Winners
Manchester United
The best team won.
It was tight, and Manchester United required the assistance of a 12th man to stumble over the line, yet, undeniably, they are worthy champions. It is no fluke that they have more points than any other team in the league; they have scored more goals than any of their rivals, won more games, conceded less goals and boast a vastly superior goal difference to all of their competitors.
Flat-track bullies? Nope. United have the best record of any side in the division against top-half opposition. Ceteris Paribas, Arsenal would have finished top of the table had they won at Old Trafford last month while Liverpool would have finished above United had they prevailed in both their league encounters. But they didn't. United triumphed when it mattered and by winning their final two games the defeat at Stamford Bridge became academic. In any case, were the Big Four in a league of their own, United would have triumphed by five points. They are worthy champions in every respect and by every criteria.
The ten-day void before the Champions League final will be partially filled by musings on the impact United's Premier League success will have on events to follow. Yet the very fact that both Chelsea and Manchester United are in the Champions League final, with a third English side defeated in the semi-finals, speaks volumes about the magnitude of their domestic triumph. By Champions League definition, three of the best four teams in Europe reside in the same division. Its champion team are thus worthy of every accolade.
Perhaps the ultimate that can be said of Manchester United is that they are not just the best. As the best of the best, they are better than that.
Arsenal and Liverpool
And it is in that context that the 'failure' of Arsenal and Liverpool - not to mention Chelsea - should be considered.
Winning the Premier League has never been so difficult. Rafa Benitez is frequently berated as reserving his best work for Europe, yet is that so surprising given the domestic opposition? There's plenty of reason to suppose - especially after their 4-0 head-to-head Champions League victory over Inter Milan, the team most likely to win Serie A this term - that Liverpool would triumph in any other European league barring the Premier League and, closer still, La Liga.
So, too, Arsenal. Written off nine months ago, their season should be regarded in terms of a positive overachievement rather than as a collapse. Finishing within four points of the champions will prompt plenty of 'if only' musings but it is nonetheless laudable. According to Arsene Wenger, "this is the best team I have had." Considering that it wasn't so long ago that one of his team finished a domestic season unbeaten, that is heady praise - and, inadvertently, further tribute to the teams above the Gunners in the final reckoning.
Ryan Giggs
A great player but now a faded force, Giggs should have the good sense to realise that he should get out while the going is so good. Having scored the goal that secured his tenth league medal in the process of equalling Manchester United's all-time appearance record, the Welshman should realise that, other than going one better than Bobby Charlton in Moscow, there is nothing for him left to do other than tarnish his legacy by staying on.
Sir Alex Ferguson
There was an instructive moment during the first half at the JJB when the Sky cameras shifted focus onto the touchline. Moments before, Paul Scholes had received clemency despite committing a second bookable offence and the reaction of the two managers perhaps explained why. While Steve Bruce looked forlorn, resigned to the unfairness of fate, Ferguson was busy at work, berating the fourth official as if it were his team that had been the victims of a gross double injustice.
There is a reason why Chelsea harangue referees: it works. And there was, perhaps, a sinister if cunning reason why Manchester United responded to the concession of a legitimate penalty at Chelsea two weeks ago with such demonic fervour. Only Steve Bennett will know if the Stamford Bridge hysterics were a factor in him turning a blind eye to Rio Ferdinand's handball despite having a clear view of the offence, but, even on an unconscious level, the inevitability of Ferguson unleashing his wrath must be a reason why referees give so few marginal decisions against his team.
Fulham
Self-survival and the looming threat of a swingeing wage cut is the ultimate motivator. From the brink, Fulham have somehow clung on to Premier League life and the monetary rewards that status guarantees. With four wins from their final five matches, the Cottagers remain in the top flight at Reading's expense by the narrowest of margins - a three-goal disparity in their goal difference. It is the second year in succession that a team has survived on such terms - a consequence in part of the shortage of points available once the Big Four, winning more points than ever before, have feasted on the mediocrity below.
Whereas just a single defeat can throw the title race into new perspective, a single victory can prove decisive at the bottom. While Fulham's recovery at Manchester City will be depicted as the turning point, they ultimately survived at Reading's expense due to their victory at the Madejski on April 12. Surviving on scraps, so much depends on so little for the Premier League's also-rans. Birmingham's revolting supporters may have revolted against the board following their own demise but had Brum collected just one solitary point more over 38 games then they would have been feted as heroes. It was ascloseasthat.
