The end of another Premier League season- it's holiday time.

The end of another Premier League season- it's holiday time.

Ah! There you are. It's the end of another record breaking, tumultuous Premier League season and it's time to take stock of the last nine months. If only we could though particularly with a World Cup in a mere couple of weeks time. This though is the one time of the year when Premier League footballers and those all over the country in the Championship, League One and Two throw off their orange, blue and purple boots with yellow polka dots, mop their fevered brows and begin to pack their suitcases for a well earned rest by some exotic beach.

 Oh for that popular footballing vernacular. How often have we heard it! It happens right at the end of every Premier League season when, after all the stresses and exertions of another League season, a whole cluster of teams decide to just ease their feet off their pedals, don the predictable holiday sunglasses and forget that the season hasn't quite finished yet. It's the 'On the Beach' syndrome and and it only seems to apply to those teams in the middle or near the bottom of the Premier League when there's nothing to play for.

The facts, figures and statistics are by now self evident and set in stone. Manchester City won the Premier League by several miles, streets, roads, avenues and vast geographical distances. In fact Manchester City had clinched the Premier League title in the time it took Santa Claus to tumble down the chimney of several million homes in Britain. City were of course, were a phenomenon rather than a football team. playing some of the most spiritually gratifying football ever played by any team in the Premier League season since its arrival at the beginning of the 1990s.

City were joyous, imperious, beautiful and breathtaking. Their football belonged to some indefinable category, a masterful creation, an amalgam of so many different components that it was hard to believe that what you were seeing had actually reached fruition. When City boss Pep Guardiola held aloft the Premier League trophy in an anti climactic goal-less draw against Huddersfield over the weekend it actually seemed possible that this living organism had produced a perfect football team.

For those among the runners up in the Premier League it must have seemed that they were breathing a different kind of air, sampling an altogether alien climate where the football seemed distinctly inferior and somehow insignificant. This is not to suggest that City found everything and everybody around them somehow degrading and hardly worthy of any mention. But the overriding impression was that whatever the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Spurs or Chelsea could throw at them, City's air of commanding superiority was always a constant theme.

Behind City are their noisy neighbours United, Liverpool who used to win League titles with their eyes closed and Chelsea who, after last season's Premier League title, have almost flattered to deceive this season. There does seem an almost personal and parochial battle between the top five or six. In fact you're reminded of a children's birthday party where a game of Pass the Parcel or Musical Chairs turns into some frantic scramble to win the elusive runners up prize.

So what of those managers who made this season so disappointingly tedious? In a sense we should be celebrating the extraordinary achievements of Manchester City. But how can this be the point when City have won the Premier League by at least 20 or so points and that sense of a procession seemed so impressively stately? Maybe the rest of the Premier League should have thrown in the towel ages ago and we could have looked forward to the cricket and tennis season at a much earlier date.

For Manchester United the season could still prove a rewarding one. A repeat of the 1994 FA Cup Final against Chelsea lies in wait for manager Jose Mourinho. But the Mourinho face is still one that assumes the look of thunder. The man from Portugal continues to look like the man who can never ever find any satisfaction in anything. Mourinho has spent most of the season, sneering, snarling, gesticulating and throwing his hands into the air like the man who seems to have lost a fortune at a Monaco gambling casino. Should United actually win the FA Cup Final then maybe City's Premier League coronation may not be so bad after all.

Liverpool of course are poised to win the Champions League which to many of their Premier League contenders must seem like salt in a festering wound. Manchester United have more or less stumbled on the right way to win the Champions League in seasons gone past but Liverpool, who have won the European Cup five times, have almost become both pass and past masters of winning the competition.

Under the almost permanently happy Jurgen Klopp Liverpool have enjoyed a marvellously productive season where the Premier League promised land hasn't quite been reached but then Liverpool fans are admirably patient so that can wait for  the time being. Klopp is though quite the most amusing of all Premier League managers and the body language is one of a man who can barely hold himself back when things go his way.

For instance that greying beard and those amazingly flexible glasses are indeed worth the entrance money alone. Many has been the occasion when, in some uncontrollable bodily contortion, Klopp has leapt into the air, punched it quite unashamedly and then lost his bearings quite hilariously. Suddenly the glasses go on some unplanned journey into the Liverpool crowd and Klopp scampers along the touchline like a man running after a train on some remote country railway station.

Then there's the Chelsea manager Antonio Conte, who thought he'd landed the Premier League jackpot last season but then discovered that the following season had less bountiful gifts to deliver. Conte, of course, was renowned for being the man in black whatever the occasion. There was the black suit, the black waistcoat, the black cardigan during the winter, black trousers and yes, you've guessed it the black shoes. Poor Conte has never felt any desire or inclination whatsoever to look bright, bubbly and cheerful although it could have been a whole lot worse.

