Touille Lewis
Staff Writer
Just like that, we find ourselves at the halfway point of the Nanner League season. Here’s how the awards races are shaping up 6 games into the season:
Golden Nanner: We’ve got a 3 way tie for the lead this year with Bowen (WHU), Edouard (CP), and Hee-Chan (WOL) each netting 4 goals in the Nanner League so far this year. The pair of Liverpool players in Salah and Luiz are close behind with 3 goals a piece. We’ll see if any individuals can run away with this award or if we’ll be left with a Golden Nanner Split at the end of the campaign
Empty Peels: Alisson Becker (LIV) leads the way in this category with 2 empty peels in his first 6 Nanner games. Fabianski (WHU) and Johnstone (CP) are not far behind with 1 empty peel a piece.
Apples: We’ve got three Nanners who received Apples during the first half of the season. Wolves’ Bellegarde and Lemina and Crystal Palace’s Ayew have all received one Apple in the first half.
Here’s how the teams stack up in the Nanner League table halfway through the campaign:
- Liverpool
Liverpool has had a strong start to the season. Not only are they in 1st place on the Premier League table, but they are in the top spot on the more prestigious Nanner League table. They’ve won the Nanner League 6 years in a row, can they make it 7? Yes, they probably will. I’m not sure why we even keep track anymore.
This offseason was interesting for the Reds. LIV lost a number of big names to Saudi Arabia this offseason with Roberto Firmino, Jordan Henderson and Fabinho electing to leave for the Saudi Pro League. LIV? Players leaving for Saudi Arabia to cash in on checks? Are we talking about golf or footy here? Nonetheless, the Reds found good replacements and are well on their way to winning the Nanner League once again. At this point, I’m going to stop counting their championships.
The only question I have here is whether or not RoRo is still alive. I think Liverpool has more wins than Rob has texts in the Nanner League group chat. I have the odds at -200 that this trend continues for the rest of the season.
BEST MOMENT
Liverpool has had a good season, and really the only threat they have in the Nanner League is Aston Villa. Our calendars are marked for 5/1/24 when the Nanner League title will likely be decided in Villa Park. Here are highlights of the first matchup between these two sides.
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS Liverpool 3-0 Aston Villa (youtube.com)
2. Aston Villa
‘Villa’ in Spanish literally translates to ‘home’ and that isn’t surprising given that the Lions have not lost a match at home all season going 8-0-1 at Villa Park to start the season.
Ollie Watkins is the team’s lead goal scorer with 9 goals in the first half of the season. If you’re a fan of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater video game series, you could say that Villa has Ollie’d their way to the top of the table. They’ll still need to perform a few more tricks to pass Liverpool and Arsenal at the top of the table.
Leon Bailey has been a breath of fresh air for the Lions and has sparked the Villans offense coming off the bench. I’m unsure why he isn’t starting, but perhaps Emery knows that when you start your day with too much Bailey’s, falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon is a lot more likely.
Emiliano Martinez has been stifling defenses all season long, while his name continues to stifle supporters who can’t figure out if his name is Italian or Hispanic. He is actually Argentinian and grew up in Buenos Aires, the capitol city of Argentina. Villans can breathe well knowing their side has the right player in goal, which isn’t a huge surprise because Buenos Aires literally translates to Good Air.
Aston Villa remains the only real threat to Liverpool for the Nanner League crown and I for one will be rooting for them for a breath of fresh air. We’ve all Red the story ‘Liverpool wins the Nanner League’ and it’s time for a new story.
BEST MOMENT
The Tremont Darby – rumor has it that there is still bad blood between the Tremont natives. The final score was 3-1, but a questionable penalty to make it 2-1 still creates tension between these two Turks
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS | Aston Villa 3-1 Crystal Palace – YouTube
3. West Ham
West Ham continues to climb the Premier League table and has had an impressive start to the season. There were some doubts that they could stay competitive without their captain Declan, but the Hammers have proved that Rice is just a side dish and that the main entrée is what makes the needle move. The only details they need to Iron out are who they will bring in at the striker position in the January transfer window.
Bowen continues to Jar defenses, with 11 goals already this season which is only 2 scores away from beating his career high of 12 season goals two years ago. I’d expect this feat to be matched fairly soon, as Bowen is no stranger to double scores with his partner Dani Dyer recently giving birth to twins.
Areola continues to prove that Hamm can never have enough nipples as he has been stellar in net, giving up just 23 goals in 15 games.
Last but not least, Kudus to the West Ham scouts for seeing the potential in their new youngster Mohamed. He’s really breaking out as of late and he’s Ghana be a force to be reckoned in the second half of the season. Unfortunately, he’ll be missing from the team early in 2023 while playing for his home country in the African Cup of Nations and West Ham is hoping they can keep their groove while he’s away.
BEST MOMENT
At the first Nanner meet & greet, the Hammers met Wolves in London and greeted them with a whomping. Call it an MC Hammer, because when the Wolves tried to stop the Hammers attack, the Hammers were singing ‘Can’t Touch This’ all the way to the bank.
4. Crystal Palace
It’s hard to tell the story of Crystal Palace without telling the story of their gaffer Roy Hodgson. Roy Hodgson’s days may be numbered, not only on the pitch at Selhurst Park but unfortunately on the Earth as well. In 1947, the year Hodgson was born, you could go to the store and buy a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, one pound of bacon, 10 lbs of potatoes, and ½ gallon of milk and it would cost you $2.50. Jackie Robinson was just signing his first contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers that year to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball. That was also the year that the United Nations voted to create the independent Jewish state of Israel. Speaking of kicking people off their land in the name of freedom, Alaska and Hawaii wouldn’t even become official states in the US until 12 years later. Roy’s getting old, and the Eagles losing matches in extra time is getting old as well.
