Happy Talk

It is by pure coincidence, I swear, that WWDBD?'s final blog post of the 2012-2013 football season and this one, which is, technically, the first of season 2013-14, should both feature as its headline a Captain Sensible song title. But blame José Mourinho. As, indeed, we'll be doing for most things by the end of the season.

With, precisely, the very first answer to the very first question posed today at Mourniho's official Stamford Bridge homecoming press conference, the Portuguese deadpanned, in that Jack Dee scowl way of his: "I am the Happy One."

Instantly, we made the assumption that José was being ironic, a little knowing in his answer. Which, in fairness, was a response to the predictable reminder from the floor that during his original unveiling to the press, in 2004, he'd declared himself "Special".

In, literally, a word, Mourninho marked his card as a property the media would never tire of poking with a stick to see what came out. And thus it has been ever since. And, yes, as everyone else has remarked, life is a little more fun with José around. Ron Manager he is not. Isn't it?

Much of today's presser, as journalists call them, dwelled on Mourinho's temperament. Was he calmer? "Calmer? I believe so," he responded, calmly, as if a) he was talking about emptying the dishwasher and b) he was expected to burst into a Basil Fawlty-style rage at the question.

We all know of the crazy, non-calm things Mourniho has done in the past: appearing to poke Barcelona coach Tito Vilanova in the eye, celebrating goals by knee-sliding across the technical area and, allegedly, being evacuated from Stamford Bridge in a laundry basket to avoid getting caught by UEFA's secret police.

This was a rock star performance without the rock star pretensions. Musicians, when they host press conferences, have a habit of disappearing up their own arses, talking about the need to reconnect with this and get to the essence of that. Mourinho is resolutely not in that camp, although he did end the press conference, answering a question about his weaknesses, with:

"If I speak of them, I have to say I'm trying to improve them. You don't speak about weaknesses with your enemy, and my enemy will read the papers and watch television. We hide our weaknesses. Every player, manager has weaknesses. You have to try to hide them. So I'm not giving that chance for the enemy... with respect because, in sports, an enemy is not really an enemy. I know my weaknesses, not much... not many... but I try to improve and hide them."

So he's not talking about his weaknesses, then. Still, he managed to crank the cool level up to 11, even when his speaking about "boys" sounded more like a disgraced priest than a Ron Atkinson giving it the full "boys done good" managerspeak.

If anything there was something muted about José today. Not quite caged animal, but restrained. Calm. He gave opaque reference to talking to John Terry about the future ("I know what he can give, so let's try to make him again the best player he can be"), gave nothing away about player acquisitions (beyond saying that it would be "normal" to bring in one or two) and spoke in somewhat glowing terms about how, since he departed British shores three of his "boys" - Steve Clarke, Brendan Rodgers and André Villas-Boas (later self-corrected to "not boys anymore") had moved on to take charge of the very teams that will be pushing Chelsea next year in their assault on Manchester.

That, is what makes next season such an intriguing proposition. One particular comment that stood out today is that when Mourinho first arrived at Chelsea in 2004, Arsène Wenger's Arsenal was the pace-setter. Nine years on, Wenger is the default elder statesman at the resident top end of the Premier League but with a reputation still struggling to maintain itself.

With the likes of Moyes and Pellegrini (himself due to be unveiled this week by Manchester City) settling in to their new clubs, and Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool champing at the bit, the competition around Mourinho will be far more intense than he's experienced in Italy or Spain. Not that he will be bothered. Because he'll be calm.

José's performance today was just like those Chelsea teams he nurtured to back-to-back league titles in his first two seasons at the Bridge: it was businesslike, a little boring and well defended. Unlike other managers - belligerent (Ferguson), mad (Strachan), paranoid (Warnock), indifferently Gallic (Wenger) - José projected his version of cool. Not cool in the Steve McQueen sense, but cool in the...er...calm sense.

Was he afraid of things coming unhinged again with Roman? "I hope I can go to the last day of the contract. If the club is happy and the club wants me to stay then I'll be more than happy to stay." You see? Calm.

But didn't it go spectacularly pear-shaped in 2007? "I read and keep reading that I was fired and we had a complete breakdown in relationship. At the time we thought it was the best for both of us [to go our separate ways]." Still calm.

And what about Andres Iniesta's claim that José "damaged" Spanish football while manager of Madrid? "I damaged Spanish football by being the manager that broke Barcelona dominance," he responded. Calmly.

It was a typical audience with the sports press, I suppose. Inane questions designed to goad the subject were dealt with without any noticeable signs of exuberance.

Have you changed? "Do I have a different personality? No, but for sure I have a different approach and perspective," without really saying what. Was he disappointed that neither Manchester United nor City had come in for him? "I am where I want to be - I wouldn't change it for anything." This was either glue-eyed rendering of the club Q&A or Mourinho's interpretation of Keith Richards' regular on-stage declaration: "It's great to be here. It's great to be anywhere."

Temperament aside, we learned very little today. Indeed, José did, very little. Throughout the entire 60-minute press conference his head hardly moved, his expression hardly changed. If he was happy to be there, it was impossible to tell. It wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that the blue touch paper is being kept desert dry. Because while ice may have been coursing through José's veins this afternoon, it's not why we can't get enough of the guy.

Ever since his return to Chelsea was first mooted, he has been talked of like no other returnee to a football club I can ever think of. Before he'd even been announced, officially, as the new first team coach at Chelsea, column inches - from the front to the back pages, stopping off at the Women's section en route - had been devoted to him.

