By florida 
Flipping through old sports channels last Tuesday night, I caught highlights from this wild Man City vs Liverpool game back in 2014. Got me itching to revisit that whole Premier League season – who actually finished where? Grabbed my dusty laptop thinking this’d be quick. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
The Rabbit Hole Begins
First I hit up football stats sites. Ugh. Every single one shoved ads in my face like I was made of money. Clicked five different links before finding a clean table. Tried saving it as PDF – big mistake. Format went all crazy, letters overlapping like drunk ants. Screw it, I copy-pasted raw data straight into a Google Sheet. Half the columns merged together, so I spent twenty minutes just splitting “MatchesPlayedGoals” nonsense back into proper columns. My coffee went cold doing this.
Excel Nightmares & Near-Death Experiences
Sorted teams alphabetically first. Looked neat until I realized standings require actual points order. Duh. Applied a league sort… and my laptop froze solid. That spinning wheel lasted three whole minutes – I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes. When it came back, suddenly Aston Villa jumped above Arsenal. Made zero sense until I spotted the typo: “Arseal” instead of Arsenal. Spellcheck never caught that one. Nearly threw my mouse through the window.
Discovering the Carnage
Got the table sorted properly finally. Shockers everywhere:
- Liverpool’s choke screamed off the page. Had it in their hands late April then just… collapsed.
- Crystal Palace surviving felt like magic. Rock bottom in November, climbing to 11th? Tony Pulis worked miracles.
- Man United flopping to 7th under Moyes. Saw the number but still can’t believe it.
Started coloring cells like a kid with crayons – red for relegated teams, green for Champions League spots. That’s when I saw Fulham’s disaster. Dead last with only 32 points. Oof.
Putting It All Together
Wanted to visualize how much teams moved. Made a separate section tracking positions after each match week. Watching Arsenal yo-yo between 1st and 4th felt like a rollercoaster diagram. Nearly messed up the chart labels but caught it last second. My wife walked in asking why I was fist-pumping alone at 11pm. “Fulham’s relegation battle!” She just backed out slowly.
Final Tally & Lingering Shock
Checked final points again before closing everything:
- Man City: 86 pts
- Liverpool: 84 pts
- Everton: 72 pts (still can’t believe they grabbed 5th)
Man United at 64 points still feels wrong a decade later. Copy-pasted the full table into my notes app – triple checking spellings this time. Closed all thirty browser tabs feeling like I’d battled that season myself. Way more drama than I remembered. Now where’s that coffee?