Soar is a verb that describes the flight of an eagle, but spelled differently it’s also an adjective that describes the pain in the heart of Eagles fans as they watch their last minute leads slip away time and time again.
The Eagles have missed the offensive prowess of Zaha who left this offseason and haven’t found a great replacement as of yet. Odsonne Edouard has been a great shot for Palace so far, but injuries have taken him off the pitch as of late. This isn’t the first time he’s missed action when he’s shooting well, as he missed some time back in 2017 as well after shooting a rifle at a passerby in his car and was suspended from Toulouse.
The Eagles biggest priority in the January transfer window will be adding some central midfield talent in hopes that it brings them to the central/midfield portion of the table. There are rumors that Steve Cooper will be brought in to replace Roy when Roy’s time comes and it’ll be interesting to see if the ugliest coach in Premier League history can make the Eagles’ performance attractive again.
BEST MOMENT
Crystal Palace’s 600th Premier League goal
OLISE WONDERGOAL! | Premier League Highlights | Luton Town 2-1 Crystal Palace (youtube.com)
5. Luton Town
The Hatters started the season off slow, but recently they’ve been playing with a lot of heart. I wouldn’t be a reporter if I didn’t question if they’re playing with too much heart, given the events that took place in the Bournemouth match last weekend.
Luton Town captain collapses on pitch after cardiac arrest (youtube.com)
At the beginning of the campaign, it was hard to see this team making a push to avoid relegation but the Dought(y) has subsided for now as Luton has won 2 consecutive matches. Just a few matches ago, the team was seeing the Twilight as their hopes for the season were dwindling but Team Edward(s) has won the hearts of Luton Town supporters and they are beginning to see the light and have been playing Bella (beautiful in Spanish) football as of late.
In the Bible, Elijah was known as a miracle worker and we’re seeing a lot of the same with Adebayo on the front line of this Hatters offense. His success has been a Testament to how hard he’s worked and we hope that trend continues in the second half of the season.
Ross Barkley has been a Nice addition to the squad as well. Barkley is a Giant presence in the locker room and Luton hopes he continues Running Back (RB) all the success he’s had in his career and carries this team to their goal line of staying in the Premier League.
BEST MOMENT
Jacob Brown nets the game winner in the Nanner Derby against Crystal Palace
6. Wolves
If you ask a Wolves fan how their season has gone so far, the answers will VARy. Some supporters will say we’ve been playing like p*ssies, or oVARies, and others will say that Gary O’Neill has brought the WolVARhampton farther than they could imagine. The biggest question: Is ChiVARly dead? The VARious ways that the refs have f*cked Wolves this season cannot be counted on one hand and you’d think the refs would at least take the Wolves out to a nice seafood dinner before they f*cked them.
Some of the biggest stories for the Wolves this season have been Pedro ‘help put it in the’ Neto (1 G and 7 Assists) and Hwang ‘Yes!’ Hee Chan (10 G and 2 assists) who have been stellar for the West Midlands side this campaign. Super Mario Lemina grew some hair on his Peaches this year and has become a STAR in their midfield. Some Wolves supporters are even calling for him to become the team’s captain because he represents the Wanderer’s blue collar work ethic from head to Toad.
The Molineux has become a fortress and many anonymous reporters have said they see it as the toughest place to play in the Premier League. The Wolves have gone unbeaten at home in their last 7 matches at Molineux and we’d expect this to continue in the second half of the campaign. Wolves will certainly miss Hwang Hee-Chan and Rayan Ait Nouri in the beginning of 2024 when these players depart for international duty.
BEST MOMENT
There’s nothing like waking up at 6:30am Missouri time to watch an incredible comeback like this one.
Sarabia and Lemina leave it LATE! | Wolves 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur | Highlights (youtube.com)
7. Burnley
Last but not least in our midseason review blog, we have Burnley, who is most certainly last and is having the most ‘mid’ season. The coaching has all of us questioning whether the man at the helm is a former Premier League superstar or part the subpar English rock bank ‘Bad Kompany’. All I can say is that when Burnley ran away with the EFL Championship title last season to earn promotion, this slow start to the Premier League season was not part of their ‘Rock n’ Roll Fantasy’.
I mean, JJ Watt are these guys doing? They’re not following the Cardinal rule of footy which is score more goals than your opponents. They need to get better on the Defensive End (DE) if they don’t want their coach to get Sacked midseason. We hope they can Badger some of their upcoming opponents and rise up from the ashes. These guys need a shock to the heart, similar to the one that JJ Watt received on 9/28/22 according to Wikipedia.
Josh Brownhill has been the one shining star so far on a sh*tty Burnley side. That doesn’t surprise me because his last name literally translates to raised brown terrain, aka the highest point of a pile of sh*t. Lyle Foster missed a good chunk of the beginning of the season but has slowly come into his own on his return to the pitch. My advice would be to pour some hot butter, brown sugar, and rum sauce all over him, lay him over a bed of ice cream, change his first name to ‘Banana’s’ and hope the return is a sweet and savory treat for the Claret supporters who deserve happiness.
Get some new insoles for your shoes, nanners. Because we’re going to be on our feet for Burnley a lot in the second half of this season.
BEST MOMENT
In a must win game, the Clarets destroyed a fellow bottom dweller which certainly helped their chances to stay in the Premier League this season.
Burnley 5-0 Sheffield United | Premier League highlights (youtube.com)
The Nanner League 
Leave a comment