The Chastisement of Dele Alli: This Weekend in the Premier League

Another week goes by, another unit of existence passes. The clock ticks inexorably onwards, its chimes heralding the end for us all. Nevermind, though, because the football's been on, and nothing soothes the cold meaninglessness of reality like all the latest craic from the Premier League.

Nothing – truly nothing – can ever rival the disappointment on Alan Shearer's face when discussing Dele Alli's dive against Huddersfield. The moment that Alli – the future of English football – hurled himself over in an attempt to win a penalty with Tottenham already 3-0 up at the John Smith's Stadium, Shearer's illusions about the England team were shattered into a thousand shards. Our lads, our England boys, do not use simulation to their advantage; that is the preserve of the sneaky European, or the ungentlemanly South American footballer. The only time an England player is allowed to go to ground is when he has had his ligaments shorn in two by a good, honest, two-footed tackle. But here was Dele Alli taking a tumble against Huddersfield – a club so quintessentially English that their ground is sponsored by a bitter you can drink out of a can.

"That is blatantly trying to cheat," Shearer said forlornly on Match of the Day, looking very much the earnest PE teacher who thinks his class is cutting corners when it comes to their warm-down burpees. "It's your own time you're wasting," you can imagine him saying to a young Dele Alli, before keeping everyone behind after school for push-ups as punishment. Not since vandals fucked up the Blue Peter garden has a BBC presenter sounded so let down by humanity, and not since the Blue Peter cocaine scandal has so much innocence been lost on the telly. It turns out that diving, once considered the art of the technically gifted Argentine midfielder, is a scourge which afflicts our England boys, too.

Speaking of the England national team, we need to talk about Peter Crouch. Unlike so many other England has-beens – unlike Wayne Rooney and his "DRINK DRIVE SHAME" – Crouch has grown old with relative grace, and even nabs a goal every now and then. Interviewed on Match of the Day after scoring Stoke's winner against Southampton ("There's life in the old giraffe yet," declares Gary Lineker), the 36-year-old admitted that he has not retired from international duty and is still available for England selection. To this we say: Gareth Southgate, do the right thing and take Crouch to Russia 2018.

Sure, Crouch is not going to lead England to victory at the World Cup, but England have a vanishingly small chance of emerging victorious whether Crouch features at the tournament or not. Meanwhile, the merits of bringing him along include wild team bonding sessions, the revival of the phrase "good touch for a big man", and quite possibly an ungainly header to edge the Three Lions out of the group stage before they are inevitably twatted in the Round of 16. For what it's worth to England, Southgate may as well revive Crouch's sporadic strike partnership with Emile Heskey and go out of Russia 2018 in style. England may well score twice all competition, but what we lack in goals we'll make up for in laughs.

Having been given a fairly easy ride by the press so far, people are now starting to ask questions of Jurgen Klopp, namely: "Why do his teams concede so many goals?" and "Is he actually any good?" Whether or not these are fair questions entirely depends on your personal perspective, though that is bound to be influenced by the extent to which you support/tolerate/despise Liverpool. While it's hard to deny that Klopp's wildly over-the-top celebrations are infectious in their enthusiasm, this weekend's 1-1 draw at Newcastle mean his side have won only one of their last seven fixtures. Fans are now drawing unfavourable comparisons between his team and that of late-reign Brendan Rodgers, unless of course Klopp and co. are up against Arsenal, in which case they look like Real Madrid.

What people are perhaps forgetting is why Klopp was appointed at Anfield in the first place. Compared to the bland PR-management speak which came to define Rodgers' public persona, Klopp's wacky, zany approach was – however much we wanted to dislike it – quite refreshing. As it turns out, a likeable shtick is worth something in football management, even if your win percentage is almost exactly the same as that of your predecessor. If Klopp can retain a level of popularity which precludes him being turned into a series of embarrassing memes, he'll probably be allowed to get broadly the same results for years, if not decades, to come.

So the Premier League obviously isn't shit, but don't limit yourself to its gilded ticket halls, corporate buffet rooms and ivory towers. Barring the 2013-14 campaign where Manchester City snuck in ahead of Liverpool to win the league, there hasn't been a to-the-wire title race in the top flight for just over five years. Meanwhile, the Championship has been consistently the most entertaining division in English football, throwing up one-point title wins, insane play-off games and some of the most disastrous managerial appointments in recent memory. It's a league where the richest clubs regularly get battered by Barnsley and Brentford; where form and results fluctuate wildly; something Neil Warnock can win.

This season, in particular, looks like it could be absolute anarchy, with seven or eight teams already tipped as potential champions, and Sunderland – last season's "stop, stop, they're already dead" Premier League relegation victims – once again down in the drop zone. Meanwhile, Sheffield Wednesday manager Carlos Carvalhal has made an early entry for meltdown of the season, having angrily assaulted a £20 note in a post-match press conference last week. Compared to theatrically attacking a paper likeness of the Queen in an attempt to make a point about a football team's enduring quality, or something, the standoffish post-game snark of Jose Mourinho or Pep Guardiola seems boring af.

@W_F_Magee