Theo Walcott
A fitting match-winner, Walcott has excelled at a difficult time for the Gunners. The youngster, in Arsene Wenger's words, has "become a man" in the past two months.
Bolton Wanderers
The (alleged) party-goers turned party-poopers, Bolton have only been beaten once in their last four league trips to Stamford Bridge.
Fernando Torres
Were it not for Cristiano Ronaldo then this would have been Fernando Torres' year. By scoring at Tottenham, the Spaniard has become the most prolific foreign player in his debut Premier League season, breaking the record set by Ruud van Nistelrooy in 2001.
To repeat a point this column has made throughout the year but seems particularly pertinent at the end of the season, the paradox of the Premier League usurping La Liga to take the mantle of the world's best league is that its advance has largely been founded on the progress of a trio of players from the Iberian Peninsula - Torres, Ronaldo and Fabregas.
Losers
Steve Bennett
2007/08 will be remembered as Cristiano Ronaldo's season. But if the match at Wigan is recalled, it will be for the appalling work of Steve Bennett. Make no mistake, his mistakes were uncomfortably critical to the final-day outcome. Would United have won the championship without them? Debatable. Certainly it is inconceivable that Chelsea would have decelerated to walking pace in the final ten minutes had the game at JJB not been effectively over, enabling Bolton to snatch their injury-time equaliser.
Perhaps United would have recovered from the concession of a penalty had Rio Ferdinand been penalised for leaning into Jason Koumas' shot and deflecting the ball away with the top of his arm. But it would have been difficult. And the second half would have been difficult in the extreme were the leaders at a numerical disadvantage.
The decision not to penalise Ferdinand was a judgement call. Yet having judged Scholes to have deliberately impeded Marcus Bent with a straight-arm block, Bennett's decision was made. A yellow card, Scholes' second after earlier committing a typically horrendous tackle, was mandatory. He had to go. He didn't.
"You should ask the referee about his integrity," complained Steve Bruce. "Had it been any other day it was another yellow card and he should have been off" - which is the polite way of saying exactly what Andy Gray said in commentary: Bennett bottled it.
The point will be made, with tedious regularity, that Scholes should have been awarded a penalty in the second half. This, it will be said, is evidence 'that these things even themselves out'. That, too, is a lie. The truth is that Scholes shouldn't have been awarded a penalty because he shouldn't have been on the pitch for the second half.
The incident damned Bennett in a further respect; far from being biased towards the champions, his refusal to point to the spot simply confirmed his mistakes were the product of straightforward incompetence.
Chelsea
United will argue they won the title courtesy of their late goals at Tottenham and Blackburn. Chelsea, on the other hand, will rue their last-minute concessions against Tottenham, Wigan, Everton and Aston Villa.
But why is it that Manchester United - and Arsenal - are so prone to scoring late goals and Chelsea so liable to concede them? One possibility is that the pass-and-pass-again style of United and Arsenal has the beneficial effect of wearying their opponents, requiring them to run and run in a forlorn chase and causing tired legs to be vulnerable in the closing stages. Chelsea's passing, by contrast, is generally direct and literally straightforward. It cannot tax opponents in the way that ManYoo and Arsenal's favoured method does and thus may explain why they have managed to retain enough energy to make last-gasp assaults on the Chelsea rearguard.
Steve Coppell
It should not be a question of whether he will walk out of Reading following their relegation but whether he will be kicked out. By refusing to spend in the summer, and accepting responsibility for what would follow, he alone is culpable for their demotion.
Midlands Football
At a rough count, Birmingham's demise means that, taking Aston Villa out of the equation, the Midlands' contribution to the Premiership since 2002 has been five relegations from a total of eight campaigns.
Tottenham Hotspur
The team that was supposed to breaking into the Big Four's closed shop spent the entire season stuck in the bottom half of the league table.
West Ham
A definition of mid-table mediocrity: being tenth in the league table for the final five months of the campaign. Since the seventh game of 2007/08, the Hammers have neither been higher than ninth in the table nor fallen below eleventh.
Portsmouth
Since defeating West Brom in the FA Cup semi-final, Pompey have won just once in six games. In contrast, their Wembley opponents have lost just once. To repeat a line from a few weeks ago: 'If a study of FA Cup shocks was undertaken it would probably discover that they tend to occur when a side either struggling for form or in the wrong half of their league table takes on opponents who, although in a lower-ranking league, are riding high.'
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