With David Beckham retiring to add Miami to his collection of exotic operational hubs, and Sir Alex Ferguson stepping upstairs to start a new chewing gum mountain in the Old Trafford boardroom, Mourinho's return to centre stage in the English sports media has injected some much-needed fairy dust into the line-up of somewhat dull technocrats that pervade the game.

Anyone who has ever met real stars - and I'm not talking about about reality show wannabees in a Mayfair nightclub, but proper, rock'n'roll, Hollywood celebrities - know that part of what makes them a star is their aura. Plenty have said that of Bill Clinton. No jokes please.

Mourinho has that aura. But rather than being a smug looking show pony (not sure why Simon Cowell comes to mind there), he has the record to back it up: two Champions League titles, a UEFA Cup, two league titles each in Portugal, England and Italy, the Spanish title, and domestic cup trophies in all four countries he's coached in. And, as he pointed out, "At 50, I think I am still very young as a manager and I think it is like the beginning of a new period." I can't wait.

Read the full transcript of José Mourinho's press conference on The Independent's website here.

Glad it's all over

So that’s it. Done until August. Or July. Or the end of June, depending on where your club sits geographically or hierarchically.

The 2012-2013 football season is, more or less, over, bar a Champions League Final at Wembley between two German teams (so twice as guaranteed to end with penalties), and the Championship Playoff Final two days later at the same venue.

Has it been a vintage nine months? No. Not when its highlight has been the retirements of a manager and the replica shirt salesman who once played for him.

Not when the Premier League is won four weeks early by an in-development Manchester United, with the reigning champions failing to put up much of a fight.

And not when the wooden spoon positions of third and fourth become so critical to clubs' fortunes that they become performance objectives in their own right, fought over like the last grains of rice in a famine.

The 2012-13 season has, to be honest, been pretty mediocre. And that mediocrity hasn't been helped by the recurrence of racism as a core issue, the brief flare-ups of old-school hooliganism, and players and their clubs doing little to protect their reputations from their own behavioural misdemeanors.

Added to that, we've witnessed the sorry, greedy, paranoid state of affairs in which by March, 103 English league managers and coaches had been sacked, resigned or, to use that old chestnut, departed “by mutual consent”. What kind of season is it when onetime European champions Nottingham Forest fire four managers, and that chickens-in-a-basket case Blackburn Rovers end up with their fourth their season since August?

Like a Grand Prix, it is rare these days to end a football season feeling completely satisfied. Tired, yes, out of pocket, certainly, but after the requisite 38 games (or 69 if you're Chelsea...), it's difficult to look back completely objectively and say "that was brilliant from start to finish". Because, short of 20 teams taking it down to the wire at either end of table, seasons tend to be as attritional as a French battlefield in 1917.

So, to formerly shutter this term, What Would David Bowie Do? presents its club-by-club end-of-term opinion on the Barclays Premier League 2012-13, in the process offering no apology whatsoever for the longer rant about Chelsea than anyone else (at least it's spared you a separate post...):

Manchester United (89 points, goal difference +43) Champions

On the opening day of the 1995-1996 season, that football sage Alan Hansen told Match of the Day viewers that "You can't win anything with kids" after a somewhat juvenile Manchester United team went down 3-1 to Aston Villa. That United team went on to win one of the club's 11 league titles under Sir Alex Ferguson.

United looked similarly young this season, and history repeated itself with a defeat, at home on the opening day. It would appear that Hansen's retirement from Match of the Day hasn't come soon enough. But enough about him.

This may not have been a vintage season for Manchester United, but in his customary manner, SAF fixed his one main problem audaciously by bringing in van Persie, and blooded more youngsters in to the extent that the likes of Phil Jones ended the season looking like he'd been a first team regular for years. United's season ultimately prevailed, but you have to wonder what a more spirited title defence from City would have achieved, and what if more teams like Chelsea had gone to Old Trafford and played United at their own game.

I'm not going to add to the already universal lament for Sir Alex, save that despite all we have vituperatively aimed at him from the terraces down the years, his remarkable record at Manchester United does speak for itself. Less so the largely mute savant Paul Scholes - an inspirational midfielder at times, an unguided cluster bomb on occasion - whose eventual retirement deserves recognition. So, too, David Beckham. OK, he hadn't played for United in ten years, spending that time in Spain, Italy, California and France shifting merchandise for Adidas, but it was at Old Trafford under Ferguson that one of football's greatest stars was created, along with a modicum of ability.

Manchester City (78pts, GD +32) 2nd

Chelsea responded to their first league title in fifty years by winning another one in 2006. Manchester City responded to their first league title in 44 years by becoming increasingly dysfunctional, with their much respected manager Roberto Mancini losing his focus (Balotelli) and his political nouse in both the boardroom and the dressing room.

Finishing second is never a bad thing, but as successive managers at Stamford Bridge have found, second is always second best in the eyes of ambitious and success-greedy proprietors who believe that their investments owe them a right.

Getting sacked was an astonishingly cruel outcome for Mancini, but with Manchester United not being as rampant this season as their points and securing the title prematurely might suggest, the 11-point, 11-goal deficit with their neighbours became enough of a gaping chasm to expose a team that could have done much better with the right management approach. To end the season with a management clearout before the final game suggests a poisonous atmosphere

Chelsea (75pts, GD +36) 3rd

If I were to believe the club and it's patronizingly-titled "Interim First Team Coach" for the last seven months, all that Chelsea set out to achieve this season was achieved.

The reality is somewhat different. Winning the one trophy that, at the beginning of the season, wasn't even amongst the seven Chelsea were contending for, is an unnatural victory.

