Defence
John Terry – It just had to be HIM. He never minds playing it dirty does he? Over the years, Terry’s ability to prove his defensive superiority (in bed) has earned him some good reputation in front of the ladies but definitely not in front of the ladies’ men. Well, it’s premature to conclude he never let loose again this season but one thing he surely let loose is his mouth.
Roger Johnson – ‘Roger, roger, do you copy?... who turns up for training smelling like a brewery? Roger Johnson. Well, Wolves became the first team to get relegated from the Premier League this season but that could have been expected of a team whose captain would report for training, wait for it, drunk!
The towering defender shamelessly reported for work under the influence of alcohol on March 5 to the shock of the whole team. But hey, before you point any fingers at him, tweet back his wife Melissa Johnson and explain something to her. The WAG, fed up with seeing his husband warming the bench, tweeted 'Trying to understand why my hubbys on the bench right now #ridiculous’. Yeah, ridiculous. As if that wasn’t enough, Roger had a spat with the club’s custodian Wayne Hennnessey in a 3-2 loss to Bolton with two almost coming to blows.
Lee Cattermole – The Sunderland captain received a yellow card in his first two games of the season and never stopped until he hit double figures, just like last season. He followed up his 10 yellow cards and two red cards with another 10 yellow and a red this season finishing as one of the most indisciplined players in the league with an average of a yellow card every two games.
On March 4, 2012, he was booked inside the first minute of the Tyne-Wear derby against Newcastle and was red carded after the final whistle after confronting the referee. He received a 4 match ban. Off the field, the former England U-21 star and his colleague Nicklas Bendtner were arrested early December 2011 for allegedly damaging cars packed outside Newcastle City center. Did I write anything about his tackling? Ask Check Tiote and Luca Modric. Enough said.
Central Midfield
Joey Barton – This guy is multi-talented. He has the talent to play football but not as much the talent he has to cause trouble. If Manchester City needed to be handed a baton to win the Premier League, Barton joyfully did the honour on the final day of the season. The former Geordie had the worst disciplinary record being the only player to get 2 red cards and 10 yellow cards in the league. Oh, and he has the talent to Twit. Twitter should give him some kind of an award. The Twoublesome award. And “Twoublesome” is now trending on Twitter!! He’s the captain of this team.
Stewart Downing – At least he made it into A team of the season. The 27-year-old is naturally a winger but he will be at the heart of the midfield because of a not-so-hearty incident and also since he scored 0 goals and had 0 assists from 72 shots and a penalty the whole season. Maybe shifting the Liverpool man to midfield would make him more productive. The Middlesbrough Academy graduate was arrested in early January for allegedly hitting his ex-girlfriend at a nightclub though he was later acquitted.
Right Wing
Jermain Pennant - The much-travelled Stoke City winger was arrested on the last day of March for allegedly attacking a woman before crashing his car after a drinking spree. The 29-year-old was charged with “drink-driving, driving while disqualified and driving without insurance after his white BMW collided with a silver Audi in Sale at 5.20am,” reported the Daily Mail. 5.20am? That’s early enough to book him a spot on the right side of the Bad Boys’ team.
Left Wing
Royston Drenthe - While in high school, my English teacher used to pluck out a quote from anywhere inside a 300-paged book and then ask us to attribute the quotations, clearly indicating who said them, to whom, where and in what context. Let’s try it out with you here: "You know what bothers me so? That tone with which he always says, 'negro, negro'." Who said these words? To who and who was he talking about? Well, not to leave you hanging, that was Everton’s on-loan midfielder Royston Drenthe talking to the press where he accused the world’s best player, Lionel Messi, of racially abusing him when the Dutchman played for his parent club Real Madrid in La Liga.
But that aside, Drenthe had disciplinary issues at the Everton. He was dropped from the FA Cup semi-final clash against Liverpool, which the Toffees lost 2-1, with reports pointing saying he was constantly turning up late for training, something that never impressed David Moyes.
Forwards
Carlos Tevez - On 27th September 2011, Tevez was dropped to the bench for City’s crucial Champions League tie against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. City were on the brink of elimination so Mancini asked Tevez to warm up and come into the game but the Argentine apparently refused… so goes the story. Carlos resumed training at Manchester on 14 February and claimed Mancini treated him ‘like a dog’ (as if he behaved like anything less). After apologizing, he returned to action on 21st March in a 2-1 win over Chelsea and was on hand to celebrate City’s title triumph with a “R.I.P. Fergie” sign. He apologized. Be sure that won’t be his last apology.
Mario Balotelli – you can bet on your last pence that he will be back on this list next season, perhaps, as captain if Joey Barton doesn’t get a chance to play in the Premier League again. Be it printing “Why Always Me” on his shirt or following it up with “Raffaella Ti Amo” before having a ‘brief involvement’ with a prostitute, Super Mario is always on the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
This season, he had a cocktail of all the drama. Be it trying (and successfully failing) a crazy back heel during a match or having a bust-up with coach Roberto Mancini on the touchline or fighting with Micah Richards during training or fighting with Koralov over a freekick, or gatecrashing in on a press conference at his former club Inter Milan, or setting his house on fire with fireworks, or chanting "Rooney, Rooney" at a prostitute who claimed to have slept with the England international, or breaking a curfew, or crashing his Audi R8 “Because I (Balotelli) am rich”, or visiting a women’s prison, the talented and unpredictable Italian is always up to something. You just can’t get enough of him and every fan will be praying he stays at Manchester City because he isn’t done yet with this antics which we all love to see. Don’t we?
Luis Suarez – This is a selection that John Terry will be proud of. At least he won’t have someone frequently do a nutmeg on him as if his legs were as far apart as East Africa and South America. The Uruguayan is a joy to watch when he has the ball at his feet. But his competitiveness drives him to do crazy things at times and this season was no different. The cream of the crop was the alleged racial abuse of Manchester United’s Patrice Evra that led to an 8-match ban. He was then handed a one game ban and £20000 fine for a middle-finger salute to Fulham fans. In the penultimate game of the season against Chelsea, Suarez escaped punishment in spite of looking like he intentionally hit the face of Branislav Ivanovic who then refused to shake his reconciliatory hands.
And That's thesteifmastertake!!
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