola seasons). However, they have had an average of only 5.09 shots on target per game. Of teams with 60% or more possession in a season, they are ahead of only Louis van Gaal’s first United team, putting them 14th on the list. Basically, Chelsea are hogging the ball and doing absolutely nothing with it – a special kind of insomnia-curing ineptitude for which they get a 20-point special penalty and a warning not to watch them while operating heavy machinery.
10) General incompetence
Ineptitude is not constrained to the pitch, and there are points on offer for teams hiring and firing a manager in the same season (Fulham, 10 points), managers getting touchline bans for marching onto pitches and having it out with referees (Spurs, 10 points/Cardiff City, pending). Unai Emery escapes a penalty for kicking a water bottle because 1) it was funny and 2) he didn’t get a touchline ban so didn’t hurt his team (same goes for Jürgen Klopp’s Merseyside derby pitch invasion). But Arsenal do get a fine for the analyst Victor Manas’s mysterious tunnel bust-up with Crystal Palace in October and his subsequent one-match ban (one point because nobody knows who he is). Charlie Austin earns Southampton 10 points for his two-fingered salute against Manchester City and resulting two-match ban, but has them rescinded for his entertaining VAR rant in November.
It all comes down to whether Neil Warnock gets a touchline ban for marching up to the officials, and his later comments, after Cardiff’s 2-1 defeat to Chelsea. If he’s sent to the stands, Cardiff are champions! If he’s reprieved, then Chris Hughton’s Brighton – once a byword for organisation and efficiency – get the coveted gong. Come on The FA! You know what to do!
But that’s not the real story here. In 2016-17, Marco Silva had a hand in getting Hull to the top of the ineptitude index and, last season, he helped inspire Watford to top the list. This year, he’s made a good fist of getting Everton up there too. That takes some doing. No wonder Farhad Moshiri was so keen to splash the cash.
Plaudits are due once again for Rafael Benítez. Jiggered by Mike Ashley’s tight purse strings, he’s still likely to keep a pretty inept Newcastle in the Premier League while the thrillingly incompetent Southampton still have much to play for. Fulham and Huddersfield need to have a good long think – being relegated despite being more competent than six teams, including one managed by Claude Puel, takes some doing. And it’s slightly depressing to see how the Ole Gunnar Solskjær effect has revived Manchester United, who were on for all kinds of incompetence under José Mourinho.
The other end of the table is interesting: that the two most likely league winners come last is no surprise, but Chelsea, Palace and West Ham in third, fourth and fifth? Few thrills, no spills may lead to a reasonable level of competence, but is it much fun to watch?
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