Of course, as a fan, I am delighted they won a consecutive European trophy and joined the small elite of clubs to have won all three of the continent's major silverware. But, still, Chelsea  as ever the masters of dysfunction, what with their handling of the Clattenburg affair, the aftermath of the John Terry racism mess, and the annual managerial switcheroo. Keeping Roberto Di Matteo only long enough to pay lip service to his successes as interim boss (yeah, only the European Cup and FA Cup...) was hardly a shining moment of endearment to the fanbase, which they worsened by hiring the most divisive individual they could have possibly chosen. Rafa Benitez says - with some justification, I'll concede - his appointment has been vindicated. I would say that third place and a second-choice, default trophy only vindicates the decision to make him an interim coach.

Performance-wise, Chelsea regressed this season. Yes, I know, 69 fixtures and all that, but if that stretched the side so much, why did they have virtually a full 11 out on loan, with Romalu Lukaku banging 'em in for fun at West Bromwich Albion and Thibaut Courtois helping Athletico Madrid to the Copa del Rey and third place in La Liga? What, too, was the point of replacing Di Matteo with Benitez when the waiter's record hasn't been fundamentally any better - an identical win ratio of 57% over a similar number of games in charge.

Did Chelsea progress at all over the course of this season? Yes, in spots. Eden Hazard eventually settled in to become a lethal component of an attack, with Juan Mata making himself indispensable and justifiably the club's player of the season. Fernando Torres still spent most of 2012-13 as a grumpy teenager, but despite not scoring in the league between December and last Sunday, a 23-goal haul for the season is not at all bad.

Further back, Chelsea was, at times, a defensively gaping chasm this season. But at least give to Benitez for converting David Luiz to holding midfield, where his discipline improved out of all recognition, and he began to appear destined to become one of the club's big personalities, a latter day Joe Allon, and even a captain in the making.

Mention should also be made of Nathan Ake, the Dutch teenager who not only emulates Ruud Gullitt's former hair-do, he also emulates Gullitt's midfield presence. And finally, hats off to Paolo Ferreira: as loyal a servant as you'll find these days in football, he played out his contract at Chelsea without complaint or going on strike, serving as a true squad player as well as providing invaluable support and mentoring to the club's young Brazilians. Obrigado!

Arsenal (73 pts, GD +35) 4th

There is a scene at the end of the terrific World War II movie The Bridge At Remagen where Robert Vaughan, playing a somewhat sympathetic German officer defending a Rhine crossing from the advancing Allies, is carted off by the SS to be shot. In his final scene, Vaughan's Major Krüger asks an SS goon whether the planes he can hear are German or Allied. "Enemy planes!" comes the curt SS reply, to which Krüger, with a downbeat look on his face mutters, "But who is the enemy...?" before being shot. I mention this only because Arsène Wenger has, at many times this season, carried the same look as Vaughan's in that final scene.

As the season has worn on it has been obvious that Wenger's Arctic-tog Millets sleeping bag-come-overcoat wasn't for keeping out the cold but protecting him from his own side's bullets. He has, on occasion, looked quite forlorn and helpless, the perfect presentation of that line "hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" from Pink Floyd's Time. The problem is, how much of this has been his own fault? On paper - and certainly if you are a Spurs fan - achieving Champions League football for the 16th consecutive season is a glittering prize, but crucially, it is still the only reward Arsenal can claim after eight dismal years without so much a silver teaspoon in the trophy room. And that just isn't good enough. Arsenal are still a brilliant side led by a brilliant manager, but at times it's like finding Hendrix playing bar room blues in a provincial pub.

This is simply where Arsenal shouldn't be. Two positions higher, they'd be runners up. Three, champions. The 12-points separation between Manchester United and Arsenal isn't such an unassailable gap, but then that only inflames the situation further. What difference would a striker have made to those 12 points? What difference would some flair in midfield have made? Would some better options for creativity have made things better?

"Boring, boring, Arsenal", is how we used to chide visiting Gooners, but more for the disciplined way they got on with being annoyingly more successful than ourselves. Now that 'boring tag' seems to apply to a team that will happily achieve another tilt at the Champions League, taking the nice little welcome package that comes with it, and still do nothing about making one of football's great clubs perform like it.

Only Wenger can really answer these questions. Fourth is no disaster, and no one team actually deserves anything, anyway. But even to this Chelsea fan, the look on my face this season as I've looked across London has been as flummoxed as that on Wenger's. Except that it's his job to fix the problem.

Tottenham Hotspur (72 pts, GD +20) 5th

Much rested on André Villas-Boas's young shoulders this season when he stepped into Harry Redknapp's shoes at White Hart Lane. Clearly, the chemistry at Chelsea had been all wrong - would Spurs be any better? Clearly, yes, and although fifth place and another crack at Europe's second-string competition is not ideal (it was the same result that got Redknapp fired), AVB has restored Spurs to be a genuine top-four challenger this season, as Redknapp had done before his mojo departed in early 2012.

It would be tempting to say this season has been all about Gareth Bale for Tottenham, but it's patently clear that without him, Spurs are lacking somewhat, and can't rely totally on Adebayor and Dempsey, or Parker, for that matter, to create chances. Hanging on to Bale has to be Tottenham's inter-season priority, with a much needed talent refresh elsewhere a close second.

