TITLE races don’t come much more thrilling than this season’s Kenna, but when it’s all over one manager may look back on a transfer window with severe regret.
The Piedmonte manager has his best chance of winning the league since its origins in 2005. It would be quite an itch to scratch considering he was among the eight pioneers of the Kenna that fateful night in The Old Bank of England.
As this season rolls into the final five weeks, Piedmonte find themselves just 25 points behind flash new boys FC Testiculadew. Dismissing a potentially catastrophic oversight by league organisers, one manager will be spraying champagne onto the bare breasts of high-class escort girls while the other will be throwing up a bellyful of Frosty Jacks in the park, along with the rest of the league.
If the Piedmonte manager finds himself waking up in his own vomit, as he has eight times before, the sale of Samir Nasri at the second transfer window will be a source of tortuous despair.
Eyebrows were raised that night in The Enterprise when the silky-skilled Frenchman found himself back on the market and snapped up for £2m by Bala Rinas.
Now Piedmonte find themselves so close to missing out, the manager is introspectively taking to social media:
@jeffkennaleague I’m sure if I hadn’t done any transfers at all this season I’d be top of the league. Got rid of Adebayor & Nasri! #kenna
— Phil Davis (@PhillyD55) April 7, 2014
He’s wrong. The fact is that if he’d made no transfers he wouldn’t be top of the league, but his team would have scored more goals (see below).
No one could criticise the Piedmonte manager for releasing Emmanuel Adebayor at the October window. The Togolese didn’t score a single point in those first six weeks, and looked to be having another season the elephant would sooner forget.
His replacement Jonathan Walters used to be one of those bargain Kenna bankers, but he’s had a torrid time of late and in 13 weeks for Piedmonte scored at less than two points a week, notching just two goals in the process.
‘The Pies’ replaced him with Peter Odemwingie, a huge gamble considering the Nigerian’s troubles, but he’s gone on to score a whopping 44 points in the last 10 weeks.
So no strikers sleeping in the car park – it’s in midfield where the manager has come unstuck.
A handful of good games, including one for England, meant Andros Townsend was so universally fashionable earlier this season he was even talked about in space.
But since joining Piedmonte, Townsend has clocked up a miserable 1.4 points a week. In the same time Samir Nasri has been going at an astronomic rate of 4.9.
Even more confounding for the Pies managers is that while Nasri’s purple patch has come since he left the club, he was already scoring at a very respectable 4.26 points, and if he’d kept the Frenchman he would be 20 points above FCT and have scored two more goals.
That’s going to haunt the Piedmonte manager if he misses out in yet another season.
Piedmonte scoring
Current total: 990 points, 43 goals
Starting XI total: 983 points, 49 goals
If he’d kept Nasri: 1,025 points, 47 goals
Piedmonte average points scored a week – individual
Krul – 2.47
Ben Davies – 2.34
Hangeland – 1.44
Phil Jones – 1.47
Jags – 2.66
Stevie G – 5.09
Noble – 3.09
Puncheon – 3.19
Nasri – 4.26 for Pies, 4.56 for the season / Townsend – 1.4 for Pies, 2.41 for the season
Long – 2.81
Adebayor – 0 for Pies, 3.06 for the season / J Walters – 2.77 for Pies, 2.41 for the season / Odemwingie – 4.4 for Pies,
