WE DID WHAT WE COULD

 

(Image taken from Manutd.com)

Last season, Stoke proved to be the one team that no one expected to make it to the Premiership, but still, Tony Pullis's crew caused a few headaches. Well the didn't cause us that many problems, first up was a 5-0 win at Old Trafford with Cristiano Ronaldo getting two of the goals. That was followed with a trip to the Britannia Stadium where we won 1-0 and Carlos Tevez hit the winner. Credit to Stoke for staying up but again we were the team that won the title.

This time around, well we'd already won 2-0 at the Britannia Stadium. However the biggest unanswered question was, would we win a fourth Premiership title in a row? That was still the biggest unanswered question even coming into the final weekend of the season. Winning this Premiership match at Old Trafford would...at least put the pressure on Chelsea. United went with Neville at right back(and captain) and Rio and Vidic in central defence. Here went nothing.

Well United started reasonably well but really needed an early goal and didn't really look like getting it. Nerves? Stupid Bulgarian assasins? Well, at least we were the attacking team. The mood amongst United fans was pretty bleak though but we eventually hit the net when a 31st minute Vidic header bounced off various players before finding Fletcher who stock it in. A 38th minute Berbatov cross then found Giggsy and we were two up. We were taking care of business at least.

We then had a brief moment of comedy as a 54th minute Rooney slide pass allowed Danny Higgenbottom to get his first goal for United..in a Stoke shirt! Finally the visitors looked like they might be up for doing some attacking of their own and another ex-Red Danny Pugh forced us to dodge a bullet but the game was over in the 84th minute when sub Park headed in a Giggsy cross. Mission accomplished at our end. What was happening with Chelsea though?

Well, Chelsea were facing Wigan at Stamford Bridge. Nicolas Anelka opened the scoring for them and Frank Lampard added a penalty after Wigan went down to ten men. Then in the second half Salomon Kalou made it three, Anelka got his second and Didier Drogba went on to grab a hat-trick before Ashley Cole finished the game and the season off. So United finish 2nd in the Premiership but still one point behind title winners Chelsea. Always gutting to lose the title.

Still though, congratulations to Chelsea for winning their first Premiership title since the 05/06 season when Jose Mourinho was gaffer. Thing is there are plenty of players still there from the Jose era so despite Abramovich's itchy trigger finger since then, the Cocky One's mark on the team is still there. Is this a vintage Chelsea side? I don't know - I don't think any of the "big four" had a vintage side this time around. However Carlo Ancelotti can certainly claim mission accomplished.

 

So, to sum up the 2009/10 Premiership season. Chelsea are Champions. United and Arsenal will be joining them in the Champions League group stages. Spurs might be joining them if they survive a Champions League playoff tie. Otherwise, they'll be joining Man City, Villa and Liverpool in the Europa League(if those three can survive he preliminaries). Burnley, Hull and Portsmouth have gone glug glug and are heading down to the Championship. Not sure if any of them will make it back up at this point.

Going down a couple of levels, Exeter City were playing in L1, their first season in the third tier since the early 90s. In the early stages of the season they didn't sem to be doing so badly(and beating Leeds wasn't a bad result) but then came a barren spell that meant the fight to go straight back down went down to the wire. It came down to a match against Huddersfield at St James's Park and City pulled it off to win 2-1 and claim 18th spot in the division, their best finish since 1990/91!

North of the border, Aberdeen faced St Mirren at St Mirren Park in the SPL. Ex-Don Lee Mair, now with the Buddies put the ball into his own net to open the scoring. The Dons looked to make it two in the second half but couldn't quite pull it off. Still, they were definately the better side this game and will be happy finishing the season with a win. The Dons finish the season 9th in the SPL - definately not what they'd have had in mind. Word is the team will be overhauled in the summer.

However Scottish football fans have to bow down to Rangers as for the season season in a row they've won the SPL title and they've won it fairly smoothly. It's the first time since the 1998-2000 period that they've pulled off back to back titles. The current Gers squad have certainly proved that they know what they're doing and that has do be partly down to the efforts of Walter Smith who is probably one of the best Scottish managers of all time. Celtic(let alone anyone else) may have their work cut out next season.

So, an SPL summary looks like this. Rangers are champions and are the only Scottish team garunteed to play in the Champions League group stages. Celtic will join them if they can survive a preliminary round and the playoffs. Dundee United have a spot in the Europa League preliminaries with Hearts joining them if they can survive an earlier round. Falkirk are the team going down to SD1 on this occasion with Inverness CT replacing them as SD1 champions, going back up at the first time of asking.

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