Everton (63 pts, GD +15) 6th

David Moyes has done all he can do for Everton. His appointment as Sir Alex Ferguson's successor is what we all expected - including, apparently, Ferguson himself. As demonstrated at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, Everton - despite their apparent threadbare finances - are no-nonsense grafters in the manner of their manager of 11 years, playing robustly and effectively when consensus would say there's no need. Losing the substantial Fellaini would be a bitter blow, Leighton Baines even worse, but Everton - for all their modesty - have been left in creditable shape by the only possible candidate for the vacancy at Old Trafford.

Liverpool (61 pts, GD +28) 7th

For those still stuck in the era of big hair and bigger moustaches on Merseyside, to end seventh behind Everton but with a greater goal difference must be agony. It must be even harder to accept that in Luis Suarez, despite his headline-grabbing, arm-chewing antics, Liverpool had one of the Premier League's star assets this term. Brendan Rodgers even managed to return Daniel Sturridge to something approaching the quality he should have shown at Chelsea. But those aside, a disappointing season for the mighty Reds. Inconsistent and lacking the kind of strength across the park that Liverpool would have had without question in eras past. On the upside, Jamie Carragher retired, so we'll no longer have to put up with his scally whining.

West Bromwich Albion (49 pts, GD -4) 8th

OK, to be third at the end of October was the sort of start Baggies fans could have only dreamed of. And we have been there before with unfancied sides enjoying the nosebleed reaches of the table within the season's first three months. To end eigth may be disappointing, but put into context, not to be sniffed at either. Steve Clarke is still learning the art of management, and learning how to deal with player fallouts like Peter Odemwingie's ridiculous show-up at QPR (which he must be relieved about now...), which suggested an unhappy dressing room.

Swansea City (46 pts, GD -4) 9th

Roberto Martinez, Brendan Rogers and, this season, Michael Laudrup have made Swansea a team to keep a close eye on. Though never realistically likely to bother the upper echelon - for now - this term Laudrup (and a ball boy) helped them to the League Cup (their first trophy in 101 years) and produced a Top 10 finish. The signing of Michu was a big statement of a club with a very healthy attitude to development and, although the final third of the season didn't bring quite the same momentum of results as the first two-thirds, Laudrup has established himself as yet another Swansea manager with a future, and the club, an even better attacking package than ever before.

West Ham United (46 pts, GD -8) 10th

For a side connected, it would seem, by bungee rope to the Championship, Big Sam has instilled some stability - not to mention restored 'Ammers' customary robustness on their latest return to the Premier League. Tenth place may appear like the mid-table mediocrity Coventry went season-after-season pursuing and securing, but it reflects their solid home form (which took points off the two Manchesters and Chelsea) as well as their somewhat weaker performance on the road. The departure of Carlton Cole might indicate a bigger clearout by Allardyce, but the first priority must be pinning down Andy Carroll.

Norwich City (44 pts, GD -17) 11th

Chris Hughton's dismissal from Newcastle in December 2010 still sticks in the craw of many, so it appeared that his appointment to Norwich, succeeding Paul Lambert, promised to be the sort of "good guy lands good club" story. And so it has proven, sort of, with Norwich pulling off creditable home wins over Manchester United and Arsenal, and, despite some relegation wobbles, coming to a halt in 11th. Norwich fans will want more, of course, or at least less hovering around the Championship trap door that has detracted from their game, but the potential for Norwich to be a top half player is there for their taking.

Fulham (43pts, GD -10) 12th

We all love Martin Jol. Big old Anglophile bear of a manager. We all find his "...and ah think..." interviews endearingly frank, which is no great surprise from a Dutchman. The trouble is, Fulham have hardly progressed under him. His squad has aged and even with Dimitar Berbatov/Andy Garcia in the ranks, Fulham have failed to look anything more than mid-table pedestrians. Jol may pay the price for this, with an unsettled Gus Poyet at Brighton possibly considering the 'other' west Londoners his next career development platform.

Stoke City (42 points, GD -11) 13th

No vintage season for Stoke. Not so long ago they were the Premier League's Awkward Squad, possessing the disruptive ability  to bruise the egos of clubs with bigger purses and bigger reputations. This time around they've looked less than average at times, prompting questions about whether Tony Pulis had taken them as far as he could. Developments, yesterday, at the Britannia Stadium said that they had. Sir Alex Ferguson lasted 26 years at Manchester United, the result of a perfect storm of club, finances, players bought and players brought through. Tony Pulis lasted just seven years by comparison, but even that is a lengthy stay in this day and age, when simply establishing your side as a Premier League fixture isn't enough. Directors want more, and the supporters want even more in the way of team development..

Southampton (41 pts, GD -11) 14th

Much like the Little Britain sketch in which serial ASBO collector Vicky Pollard complained that she didn't have a "brahn baby" like every other girl on her estate, Premier League clubs could be forgiven for missing out on the phenomenon of being taken over by a mad but wealthy foreign owner who promptly goes about creating dysfunctionality like an unwanted outbreak of acne in adulthood. Thus, Southampton acquired their very own sugar daddy, Markus Liebherr, who subsequently established Italian banker Nicola Cortese as club chairman, and then they set about securing Saints' long-term future. Keeping Nigel Adkins in place as manager maintained at least two seasons of stability at the club with renewed ambition, but his generally-deemed unfair sacking in January, suggested another foreign owner gone nuts. But unlike, say, the Di Matteo/Benitez transition, the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino has at least endeared the fans, especially with the team's adoption of attacking football. What won't go down well, inevitably, is a precarious bottom half finish, with that term "safety" being a more acceptable term than "almost".

