The Warm-Up: The Premier League is getting interesting

So, Leicester lost. Chelsea had the chance to jump into third, and lost. And now, with Manchester United and Wolves both looking very decent, we’ve got ourselves a good old-fashioned Race For Fourth. And possibly fifth, depending on how City get on in court. But somebody’s missing out on that sweet, sweet Champions League.

Of the prospective candidates, it’s Leicester that look most in danger. Apparently comfortable in third for much of the season, Brendan Rodgers’ merry band of Big Six disruptors are winless since returning from the corona-break, and Jamie Vardy is goalless. Rodgers is starting to get that hollow stare again. It’s a tough gig, trying to disrupt the Premier League’s inequities.

Given that the title race was over before it began, and given how patient we’ve all been, it seems fair that the Premier League should give us this final flurry of intrigue. And things really are set up nicely.

Back at the start of the season, some 14 years ago, the fixture computer did us all a huge favour. On the last day of the season, Manchester United travel to Leicester, and Chelsea host Wolves. A four-way straight-up shootout for the Gazprom. And for the huge piles of money, obviously.

Strange goings on at the London Stadium, and we’re not just talking about the audible crowd noise. West Ham had a goal disallowed, then conceded a penalty. Collapse seemed inevitable, but then they just refused to fall over. They scored. They scored again. They got pegged back to 2-2 and then they scored a third time.

We saw Jack Wilshere! Running around on a football pitch! In 2020!

There was much to admire about West Ham’s performance, and plenty of Chelsea players will have regrets, but the Warm-Up would like to salute two individuals above all. The first is Michail Antonio, who put a shift in, and then another shift, and then a third shift on top of that one, to create some kind of tottering multi-shift Voltron of heroic effort. At one point he was playing all three positions in the front line at the same time, which takes some doing.

The other hero of the evening was West Ham’s Person in Charge of Pumping Bubbles. You might think this would be a futile job, in an empty stadium. Particularly when the first lot go flying out, only to get popped by the big pin of VAR. But they kept on going, just like the song demands, and they got their reward in the end.

Wigan Athletic have entered administration. The club currently sit 18th in the Championship, but have a 12-point deduction coming either this season, if they avoid relegation, or the next if they go down.

The club therefore become the first pandemic-hit club to declare insolvency, and the bleak expectation is that they won’t be the last. The chair of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Julian Knight MP, told the BBC:

The picture is complicated somewhat by the odd circumstances surrounding Wigan’s ownership. The club changed hands just a month ago — with lockdown in full effect, with crowdless games the likely outcome — and according to one of the administrators, Paul Stanley, money that was expected to arrive simply didn’t.

As such, and whatever the impact of the coronavirus, there will presumably be more than a few questions for the Football League and their testing procedures. Whether prospective buyers have enough money to get through the season seems like the most basic of principles to establish before signing off on a move.

Screw you physics. Screw you, laws of the universe.

In case any Watford fans were wondering just how Pape Gueye managed to cancel his contract and wangle a move to Marseille, it appears to have involved some kind of cyberpunk heist, taking place in 1983 and 2077 simultaneously. Next week they’ll be announcing Keanu Reeves.

Apparently it’s Weird Football Video Day here at the Warm-Up. Just have a look at this piece of wonder from Iceland, announcing a new badge. We didn’t even know “announcing a new badge” was a thing. Let alone a thing this mental.

Sheffield United and Spurs are your first course of Premier League football this evening, followed by Liverpool visiting Manchester City, which would have been a huge game in the title race … if only there had been a title race. Elsewhere, Real Madrid will be looking to put clear water between themselves and Barcelona when they host neighbours Getafe.