Stranger Than Fiction? Ten Life Lessons From This Season

As followers of my blog will have noticed, I have been more than a little absent over the last 12 to 18 months. There are a number of reasons for this, but during this time, I have learnt a lot about myself, the world and some of the people in it. As a result, I thought I'd share some of my revelations over the past year or so. However, as I don't run a lifestyle blog, the only way I could make it relevant is by applying principles I have seen in this season's Premier League.

So, here are my 10 (loosely related) life lessons from this season:

1. Things don't always turn out as you expect

If this isn't backed up by goings on in this season's Premier League, I don't know what is. Ahead of the start of the the season, it was expected to be business as usual for the Premier League. Chelsea, such dominant champions just a few short months ago, were odds on favourites to retain their title with the seemingly unflappable and unbeatable Jose Mourinho at the helm. Similarly, Manchester City were looking resurgent, with nearly £200m spent in the summer window on the likes of De Bruyne and Sterling.

However, nine months on, and it is neither of these giants, nor Arsenal, Tottenham or Manchester United proudly atop the Premier League, but little old Leicester City. The fact that this was 5,000 to 1 at the start of the season (higher odds than the Loch Ness Monster being discovered!) demonstrates the point above, creating a fairytale story for the men from the Midlands.

2. It can be easy to get caught in a negative spiral

If you're anything like me, you'll identify with this one. It doesn't matter how well things seem to be going, you're always able to conspire to ruin it. As I outlined in a recent post on my motivation for my London Marathon run, I've done this to significant cost in my personal life, and has led me to a situation I never thought I'd find myself in.

In footballing terms, there is no doubt that this applies perfectly to Crystal Palace this season. Having started so well, with the likes of Yohan Cabaye and Bakary Sako in strong goalscoring form, they looked on course to challenge for at least their best Premier League finish ever. However, after a second half of the season to forget, they found themselves scrambling against relegation in the last few weeks of the season. Getting out of that cycle is difficult, and can often seem impossible at times.

3. Money doesn't always solve the problem

I've discovered this one more recently - I've never had much spare money, so I can't honestly say that this has been an issue for me in the past. However, over the last 18 months, I'm not ashamed to say that I've attempted (unsuccessfully) to make certain things in my life better using money. Safe to say, I've learnt that money can't buy you happiness - finding that seems far more difficult!

This is certainly something that has parallels in Premier League football. In particular, Manchester City's defensive issues were something that they have increasingly thrown money at in recent years, with over £100m spent since 2010 on a succession of centre backs - Joleon Lescott, Kolo Toure, Jerome Boating, Stefan Savic, Matija Nastasic, Martin Demichelis, Eliaquim Mangala and most recently Nicolas Otamendi. Has their defensive record got any better? Not if this season is anything to go by!

4. People can surprise you (and not always in a good way!)

From a personal perspective, there is nothing unusual about this point. My last couple of years have been filled with examples of people that have surprised me with their understanding or interest. However, even those you feel you know well can surprise you - and sometimes you end up on the wrong side. I've also found myself in situations where I didn't know which way was up, with certainly no idea about where I stood.

Again, in a season full of shocks, there have been individuals that have stood out from the crowd, and I'm going to be a bit more controversial here. For me, the epitome of a positive surprise from a player has been the performances of either N'Golo Kante or Riyad Mahrez, both who have consistently shone, either through hard work or moments of magic.

However, despite all the plaudits received, I'd argue that a player that has surprised both in a good and bad way is Jamie Vardy. For all of his goalscoring heroics, for every bit of industry and every yard won for his side, just one event comes to my mind. As I said to my family on the day that he broke the consecutive goals record earlier in the season - 'it's amazing how scoring in 11 straight matches will make people forget you're a racist.' Great message for the kids, that. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you say in casinos or whether you act like a first class chav, as long as you can kick a ball, it's all ok.

5. Hope can be the worst human emotion

During the last year or so, one phrase has stuck with me. I can't remember who it was that said it, in case anyone thinks I'm trying to plagiarise, but it certainly appears apt to me. It is, quite simply, 'without hope, there can be no true despair'. No matter how painful the initial event is, it is made that much worse by hoping unsuccessfully for something better, or for things to be fixed, particularly if you are given continued hope that this may be possible.

Now, as well as this applies to my personal life over the last 12 months, it also applies just as well to the history of my club, Manchester City. Though admittedly less so recently, I grew up in a time when City flattered to deceive, and would always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I have therefore become accustomed to hoping for much and receiving little, and to be perfectly honest, I'm confident that it's made me the realist I am today! In fact, I'm still waiting for them to screw the current situation up - I'm convinced it's just an extremely long con!

6. Don't just let yourself get battered

My belief that is order to be truly happy, you have to let yourself be vulnerable and open. However, this does leave you open to being hurt - and badly. Take a boxing match, for example. You put a guard up and let someone tee off on you. Hurts, doesn't it? However, lower your guard and do the same thing. Tell me how you feel when you wake up attached to an IV. In that situation, it is all too easy to allow yourself to become the victim, and be battered and bruised. And I'm no expert in this, but somehow, you need to keep picking yourself up off the canvas and moving forward until someone physically stops you.