Aston Villa (41 pts, GD -22) 15th

Villa have had a truly baffling season. From Premier League staples, they started taking on water quite ominously. The 8-0 Christmas defeat to Chelsea - a fixture that normally gives Villa rich pickings and damns the incumbent Chelsea coach to an Abramovich payoff - was a low point from which they only just managed to recover in the nick of time in the final two weeks of the season. That said, Paul Lambert is in the luxurious position of having a club owner who recognises that his manager is trying to build a young new team. It will take time, as the disjointed performances this season have exposed, but in Christian Benteke they have a precocious talent to build around or behind. For now, 2012-13 may simply be a season for Villa to draw a line under and build on.

Up and down the land, the final day of the 2012-13 season was notable for its so-what results, the odd last-minute escape and a handful of retirements. Of them all, none were more poignant than that of Stiliyan 'Stan' Petrov, the Villa captain diagnosed with acute leukaemia - "this crazy thing" as he calls it. Football wishes him every success in continuing to fight it and fight for those who also have it.

Newcastle United (41 pts, GD -23) 16th

How Newcastle ended up 16th (and that could have been a lot worse) from their fifth-place finish last season is an abject lesson in how easily - and quickly - it can all go wrong in the Premier League. No sooner had the club tied itself to Alan Pardew for a six-year contract, than the points started dropping like Christmas tree pine needles on Boxing Day. Another club which hasn't been without its own form of owner meddling-induced madness, Newcastle's bright start almost ended in relegation, the football equivalent of the office lift's cable snapping. The New Year influx of young French talent may have been good news at the time, but their apparent failure to gel appeared to be major factors in the telephone number-score defeats inflicted in the second two-thirds of the season.

Sunderland (39 pts, GD -13) 17th

If this season's verdicts seem to draw mainly on the instability of so many clubs, then it's no accident. Managerial firings well into the season have now become so commonplace that we're pretty blasé about them. The sight of Martin O'Neill - arguably one of the most respected gaffers in the game - struggling to arrest Sunderland's slide with a squad seemingly lacking any of the passion and nuclear reactor-like drive of the Northern Irishman was a pity. So what do they do next? Bring in a manager with no Premier League experience and a historic sympathy towards fascism. Not since the FA bungled their attempted appointment of Luiz Felipe Scolari as England coach has a managerial arrival been such a PR disaster. To his credit, Paolo di Canio kept Sunderland out of relegation - just - but only by coming second in the 'mini league' fighting for Premier League survival in the lower reaches. In the process, it would appear, di Canio has applied his own version of tough love. Time, and next season, will see whether his approach has been the right one. For now, this season has to be marked down as a very poor one for Sunderland.

Wigan Athletic (36 points, GD -26) 18th Relegated

Yes, yes, yes. It was all very Hollywood to see Wigan beat Manchester City in the dying seconds of the FA Cup Final. Yes, yes, yes, we Brits love an underdog. Roberto Martinez is one of football's most likeable and erudite managers, and Dave Whelan, apparently, one of those old school, local-boy-made-good chairman (unlike that porky upstart across the country at Newcastle...). But, romance aside, Wigan left it too little too late to fight themselves out of the drop. Always a good side to watch, always - by reputation - a good side to play for under Martinez, it just didn't go right this term. When they had to dig themselves out of trouble, the response was brilliant. Just too late. If Whelan can keep Martinez, and the core of the squad, they'll be back.

Reading (28pts, GD -30) 19th Relegated 

Have I mentioned dysfunctional clubs already? Oh well, have another one. Same story, promoted, start to flag, didn't invest, replaced the manager with almost a clone of his predecessor, and still found themselves going straight back down to the Championship. Sadly, Reading's Premier League season was simply one of underachievement, and they paid the price.

20th Queens Park Rangers (25 pts, GD -30) 20th Relegated 

Manchester City and Chelsea could easily look down the cliff face that is the Premier League and see QPR losing their grip and plummeting back to the Championship. While QPR's equally minted rivals have an infinitely stronger tenure on their elite league status, QPR's season has served as a stark reminder that, no matter how much money you throw at the problem, and even bringing in Harry Redknapp to work his Houdini magic, if you don't have your playing assets kicking the damn ball in the right manner, you will get sucked out of the top flight as fast as you were blown into it on a gilded magic carpet.

Things were a mess when Redknapp walked into Loftus Road, as Mark Hughes' heals were seen skidding off into the distance. Hughes, yet to truly demonstrate the same managerial form he had running Wales in his first coaching job, left his successor in November with a team who appeared happy to slide inexorably towards the Premier League exit, while continuing to cash Tony Fernandes generous cheques. Jose Boswinga - a flash-in-the-pan right-back at Chelsea - took on the mantle of representing best QPR's mercenary player profile, with his ridiculous refusenik stance showing that Redknapp had, like Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen (and forgive another war movie reference), been handed the worst of the worst.

While it may seem generous not to blame Redknapp, blame for result after lurid result must be placed squarely on the players' shoulders. For once, the accusation that a team gets a club relegated, not the manager, has been proven correct. If Fernandes has the ability to do so, he will let Redknapp rebuild in the Championship, while ruthlessly discarding those who patently don't want to be at QPR, haven't wanted to be there, and shouldn't be there any longer.

We knew this day would have to come

And so it has finally happened: a fixture as seemingly irreplaceable, as immovable, and as unequalled as Sir Alex Ferguson has given his notice.

For months he's blown smoke on ideas of retirement. Just four days ago, in his programme notes for the Chelsea game, Fergie dismissed the idea of going anywhere, anytime soon, although he did seed a clue or two:

"This team of champions is not going away - we are here for the long ride. We will get better and if we apply ourselves in our normal fashion I see our 20th league title as nothing but the start of another decade of success."