Instead we had to content ourselves with that dark skinned, swarthy appearance of the Italian mafia, a man apparently cloaked in secrecy but then surprisingly inspired last season when Chelsea could not put a foot wrong. Now Conte has very little to look forward- apart perhaps from a Cup Final victory against Manchester United. Conte looks brooding, moody, frustrated and completely resigned to whatever fate might have in store for him. Maybe his Stamford Bridge predecessor Jose Mourinho could teach him a thing or two.

For Mauricio Pocchetino at Spurs this has been another season where the work in progress which began a couple of seasons ago is no nearer completion. Spurs were beaten in the FA Cup semi final by Manchester United but have continued to play some of the most stupendously sumptuous football in the modern day game. The passes have been swept across the ground with the accuracy of a radar system, the touches on the ball a thing of both culture, art and beauty but here at the end of another Premier League season, Spurs have won nothing of any substance although if you include a place in the Champions League into the equation it could be considered a season of cold comforts.

The rest of the Premier League managers have already packed away their flip flops, Sun Factor 71 bottles, gaudy beach shirts and perhaps their own personal supply of Corn Flakes. They were the characters who formed the lap of honour to Manchester City's crowning moment in the sun.

At Crystal Palace Roy Hodgson will probably be given the freedom of Croydon after Palace looked both doomed and condemned last October and November. After that quite horrendous Euro 2016 defeat by Iceland the then England manager thought there was nowhere to go. But then Palace came along to offer him a valuable lifeline. After Frank De Boer had almost sunk the Palace battleship Hodgson was appointed at Selhurst Park.

After a slow, steady and careful climb out of the relegation quicksand, Hodgson quickly restored faith in those who lived at the Palace. Soon Crystal Palace looked like a team who'd just been resuscitated and revived. Palace were undoubtedly the team who came back to life when all seemed lost and hopeless. Wilfred Zaha has emerged as one of the best and trickiest wingers in the Premier League and may yet find himself in contention for a World Cup place in Gareth Southgate's  England squad.

 Hodgson, now 70, is far from pensionable age and still looks healthy, fit, chipper and sprightly. He stands in his technical area, face and mood betraying the whole spectrum of human emotions. The face creases and winces quite expressively when things have gone wrong. Then in the next breath, the folded arms exclaim joyously when winning goals are scored. There is the broadest of smiles in recognition of victory, a smart suit that seems to swivel when the mood of a match has noticeably changed and then the bitten lip when only defeat has been confirmed. Hodgson looks as though he has a thousand stories to tell on his face, a man who has been there and seen it all.

At Bournemouth, the managerial feats of Eddie Howe may have been quite outrageously overlooked. Howe has been one of the Premier League's brightest and most thoughtful of managers, a man with  most idealistic and deep thinking outlook on the game and immensely forward thinking. Howe has produced one of the most intelligent, capable, skilful and pleasing footballing sides in the country, a team carved and fashioned from the finest clay. They move the ball with short, sweet and staccato passes that hum and purr across the pitch and invariably find their team mates with instinctive ease.

Only one of the newly promoted sides Brighton have made any substantial steps forward. Manager Chris Houghton, who was always a positive and enterprising full back for Spurs and West Ham, created a team that eventually got its act together. Maybe it was that healthy seaside resort but Houghton has turned a team that had looked almost embarrassingly ordinary in the Championship last season into a grandstanding, free wheeling, carefree and brilliantly organised team who will now hold onto their Premier League status.

Finally there are two more allegedly cultural opposites. At Everton Sam Allardyce remains as stubbornly conservative and plain speaking as was ever the case. When he was manager at West Ham, Allardyce almost sparked off a major riot among the fans. Those ludicrously dull and ugly long ball tactics had horribly alienated everybody at the old Upton Park and by the end of it all Allardyce went on the most bizarre managerial expedition. From Sunderland, to the highly prized England job and back to Everton in the present day, Allardyce remains the pantomime villain wherever he goes.

Meanwhile there is the case of Newcastle United, who for so many decades now have wandered delusionally through some footballing dreamland. Under the superb management of Rafa Benitez the club have now found a proper heartbeat, a much clearer idea of where they'd like to be and the grateful realisation that patience is a virtue. One day Newcastle will find themselves in a genuine hunt for trophies. At the moment any hopes of breaking into the top four may have to be put in a realistic perspective but under Benitez Newcastle now have a compass and direction in the game.

Now though is the time when all Premier League managers should take those worried frowns off their faces, thinking all the while of clear blue skies and stunning sunsets. It is only a game and now that my claret and blue troopers West Ham have once again escaped the relegation trap-door, it's time to look forward to yet another World Cup and England's Russian voyage of discovery. Yesterday's image of the now re-installed President Vladimir Putin walking confidently into the rich carpets and chandeliers of one of Russia's grandest halls said everything we need to know about the country itself. Football, what a game!