The Jon Moss Show (or, the Premier League Review)

"All the world's a stage / And all the men and women merely players." These words, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in the middle of Shakespeare's pastoral comedy As You Like It, are very much applicable to the Premier League – except the world is actually a football stadium and the players are basically all men.

Much like a Shakespearean comedy, the top flight was awash with clownish behaviour, oafish characters and outlandish plot twists this weekend. If Jon Moss was the farcical villain of the piece, Heurelho Gomes was the romantic hero. Likewise, Arsenal fans were the pastoral bumpkins making inappropriate innuendos and generally bringing down the tone.

Still, it takes all sorts to make great drama. That's our critical consensus, anyway – and here's our Premier League review.

Early this morning, as the people of Leicester started to go about their daily business, many reported seeing a hunched figure sitting on the doorstep of the town hall. Wearing nothing but skimpy black shorts, muddy football boots and a bright yellow Premier League jersey befouled with tears and general detritus, a man's melancholy sobs could be heard emanating from the huddled form. Rumour has it – mere rumour – that this man was Jonathan Moss.

Considering the standard of his refereeing during Leicester's chaotic 2-2 draw with West Ham, it's only right that Moss should have to pay some sort of public penance to the people of the East Midlands. They should allocate him a naughty step, and he should sit on it for the remainder of the week. That way, he can have a long, hard think about what he's done.

There were three dreadful decisions Moss made during the game, the most obvious of which was Jamie Vardy's sending off. Vardy's first caution was seriously harsh – he barely made contact with Cheikhou Kouyaté – while the "dive" that earned him a second yellow looked like a genuine coming together with Angelo Ogbonna. Neither a blatant act of simulation nor a clear foul, Moss should have waved play on. Instead, Leicester's talismanic goalscorer will now serve a one-match ban – one which could feasibly change the course of this season's title race.

Moss proceeded to award an amazingly soft penalty to West Ham for some routine wrestling in the box, before waving away Leicester's appeals after an almost identical incident at the other end. Still, at least he evened things up by giving Leicester an unmerited spot kick of their own after a shoulder-to-shoulder tussle between Andy Carroll and Jeffrey Schlupp. That makes it all better, right?

Top of the league in January, Arsenal's latest draw with Crystal Palace means that they now find themselves in the ignominious position of scrapping with Manchester United for fourth. The second half of their season has been nothing short of atrocious, with recurring frailties ruthlessly exposed once more.

Some Arsenal supporters seem to think it would be different if they acquired a new manager, a new striker, or a series of big-money signings. What they don't realise is that the fans have brought the whole thing on themselves in the form of karmic retribution – mainly for stuff like this.

Just left the stadium, no atmosphere and then this fucker sat behind me watching the game like this, done with this pic.twitter.com/AwveNi9JhY
— Sultan (@LeCarreMagie) April 17, 2016

This is why you can't have nice things, Arsenal fans. This – along with Arsenal Fan TV and the biting of stewards – is why you're not allowed to win the league, or anything else for that matter. Sadly for you, the universe simply will not tolerate this kind of shit. The fact that the Emirates looked half empty this weekend was bad enough, but the sight of a fan watching the game while reclining like a smug fortysomething at a provincial orgy? No, it's simply too much.

Knowing Arsenal, this will probably inspire the club's commercial division to create a divan section of the stadium. The conceptual opposite of safe standing, the top tier will be converted into a luxury space where fans take up as much room as possible. Waiters will deliver Rollover hotdogs to supine supporters, or feed them peeled grapes from Europcar-sponsored platters.

Don't blame Arsène Wenger, Arsenal fans. This one's on you.

As any Game of Thrones aficionado will tell you, there's only so long that the men of the north will put up with being downtrodden. The arrogance of their southern counterparts inflames their hardy hearts and, eventually, the injustice of their mistreatment forces them to take up arms. At that point, there's a bloody rebellion and they start lopping people's bits off.

That's exactly what the Premier League has to contend with now that Sunderland and Newcastle seem to have stirred themselves out of their state of perpetual drudgery. Though they haven't recorded many victories over their closest rivals this season, wins against Norwich and Swansea respectively may have breathed some life back into their battle to avoid relegation.

Nonetheless – with only five league games left to play – it would take a miracle for both clubs to stay up. The north-east may be in open revolt but, ultimately, only one of its great houses can survive.

Heurelho Gomes is an archetypal figure. He epitomises a specific type of goalkeeper – one who is somehow both heroic and a complete liability, all at the same time.

This statement might seem paradoxical, but his performance against West Brom this weekend proves it fundamentally true. Indeed, the 67th minute of the game represents Gomes in a nutshell. Having cleared out Saido Berahino with a wild challenge in the box, Watford conceded a penalty and Gomes a yellow card. He then stepped up, lunged to his right and saved Berahino's effort – a magnificent hero atoning for a frankly comical error of judgement.

The fact that he went on to save another penalty from Berahino – this time with a sublime stretch to his left – goes to show that he's a virtuoso madman, simultaneously masterful and clownish. In the strange world of Heurelho Gomes, it's never quite clear whether he's about to do something ludicrous or laudable. He is the ultimate loose cannon, equally capable of both.

A light breeze stirs the treetops. All is silent, bar the occasional chirping of songbirds. A ripple disturbs a distant fishpond, as a goldfish stirs the surface of the waters with its glinting fin. It is then, in that moment of profound peacefulness, that Sergio Aguero shoots you in the face with a grappling hook.

Aguero follows the way of the assassin, see. He's lethal, deadly, and strikes when you least expect it. Chelsea found that out the hard way this Saturday, with Sergio netting a clinical hat-trick as Manchester City calmly disposed of their erstwhile title rivals. His first goal was a thing of beauty, a split second of perfect quietude preceding his whipped finish past Thibaut Courtois.

Though injury has kept him off the shortlist for Premier League Player of the Year, his performance against Chelsea is a reminder that he's a human throwing star, a poison dart, football's equivalent of a sharp jab with a ricin-tipped umbrella. Don't try to plan for his coming, don't try to resist him. When Aguero decides your number is up, that's the end of it.