What a great Premiership season!
Never ceases to amaze me how people never learn that a football season is over 38 games. Not 19, or 25 or a run of 8 games. You can be 15pts clear at the halfway stage, but the season isn't over. You haven't won brick, you don't have one foot in the door. There is plenty of football to play for. Works that other way too, when people write teams off when they are way behind. Our season is over, we've blown it etc. You even see it over the course of a single match, just look at City vs QPR!
Football isn't about "should have". It never has been. Freak results do happen on a regular basis. There are upsets, shocks in one off games. Even in a run of a few matches and yet fans of all clubs never learn and kneejerk to each result. I'd love a quid for everytime I hear someone say (after we've just lost at home to a team we should be beating) "That proves we aren't a top four team, Arsenal would never do it!" only for Arsenal to also go and do it a few games later against another unfancied team :lol: Even title contending teams lose games they shouldn't. A team that isn't title contending is naturally going to lose a few more!
People will look at todays Arsenal result and say "If only" or that it's typical that Fulop screwed up. I say don't get yourselves all twisted about it. Bottom line is, it's what happened over 38 games that matters. Not one on the final day. You can win and lose every other game, or the fixture list can come out differently and you win the first 19 and lose the last 19 against the identical opponents you'd have won every other game had the fixture list come out that way. The outcome is identical at the end of the day.
But overall what an amazing season this has been, not just for us.
City looked to be cake walking the title, then Utd took control and look comfortably favourites. Then City took charge again only to have seemingly thrown it away right at the death before finally snatching it from the jaws of defeat! And the title is decided on goal difference!! Utd fans will be understandbly disappointed but I think they should have pride in their Premiership season. They had no right to even be challenging this year in my opinion, their team isn't as good as City and their squad certainly isn't. The fact that Utd were 3 mins away from winning the title this season was brilliant. I said a few weeks ago that I thought if Utd won it this year it would be Fergie's finest title.
And City? Well they should win it really shouldn't they? But fair play to them, they did it. They may have made hard work of it but at the end of the day it doesn't matter if you win by goal difference of 20pts. The outcome is the same, and they are worthy title winners.
Grudgingly I have to hand it to Arsenal. In Wenger they have easily one of the top two Managers in the land and he has proven it again this season. Again he has got them in the top three and he has never finished outside of the top four since taking over. Arsenal fans should be ashamed of themselves at the best of times, but for some of them to be calling for his head earlier this season was shocking. Again a real indication of how so many people are too stupid to judge over 38 games. A run of 10 games, good or bad, contributes to the final outcome and in isolation of those 10 games isn't a gauge of anything useful.
Saudi Sportswashing Machine fans should be the proudest of all in my opinion. Chelsea fans the most disappointed (I've expressed my views several times that I believe they are the best team in the country) and yet they won the FA Cup and have a Champion's League final to look forward too! Liverpool fans definitely should be the most angry! They should be top four by stature and fanbase, but wasted money left right and centre on average players. Agent Comolli did his work well there :lol: Even then though, they won the League Cup.
And us? The Modric saga, Redknapp's operation, then the court case. It's been eventful!
End of the season reads W20 D9 L9, so we've won more games than we've drawn and lost combined. Only the second time in Premiership history we've done that (the first obviously being the last time we finished 4th).
Three full seasons under Redknapp reads 4th, 5th, 4th. That's certainly consistency! Factor in Jol's two 5th place finishes and that's top six 5 times in the last 7 seasons. Is it too early to say we're definitely a top six team again?
We scored in every league home game this season, the first time we've done that since 1961/62.
We finished above Chelsea for the first time since 1995/96.
First time during the Premiership era we had a chance of finishing 3rd on the final day of the season.
For a large portion of the season we played the most entertaining football of the season.
And all the above has been done with very low player investment over the last three seasons, which makes it even more remarkable.
Hopefully Chelsea will lose against FC Bayern [-o< and we can look forward to the CL qualifying round. With the emergence of City as a footballing powerhouse, the fact that Chelsea surely can't fudge it up two years in a row with the resource they have available, Arsenal's debt levels being more manageable and them being able to finally go out and spend money on players, and Utd just always being there!, getting top four again next season may be a tall order but we'll certainly be in the mix.
All I can say now is c'mon Bayern! But even if Chelsea do win the Champions League, then this is a season to be proud of! COYS!