All over for another year

Championes, championes, ole ole ole.

So the 2007/08 season has come and gone. It only seems like yesterday I was weighing up the fixture list and contemplating the possibility that Tottenham at home to Liverpool on the last day could be a potential fourth place decider. I suppose we can’t get them all right.

United were, over the course of the season, more than worthy champions. I do wonder just how much of an achievement it is to take a title winning side, spend over £50million improving it, and repeat the feat but that’s just the capitalist nature of football at the moment.

I’m quite glad that it wasn’t decided by goal difference and the fact that Bolton scored a late goal at Chelsea was quite appropriate even if news had filtered through at that point that Utd were beyond their reach.

Fulham survived, as predicted yesterday, and I am pleased for Roy Hodgson who proved himself as one of the better English managers in the business today. There was a thread on Xtratime stating that he is the best English manager and as much as I initially queried it, it’s kind of hard to argue against. There is a definite argument to be made for Harry Redknapp or even a young manager like Gary Johnson has achieved a lot in a short space of time. The acid test will be next season when he’s had a full pre-season to implement his ideas and change the playing staff round a bit.

Reading and Birmingham are therefore goners. The former are such a well run club that I would be surprised if they were instantly installed as favourites for the championship next season. They’re unlikely to have too many vultures swooping over their best players and I would doubt they’re too stretched with wages that the parachute payments will not more than adequately cover them. I would expect Hunt, Kitson, Doyle and Lita to do (along with the want-away Africans) but they’re all pretty replaceable in my mind.

Birmingham will have a much more drastic turnaround of playing staff it would seem, with the most competition likely to be for a player they don’t actually own in Mauro Zarate. James McFadden seems like the sort of player who will inevitably get snapped up by a promoted team and the central midfield pairing of Larsson and Muamba are too good for lower league football. The Olivier Kapo’s of the squad will also likely go abroad but overall Alex McLeish is a good manager and again I would have faith in a swift return for them. Although I maybe said the same things about Charlton and Alan Pardew this time last year.

The best story of the day though to me was the Middlesborough destruction of Man City. There are meaningless end of season games (and I was at a prime example at White Hart Lane earlier) but this is something else. Richard Dunne was sent off on fifteen minutes but that’s still no excuse for such an inept performance.

It’s amazing how the fortunes of a club can change around so quickly. As recently as the end of January you had Man City delighted with the Thaksin revolution. Nery Castillo had signed from Shakhtar Donetsk along with Benjani from Portsmouth. They had started the season promisingly and taken an unthinkable six points off Manchester Utd already. The team was full of products from their excellent youth academy with Joe Hart, Micah Richards, Michael Johnson and to a lesser extent Daniel Sturridge helping to provide a local backbone to an internationally-flavoured line-up.

Fast forward to today and Man City fans are ripping up seats and throwing them onto the pitch in protest. They are at war with their chairman about his plans to replace Sven-Goran Eriksson after what must only be described as a successful debut season and it seems their players are on the verge of mutiny. Eriksson had to talk them out pf boycotting an upcoming tour of Thailand and every player of note is being linked with a move away from the club.

Even given these circumstances, 8-1 is a baffling scoreline. I’ve already seen it described as a farewell “fuck you” to Shinawatra from Sven and the boys but that seems a little far-fetched. There was even talk at one stage that Dunne’s red card may mean they miss out on a place in the UEFA cup achieved through the fair play league.

With teams like Man City in turmoil, Chelsea and Arsenal likely to go all out in order to recruit the necessary players to inch past Utd next season, Liverpool’s owners fighting against each other whilst there manager tries to sign central midfielders they don’t need, Spurs apparently facing a summer-long battle to persude Berbatov to stay and Newcastle performing their usual circus act - the break is likely to be far from boring for Premiership fans despite the lack of action taking place pn the pitch.

I wouldn’t be surprised however if this time next year I am again recalling tales of ill-informed predictions and congratulating Man Utd on an eleventh title despite the fact that a front three of Rooney, Ronaldo and Berbatov is the greatest strikeforce in premiership history and finsihing first was the least they could do.