When it comes to handing out the best manager award at the end of the season, Pep Guardiola is almost certain to walk away with it.

Picking up the gong for best boss is almost automatic if you win the league, more so if you throw in a cup or two as well. That’s just the way these things tend to go.

But, in my mind, the award should be Chris Wilder’s for the magnificent job he’s done in guiding unfancied Sheffield United to the top half of the table and possible Europ… oh wait, that was last season.

Joking aside however, while I do feel the award going to Guardiola is almost inevitable, in all reality I think it should be going further south – to a certain Scotsman in charge of a London club.

I am, obviously, referring to David Moyes at West Ham United.

Considering where the club was in pre-season with fan unrest, player unrest, board unrest and just about every other form of unrest you can think of, how he has guided them to the top four and a realistic chance of a place in Europe is nothing short of spectacular.

They do have some good players, absolutely, but I would suggest that the sum of the parts available to Moyes does not add up to a top six side. Yet they look on course to be exactly that, and that has to be down to the manager.

In my pre-season predictions I had the Hammers down as certainties for relegation (I know, I know). I said at the time that all was not well with the club. And, in my defence, it wasn’t.

But Moyes has defied the odds and, once and for all, banished the doubts about his managerial abilities that were inevitably raised when his Manchester United appointment was ended before it had really started.

As I said, Moyes deserves that award, no matter where West Ham end the season. Yes, Guardiola will have added to his magnificent and impressive trophy haul, but if you look at the comparative resources the two managers have had to work with, it’s chalk and cheese.

In fact, it just makes you wonder what Moyes might have achieved if he had been given the same sort of time as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been afforded at Old Trafford.

Maybe they did, after all, have the perfect Alex Ferguson replacement in hand but were too trigger happy to realise it.

Can Tiger roar again?

If ever there was a sportsman who knew a thing or two about fighting back from injury, that would be Tiger Woods.

A lot of people have written him off last week following the car crash that left his right leg in pieces. And that temptation to consign him to sporting history is entirely understandable.

In my pre-season predictions I had the Hammers down as certainties for relegation (I know, I know)

However, Woods is not someone who gives up easily.

After an incredibly long spell without success – mostly due to having back surgery no less than four times – the golfing legend fought his way back to the very top of the game, winning the Masters in 2019.

People with less drive and determination would have given up long before.

That doesn’t, of course, automatically mean he will be able to come back from this injury. I’m no doctor but from what I have read the way his leg was shattered in the crash sounds truly horrendous.

But they do say a big part of any healing process is mental strength and willpower. And Tiger seems to have those in bucketloads.

Assuming he wants to make a golfing comeback, and the doctors tell him it can be done, I certainly wouldn’t put it past him to start winning titles again.

Fantasy Football Fail

Last weekend’s Jack Grealish injury leak was highly amusing.

Apparently, ahead of the game, word spread on Twitter and other social media that the England midfielder would not be playing in Aston Villa’s home game against Leicester City due to injury.

As you can imagine, this gave the away team an advantage, not just because Villa’s best player was out but because they knew about it in advance and could plan accordingly.

None of which is amusing. True.

But the funny bit is that it would appear that the reason behind the leak is Fantasy Football. Apparently, when news of Grealish’s injury spread around Villa Park, the staff and players all moved quickly to replace him in their Fantasy Football teams.

When the social media world realised that everyone – from his teammates to the Aston Villa tea lady – had dropped Grealish for the game, they quickly figured out he must be injured.

And so the news spread.

There’s a danger of social media that I don’t think anyone in the football world had seen coming…

Not that big a match any more

At the start of the season, Sheffield United’s home game against Liverpool was one of the first fixtures I picked out. I have a lot of friends who support the reigning champions and that was going to make this clash extra spicy.

But now the game is actually here, I find myself struggling to care.

Liverpool are faltering and unlikely to retain their title, which removes a bit of the gloss from the fixture. But the majority of the gloss has been removed by Sheffield United’s decision to try to be the worst team in the history of the Premier League.

So tonight we have the somewhat less appealing prospect of a team with no hope of avoiding relegation playing against a team that is almost entirely resigned to handing their title to Manchester City.

Yes, there is still that old thing called pride to play for. And Liverpool, to be fair, will be looking to fight their way back into the top four and secure Champions League football for next season.

But the game would have been so much so exciting if Liverpool were pushing hard for the title and Sheffield United, at the very least, actually had some sort of chance of surviving.

It’s such a non-event, I’m toying with the idea of not even watching. But I know I will when push comes to shove. Damn, it’s hard being a football supporter.

email: james@quizando.com
twitter: @maltablade