Well that just about wraps it up for another Premier League season. Amazing to think how quickly time passes, isn't it? It seems like only yesterday the season was just beginning...
Anyway, congratulations to Manchester United, the new champions and to my mind the right ones given the standard of the opposition. Had Chelsea claimed the title today, I doubt it would have sat right with many fans of the Premier League. I say that only because Chelsea have barely been at the front of the title race all season and have limped along in third or fourth place for much of the time. Man United, for all their poor phases this season, have always been there or thereabouts like Arsenal were until they capitulated so dramatically when it mattered most.
That said, Chelsea did an amazing job pushing United all the way to the bitter end. Today's result has little or no significance to me today given the fact Alex Ferguson's men were such strong favourites to see off Wigan. Bolton earned a creditable draw, but it was all a fait accompli anyway. The FA in their wisdom elected to take the real Premier League trophy to the Man United match today (rather than the copy which went to Chelsea) and with some justification too. United proved again they have the pedigree to make a sustained challenge for the trophy over 38 games, so the title must be theirs.
At the other end of the table, an eventful afternoon saw Fulham and Bolton Wanderers keep their place in the Premier League at the expense of Birmingham City and Reading who are relegated to The Championship.
As I may have said before, I tend to feel that Fulham are perpetually one of those sides that seem to achieve little, perhaps flirt with relegation but ultimately retain their place every season and for that reason I wouldn't have batted an eyelid if they'd been relegated today. The thing is Roy Hodgson looks like a genuinely nice bloke who deserves great credit for all he's done thus far in his career. I want to see if he can turn Fulham around and make them more of a force to be reckoned with, and thanks to today's 1-0 win over Portsmouth, it looks like he'll get the chance to do so.
As for Reading, I have some sympathy with them. I think they've done pretty well since arriving in the Premier League and have played some exciting football at times, but they've gone steadily stale over the course of this season and as we all know, when the rot sets in the result can be fatal.
Birmingham have been brave in their approach this season, looking capable of putting up a decent fight with most of the teams in the bottom half of the table, but they too have seen their challenge run out of gas when they needed it most. Alex McLeish's arrival in November may have given the club a belief that better things were around the corner, but sadly it didn't quite turn out that way. Whether McLeish is still their manager by the time they return to the Premier League remains to be seen.
So that's it - the final curtain has fallen on the 2007/08 season, but fear not - we still have some things to discuss on this campaign before we can draw a line under this whole sorry affair, and we'll be tying up all those loose conversational ends over the coming week or so.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
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7 comments:
An exiting end all right. If only Heskey had taken his chance that time just before the end. And I've seen some poor defending in my time, but the space allowed Giggs for his goal (deep sigh), you could have driven an armoured tank division through that gap.
As for my relegation predictions: 1 right 2 wrong. I had Fulham, Derby and Bolton to go down. Nice to see Fulham survive, but will it be more of the same next season? Reading, thats a shame, but I've had enough of Steve Coppell's passionless performances after every game, and as for Birmingham, well, Big 'Lec will have a job getting them back up again.
'Mon the Potters for next season!!!
Hi
I check in here regularly and its a great read. I link to this site from my blog at http://dubsteps.blogspot.com. any chance of a return link?
also there's a 'road to wembley', of a sort, at http://dubsteps.blogspot.com/2008/01/h-in-cup-20072008.html
should that be of any use to you in your sidebar there!
I'm glad to see Fulham stay up. If they had gone down, McBride would surely have gone back to MLS.
Reading just don't have the class to be in the premiership. There are only 4 or 5 players in their squad that I could see being sold back to the top flight.
Birmingham, I thought, we unlucky, they have some talented players that are far too good for the championship. McLeish is too good of a manager for the championship as well.
Chris O.- I finally surpassed you in our fantasy league. It looked bleak for so long, but I pulled it out. Like Liverpool, 4th is the new 1st.
Also, my apologies for the recent sparseness of comments. I've been engrossed in the quest for Lord Stanley's Cup. As I'm sure Adam can tell you (living in my cross-state rival, Philadelphia), Pens/Flyers is one the most heated rivalries in US sports. The fact that we're facing off in the conference finals magnifies the hatred exponentially. That's my plug for hockey.
Quite right, insideleft... Heskey's chance was agonisingly close. Given his England pedigree, that was about as much as we should have expected, wasn't it?
Probably best to throw our weight behind Stoke, WBA or... who?
Hi Skif... did we speak before sometime during the current FA Cup run? I know we linked to a few other people that were doing a Road To Wembley like us and the name 'Hobo Tread' sounds familiar.
Anyway, thanks for linking to SPAOTP. We've repaid the compliment for you!
Hi Chris... I think Fulham *and* Birmingham had a lot of players that were too good for the Championship. The key one for me is James McFadden. I wonder if he'll still get picked for Scotland as often now?
And how dare you overtake me in the Fantasy League!!! ;-) Well done on that, though. Had it been any other season, you'd have beaten me by a country mile, but for some reason this season I hit a good spell early on which set me up well.
And there's no need to apologise for your lack of comments. We appreciate your input no matter how frequent it is (as is the case for everyone else, by the way!)
2-0 down in the play-offs, then? :)
I think McFadden is a known commodity in club and country. Scotland doesn't have much better than him either. it wouldn't surprise me to see Celtic move for him (though I'd much rather see him at Rangers.) Though he could easily slot in at a mid-table prem. club, say Man. City, West Ham, NUFC.
We're 2-0 to the good, Let's Go Pens!
I am happy ManU took it. This is Ronaldo's year so he deserves the title.
That's true, Dave. Much like Thierry Henry at Arsenal, one man can virtually justify the title goes to his team single-handedly. This has been probably the greatest season yet for Ronaldo and his goals have been what United's title winning season have been built on.
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