In footballing terms, that best applies to Aston Villa this season - and by that I mean they have dropped their hands and been smashed repeatedly. Their seeming disregard for both the shirt and their fans has led to one of the worst seasons in Premier League history, and run-ins for the likes of Joleon Lescott and Gabby Agbonlahor with the club hierarchy and fans. Such has been the disintigration of the once great club, that the board members that were brought in to restructure it and make it prepared for life in the Championship gave it up. Not exactly a promising sign is it?

7. Rebuilding things takes time, and you need to be patient

Now this is a difficult one, especially if you're like me. I'm extremely impatient when it comes to wanting results, which is why my love-hate relationship with the gym is a little more hate than it is for most normal people. Whether you've suffered a set-back, had your confidence destroyed or your world rocked, it's perfectly normal for things to take a long time to heal and get better. The trick is to give yourself that time - easier said than done, I admit.

Message to all Liverpool (and to a lesser extent cockneys, I mean, Man United fans) this footballing metaphor applies to you! As much as you go on about history, it really means nothing when it comes to the current day, and time to face facts, your teams aren't as good as they once were. Stop treating managers by frankly unrealistic standards, and support your team. Instead of complaining about Brendan Rodgers or Louis van Gaal, you need to accept that you're going through a difficult transition period, and things will take time. Be patient.

8. Sometimes you have to rely on others (results)

Ok, so the grammar isn't great, but you get what I'm saying! This kind of links to number five, but this is a bit harder. Where others can surprise you, having the ability to talk to and rely on others is a whole new level of trust, and one that I can certainly admit to some trouble with.

As the headline suggests, this one was custom made to fit to the footballing metaphor. With a week of football left in the season, we saw a rollercoaster ride for the final Champions League spot between the two Manchester clubs. After City's 2-2 draw with Arsenal on the Sunday, United had all the momentum, just two points behind City with a game in hand. However, a 3-2 defeat by West Ham in the Hammers final game at the Boleyn Ground saw the ball put back into City's court for the final day. Despite a bit of drama at Old Trafford, with a suspect package discovered at the Stretford End, City did their usual trick (the minimum required!) to finish with a spot in the Champions League for next season.

9. Momentum can be powerful, and take things one step at a time

Once you turn a corner, you can rely on a powerful force: momentum. When you've proven that you can do something, it makes it that much easier to continue to do it. Even in the darkest moments, the little things become important, and gives you a platform to continue onwards. In these moments, I have learnt it is incredibly important to try and isolate individual tasks and defeat them as they arise. Again, as I mentioned earlier, my lack of patience holds me back here, and there have been more than a few times where I have wanted to give up (and have come pretty close) in the past 18 months, but a combination of things have kept me going, of which momentum is certainly one.

Here, Leicester again play a key role. For every doubter and every nay-sayer, it only required the group of player and their manager to come out and say 'we're not thinking about the title, we've only got eyes for [insert team name here] next week.' And lo and behold, that following week all too often resulted in a favourable scoreline for the Foxes. While this explanation may undermine some of the exceptional individual performances throughout the season, there can be no doubt that momentum inevitably plays a considerable role in any championship season, none more so than the one seen by Leicester this week.

10. You can achieve more than you thought possible if you push yourself

This has been the biggest thing I have discovered over the past 12 months, without a shadow of a doubt. It doesn't matter how badly you're hurt, or how strong the urge is to give up, you can still surprise yourself. After a tough two years, I'm still not OK, or anything close, but I have a few things I can point to that I can be proud of. Take just a few weeks ago as a prime example - after six months of training, and a lot of willpower, I ran the 2016 London Marathon in 4hr 34 minutes. Something I'd never have been capable of or willing to do at any other time in my life, but I set myself a goal and achieved it.

As with so many of these points, Leicester's approach to the disbelief of the world highlights this from a Premier League perspective, and demonstrates the strength of each of the players involved. However, where their goal can be firmly set on retaining their hard-fought title, I am now looking for my next challenge, safe in the knowledge that more is possible than I imagined.

So if you've had a hard time recently, or are looking to set yourself a few targets, I guess what I'm saying is watch the football - there are enough lessons to be learnt about yourself to keep you going for a while!

Jamie Vardy: How Does Fantastic Mr Fox Rank?

As someone who frequently places bets on the weekend's action, I shudder to think the odds that last weekend's achievement would have drawn at the start of the season. To score in three straight games is a run of good form for any striker, but to do it in 10 is nothing short of extraordinary.

And if that wasn't enough, Jamie Vardy has done it in a side hardly recognised as world-beaters. Ok, the fact that Leicester currently sit proudly atop the Premier League seems to undermine that argument somewhat. However, speaking of odds, I wonder what bookies would have laid on the Foxes topping the table after 12 games? My point is, few would have ever expected that the side that struggled to escape relegation last term would have found within their midst a true Premier League predator capable of this feat.

