Premier League set to finish with no excitement as TV loses out

The English Premier League often hailed as the best in the world, if not the most exciting couldn’t have ended in a more sour dead rubber note if it tried to. And television companies will have been feeling miserable this past week. Why? Well because the most ‘exciting’ league in the world finished early this season.

Chelsea were confirmed as champions, so there was no down to the wire excitement with Tottenham, who after such a superb season went to underachievers West Ham and lost. This handed an even greater advantage to Antonio Conte’s team and in the end they have run away with the league and of course most deservedly.

Relegation was all wrapped up as Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Hull City were sent down to the Championship. This means that we won’t bear witness to masses of fans screaming and running on the pitch as their club stays up.

It also means of course that television suffers too- there will be zero emotion on the final day- winners have been notified and losers have been shipped off. Television will be at a loss and yet there is still one glimmer of hope. The top 4.

Chelsea and Tottenham are still the only confirmed teams. However Manchester City currently in 3rd place will be joining them in qualifying for the Champions League. Not only have the team found some form but they can only miss out on a top 4 berth if they get beaten heavily by six goals against Watford, it won’t happen and this is something that even in the wildest imaginations of TV land can’t be hyped up.

So then we are left with a straight fight between Liverpool and Arsenal. But then again Liverpool’s task is just to beat Middlesbrough at Anfield, a club who are not only relegated but have won just 1 game away from home all season. However Liverpool cannot afford to draw the game either. Over at Arsenal they will have perhaps a sterner test against Everton but the Gunners will start as the favourites considering they are playing at home.

Scraps of excitement then. Just think if, on the final day of the season Arsenal had to play Liverpool, 1989 revisited albeit under very different circumstances. But that would have been the game that would have got television stations buzzing from here to Beijing.

The sad truth is that the final day of the Premier League could well be a forgettable one. And with the amount of money being poured into football by television the 2016-17 season may well be remembered as one of the biggest anti-climaxes since the Premier League began.