But he added, crucially: "Whether I will be here to oversee another decade of success remains to be seen, but I certainly don't have any plans at the moment to walk away from what I believe will be something special and worth being around to see."

Walk away. Not walk upstairs, which is what he will do in a new, post-managerial role as a member of the club board. “The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about and one that I have not taken lightly. It is the right time," Fergie declared in the club's official press release.

"It was important to me to leave an organisation in the strongest possible shape and I believe I have done so," he added. "The quality of this league winning squad, and the balance of ages within it, bodes well for continued success at the highest level whilst the structure of the youth set-up will ensure that the long-term future of the club remains a bright one."

Just how comfortable SAF will be up there in the Old Trafford director's box also remains to be seen. Not having him sat in the home dugout, chewing like a somewhat twitchy, ruddy-faced camel, will be odd enough for us, let alone for the irascible Scot himself. His new, lofty eyrie will certainly not be the environment to start waving his watch at refs or administering the Govan hairdryer to players or officials.

There's no point mincing words about Ferguson: he has, at times, been an unbearable bully. To his players and even players of other teams; to managers he doesn't like or to those who commit offence to managers he does; to journalists who've dared cross him and, of course, to officials and the authorities with the temerity to police him.

One can't deny that the bullying and discipline has, like that of a drill sergeant, produced results. Likewise The Sun newspaper was at its sharpest, its funniest, its most relevant and most read when under the shouty editorship of Kelvin Mackenzie (an under-estimatedly clever newspaper editor, not that you could mention such an opinion anywhere on Merseyside). Fergie may not have produced sensationalist newspapers, but in his application of the same tough love he produced two sensational generations of footballers.

This in-your-face swagger has also made Manchester United the club to envy and admire in equal measure. The United chequebook has lavished money on apparently untouchable signings like Paul Ince, Steve Bruce, Roy Keane, Eric Cantona, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney - all for record amounts to leave us grinding our teeth (complain as you might about the Russian and Middle Eastern money sloshing about elsewhere, Manchester United set the bar high for eye-watering acquisitions).

And here is where we reluctantly, perhaps, cross the red line with Sir Alex. For all his bullying, for all his arrogance, for all the disingenuity, you have to admire him. He is retiring at the end of a staggering 27 years in charge of Manchester United. Compare that with Blackburn Rovers and Nottingham Forest who've managed to have four managers each in just this season alone. More importantly, compare Ferguson's record with that of the Manchester United's peer group: in the time Ferguson has been in charge at Old Trafford, Real Madrid have had 24 managers, Chelsea have had 18, AC Milan have had 13 and Inter Milan 19, and Manchester City, Juventus and Bayern Munich 13 each.

Manchester United's consistent success over the last three decades isn't just down to Ferguson, of course. He has been the integral element of a perfect storm that brought him together with Premier League money and the club's scale to develop young talent that have been blended perfectly with the acquired.

Those around the club have simply lacked all or some of these elements: Arsenal has had the manager, some of the money and some of the players, but the inability to maintain the investment. Manchester City and Chelsea have enjoyed the money via arriviste proprietorship, brought in the players as a result, but have yet to display anywhere near the consistency.

In Chelsea's case, in particular, the continuous managerial upheaval sets them apart from their great northern rival. It's interesting to note that in December 1989, Manchester United were hovering just outside the relegation zone of the old First Division. In today's terms, with the sort of proprietors that exist in the game, Ferguson could have easily found himself out of the door. United - to it's genuine credit - persevered. The club had the vision to recognise they were building something. And so they have continued in the same vein. Big names have come, big names have gone, youngsters have come through, and the club has successfully, and usually somewhat subtly, reinvented itself under Ferguson.

Manchester United haven't always had it all their own way under Sir Alex Ferguson: when Jose Mourinho's Chelsea took the Premier League title off them twice in 2005 and 2006 the chatter began, then, that the end of the Scot's tenure at Old Trafford was in sight. Now it is. The club is as strong as it ever has been. The next manager - be it a Moyes or Mourinho - will have large shoes to fill...and a large mountain of expended chewing gum to sit in front of.

He's not the Messiah, just a very gifted footballer

In much of the world, we've become quite used to the commonly employed calendar system. We know that this is 2013 AD, and at some point in time there was a year 1AD.

Before that, we had the BC era, which goes back to, well, whenever somebody first named the years in decreasing numbers until you got to 1BC, skipping 0, clearly, because that would have meant having 0BD/AD as a year, which would have sounded like a blood group.

Fans of the England football team, however, follow a similar system to the Jewish calendar, ignoring conventional chronology. Orthodox followers of English football believe the modern era began in 1966. And it’s been downhill ever since.

1966 should have heralded a glorious new dawn, but it darkened pretty quickly. By 1972, in fact, when West Germany wrought revenge for the Wembley brouhaha involving a Russian linesman, and ejected England – not for the first time, either – from the European Championships that year. Worse was to come with failure to qualify at all for the 1974 World Cup, and again in 1978 when we all became honorary Scots, And so on, and so on, and so on..

So excuse the miracle-starved among us  for thinking there was a new Messiah abroad when, in 1998, a young boy danced through the Argentinian defence at the French-hosted World Cup match to score a wonder goal.

The boy was Michael Owen: born in Chester on December 14, 1979, and who this week announced his intention to retire at the end of this season. At the age of 11, he joined Liverpool as a schoolboy player, turning professional on his 17th birthday. By this stage there was already plenty of buzz about him. Was he The One? On his first-team debut for Liverpool, Owen scored against Wimbledon, setting the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a nation alive with his arrival.