However, ever the cynic, I feel the need to dampen the enthusiasm of Leicester fans who will undoubtedly proclaim Jamie Vardy's goalscoring run the 'greatest of all time' - let's just hope they can do it in a more intelligent way than the current chant of 'Jamie Vardy's having a party'. Lyrical genius... And we wonder why the music industry is dumbing down!

Let's start by looking at the man whose record he could usurp if he nets against Manchester United next weekend: ironically enough, United hitman Ruud van Nistelrooy. Now, in order to gauge the achievements of the pair, and accurately compare them, we have to understand the circumstances under which they were done. I have already mentioned the fact that Vardy has completed this nine game run in a side hardly recognised as a league leader, while van Nistelrooy was part of the United side that bulldozed its way through everyone in the early 2000's. So, on the face of it, 1-0 Vardy, right?

Well, I wanted to delve a little deeper than that. It is also worthwhile considering the opponents that these goals came against. To score nine games in a row is impressive regardless, but scoring against eight of the top ten in the league is certainly more so than knocking in goals against the lesser sides.

When looking at van Nistelrooy's run, we see he scored 15 goals in his 10 games, with hat tricks against Fulham and Charlton, and a brace at home to Liverpool. In those games, he scored against the sides in 14th, 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 6th, 10th, 12th, 7th, 8th and 5th. If we were to average this out, it equates to 7th place - a pretty impressive feat for anyone. If we compare this with Jamie Vardy's recent form, we see quite a different story. His ten games have him scoring 12 goals, with braces against Arsenal and Southampton - ironically the two most difficult sides the Foxes have faced during this run. The teams he has scored against currently sit in 19th, 20th, 11th, 4th, 16th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 13th and 17th, giving Vardy an average of 13th place. I think this is emphatically 1-1.

There are a few more important factors to take into account. Firstly, it's worth noting that van Nistelrooy's run did come over two different seasons, with the last two games the start of the 2003/2004 season. I'm not sure if that removes a little of the gloss off his achievement or adds to it. On the one hand, it could have taken pressure off the Dutchman towards the end of the run, as he may not have remembered his strong form at the start of the new year. However, it could also be the case that it made it more difficult, as momentum and form plays a huge part in the continuing success, and any break in time could have an adverse effect on the mindset of the striker involved.

However, if this was going to be a negative, we should certainly bear in mind the fact that, including all competitions, Ruud van Nistelrooy actually went on a 12 game scoring streak in 2003. This was the previously mentioned eight Premier League games, in addition to Champions League goals, both home and away, against Real Madrid, and goals for Holland against the Czech Republic and Moldova. He therefore completed both a long term run based on momentum, and a run over the course of two seasons.

In comparison, if other competitions were included in Jamie Vardy's current run, the striker would only actually have managed a four game scoring streak, as Premier League games were punctuated by goalless appearances in the Capital One Cup and the England team. Is that really so impressive?

It certainly isn't when we compare it to the all-time greats, and longest scoring streaks. Josef Bican's incredible 19-game run for Slavia Prague has been going strong since 1939, only matched by Lionel Messi (who else) in 2013. Some argue that as Messi was then injured and never got the chance to continue the record, we will never know how far he could have gone, and some even count the two goals he scored immediately after his return as part of the record, but I don't buy it.

To put it in perspective, should we even be that overawed by the achievement of scoring in 10 straight? Below is the list of the 10 longest goal streaks in history, all of whom have gone significantly beyond the feat achieved in the Premier League:

Longest goalscoring runs in history:
19: Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona 2012–13)
19: Josef Bican (SK Slavia Praha 1939–40)
16: Gerd Müller (FC Bayern München 1969–70)
16: Teodor Peterek (Ruch Chorzów 1937–38)
15: Filip Johansson (IFK Göteborg 1924–25)
15: Tor Henning Hamre (FC Flora Tallinn 2003)
15: Fin Døssing (Dundee United FC 1964–65)
14: Fernando Gomes (FC Porto 1984–85)
13: Serge Masnaghetti (Valenciennes FC 1962–63)
13: Peter Dubovský (ŠK Slovan Bratislava 1991–92)
13: Tom Phillipson (Wolverhampton Wanderers FC 1926–27)

With this in mind, Jamie Vardy's run is the best moment of his career so far, and certainly warrants congratulations, but as with so many things, we have a tendency to get carried away by feats, particularly when completed by an Englishman. However, Vardy needs to go some to match the greatest ever, and I'd argue that he needs to consistently score against better opposition to be considered alongside Ruud van Nistelrooy as a top striker. Hang on, I'm sure I came to a similar conclusion about another overrated English striker...

In any case, while I hope I'm proven wrong, I do fully expect this run to come to an end against Manchester United this weekend. United have proven their ability to mark better players than Vardy out of the game, and I suspect the Foxes will find it much harder to score. He may still finish as top scorer this season, but at some point in the season, he will have a lean spell and it is always the mark of a good striker to see how he recovers from that.