And then came 30 June 1998. In Saint-Étienne (the French town, not the Sarah Cracknell-fronted indy electro darlings). Aged just 18, he pulled off the goal that had us all convinced he was The One. Collecting a pass from David Beckham, Owen set off on a winding run through the Argentina defence, snaking through it like a raging, coursing river, before letting fly just outside the penalty box, with the ball whistling past goalkeeper Carlos Roa.

While Beckham would get sent off just after half-time for his petulant kickout at the odious Gabriel Batistuta, and the game would end ingloriously on penalties (with Argentina progressing to the quarter-finals), that one goal would be burned in our memories as the start of something new.

The following season’s home Chelsea league fixture against Liverpool was a must-attend. We all wanted to see the wunderkind who’d lifted our hopes that summer.

For Liverpool, Owen would deliver 158 goals in 297 appearances (take note, F Torres). However, by the time the-then 26-year-old made a Mr. Big Pants move to Real Madrid, his star - even with such a prodigious goal record at Anfield - had already started to wain. Some say it had faded by the time he turned 21.

Today, Michael Owen may be preparing for retirement with a multitude of records to his name, but the one least likely to appear in his private trophy cabinet is the title of "Most Likely To Be Found On A Treatment Table". Like a footballing meteor lighting up the night sky, Owen's early promise did, let's be honest, fizzle somewhat, thanks to injuries which surely couldn't have been helped by being thrust onto the world stage so young.

Owen's switch to Madrid produced a solitary season of just 40 appearances with Galacticos like Zidane, Figo, Carlos and Raul, and a return of just 14 goals. But as inevitable as injuries were, part of the problem was the fit: he just missed the Premier League. Who can blame him?

Returning to England, Owen could have gone back to Liverpool: he wanted to, but the record shows that one Rafa Benitez wasn't interested. I'll say no more than that. Instead. Newcastle took him on, until a broken metatarsal playing for England at the end of 2005 led to a year out, and Owen was never the same player again, though 30 goals in 79 games for Newcastle is still not that bad. Sadly,

After Owen parted company with Newcastle in 2009, Sir Alex Ferguson took a punt and brought the striker to Manchester United. A 30-year-old striker is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at Didier Drogba. But at 30 Owen was, in Premier League years, and old man. Still, he gave Manchester United 17 strikes in 52 games, and another couple of seasons at a top club, before moving this season to Stoke for just seven appearances so far and a single goal.

No one, however, is that surprised Owen has chosen to retire at the and of this season. Injuries not withstanding, the fire that tore apart the Argentinian defence in 1998 has long since been reduced to a flickering flame.

You could argue that the 15 years since Saint-Étienne have seen diminishing returns. But let's not quibble too much. Some things aren't meant to last long: Jimi Hendrix only made three proper albums; The Beatles broke up less than 10 years into their recording career; and it is true that a Big Mac is over with too soon. If only for that one goal in France in 1998, we can be thankful that Michael Owen blazed. It was just a bit early, and didn't last long.

Red faces all round

It would be dreadfully obvious for me to launch into badinage over Manchester United's Champions League exit last night, but come on, there is surely nothing funnier than Sir Alex Ferguson in full-blown eruption, the hairdryer set to 'Kill'.

I just couldn't get enough of Sky Sports News repeatedly showing the clip of an apoplectic SAF leaping (well, sort of leaping) from the exotically furnished home team dugout to protest at Nani's red card.

At first he seemed unable to decide in which direction he should explode. Like Dad's Army's Corporal Jones in full "Don't panic!" fluster, Fergie appeared to go this way and that, before an unfortunate camera angle (the camera being positioned on the other side of the Old Trafford pitch) caught sight of Mike Phelan with the outstretched arms of his boss emerging from behind him.

When Congreve wrote the oft-misquoted "...nor hell a fury like a woman scorned..." he clearly had no idea of what an enraged 71-year-old Scotsman could be capable of in unleashing such a flamethrower of bile about a refereeing decision that he could be left "too distraught" to speak to the media afterwards. "It's a distraught dressing room and a distraught manager. That's why I am sitting here now," explained Phelan in the post-match press conference, by way of some apology.

Well, we've all been there before, either through travesties of officiating calamity or literal applications of the law. Cast your mind back to the 2004-05 Champions League semi-final between Liverpool and Chelsea when the red team - managed by one Rafael Benitez - beat the blue team by a single goal. This was later described by the then-Chelsea boss, a certain Jose Mourinho, as a "ghost goal", on account of the fact that Luis Garcia's fourth minute strike didn't actually cross the Chelsea goal line, and that William Gallas - in a career-rare example of commitment - cleared it off the line.

Cast your mind back, as well, to the 2008-2009 Champions League semi-final between, yes, Chelsea and Barcelona, during which the hapless referee Tom Henning Ovrebo managed to turn down four nailed-on penalty appeals by Chelsea in a game largely dominated by the gravitationally-challenged behaviour of Barca players, and capped by Didier Drogba's industrial rant down the lens of a live television camera. Ovrebo had to be smuggled out of England. All round, not exactly football's finest evening.

So, then, last night's result couldn't really have happened to a nicer team. The rationalist in me can see the point many neutrals made last night, that Manchester United were grandly injusticed. But I've seen United get away with too much over the years to care; Fergie's hectoring of fourth officials, and his impetuous wristwatch-tapping when trying to shorten extra time, like an irascible pensioner complaining that his mobility bus is running late.

Man U have had plenty go their way, so an injustice, even one as perceptibly heinous as last night's, only generates so much sympathy in me. Yes, from one angle Nani appeared to go in studs-up like Bruce Lee, and, yes, from another angle, he looked like he was trying to hook down the ball, and Alvaro Arbeloa merely clattered into him.

Even as a Chelsea fan, with previous with Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir (he sent off John Terry at the Nou Camp last year for that kneeing incident with Barcelona's Alexis Sanchez in the Champions League semi-final), one ultimately has to agree with the Nani decision. Cakir was correctly applying the letter of the law. Studs up - early bath. Even if it was clear, from the more advanced optics of TV, that Nani's eyes remained trained throughout the incident on the ball.

But, Roy Keane - being somewhat disingenuous, perish the idea - had a point: "It's dangerous play - it's a red card. You have to be aware of other players on the pitch. Does [Nani]  think he's going to have 20 yards to himself?". One wonders what Keane himself would have done...

The pain of accepting the red card decision being the right one is that with Nani walking on 56 minutes, Mourinho merely had to send in Modric and the odious Ronaldo to pull United asunder. Rarely has a red card inflicted such obvious pain on a side: Modric's equaliser was top-drawer, the winner from Ronaldo - who wears so much hair product these days you expect to see dead seabirds appearing on beaches - proved fatal.

The irony of last night, then, is that the man walking away from Old Trafford quietly, and with the smug grin we have all seen before, was Jose Mourinho. With a barely concealed smile, Mourinho shed a few crocodile tears in his own post-match interview: "Independent of the decision, the best team lost," he non-blubbed, adding: "We didn't deserve to win but football is like this."

Could you have blamed Mourinho for declaring the result sweet revenge for the Liverpool incident nine years ago? Course not.

Now is the winter of our discontent

"He's a disgrace to Liverpool Football Club. Some players should not be allowed to play for Liverpool again. With the history that club's got and in a situation like today, he could have caused a riot."Sir Alex Ferguson on Luis Suárez, Saturday 11 February, 2012

Have we had enough rancor yet? Or do we need more? If so, we surely don't need two of the most famous football clubs in the world supplying it.

Fabio Capello's petulant flounce from the England job this week may have become expensive collateral damage in the Ferdinand-Terry race row, but there was no requirement for anyone - least of all Liverpool's Luis Suárez, Manchester United's Patrice Evra or their respective clubs and managers - to reopen football's other simmering feud, with it's distasteful undercurrent of open and implied as well as accidental racism.

Things were bad enough two weeks ago when Evra was booed by Liverpool fans every time he touched the ball during the clubs' FA Cup tie. Players get booed like this for the most petty of reasons: Ashley Cole, who still gets booed by Arsenal fans for accepting the Abramovich coin in 2006, added Newcastle supporters to his fan club when he cheated on his Geordie wife, Cheryl Cole (the apparent singer, talent show judge and national sweetheart once found guilty for assault in a racially-tinged incident involving a Surrey nightclub's toilet attendant).

It is a normal part of player baiting, one has to accept. But booing a black player for making a complaint about an opponent making a racistly malicious remark? Different league. Likewise, did my own fellow Chelsea supporters really need to boo Rio Ferdinand for being Anton's bigger brother? Nope.

With the memory of their toxic last encounter only two weeks cold, Liverpool and Manchester United needed to tread very carefully before their league meeting yesterday at Anfield, given that it was also the reverse fixture from the game in which Suarez made his original remark to Evra, and since he was banned for eight games for the offence. If you then ice the cake with this North-West derby being one of the most contentious rivalries in sport, everyone needed to be on their best behaviour.

So, the sight of Suarez refusing to shake Evra's hand during the increasingly pointless pre-match love-in was probably one of the most brainless things I've ever seen a footballer do (and let's face it, there are plenty of brainless acts from which to choose).

However, the thing that troubles me more than else is the lack of club management in this issue. Kenny Dalglish - one of the most hailed figures in the modern game - has been relentlessly criticised for his lack of condemnation of Suarez in the first place. You would have thought he'd have gone the extra distance yesterday to tell Suarez to just get on with playing football and not inflame things further.

If it was disappointing seeing the idiot Suarez blanking Evra's handshake - itself an offer of profound significance - it was as disappointing to, again, find Dalglish implicitly supporting his striker by his lack of guidance and his lack of admonishment after the game.

There was, for years, a whiff of unfounded racism around Liverpool, with suggestions that the club had a policy of not signing black players, despite signing Howard Gayle in 1977 at a time when there were still few black players anywhere else in the-then First Division. Dalglish has done his club no favours at all by standing by Suarez by not saying anything about his behaviour towards Evra.

Liverpool isn't a racist club, and Sir Alex Ferguson's barbed reference yesterday to "...the history that club's got" didn't help, not that anything the Manchester United manager says when on such viperous form ever does (although I go some way to agreeing with him that Suarez was a disgrace for not shaking Evra's hand -  small gesture that would have travelled a thousand miles).

I don't believe that racism exists on any institutional level in football. It can't, surely? True, apart from the occasional Korean or Japanese player, there is a distinct lack of Asian players in the senior echelons of the game. But the idea of racism still being an ingrained problem, given the immensely black and white make-up of most professional teams (a fact that has hardly needed pointing out in recent years) is nonsense.

It would, though, be foolish to dismiss the signs of its lingering presence: the exit of Micah Richards from Twitter following the posting of racist comments against him, and the utterly vile comments posted yesterday against former Liverpool player and now talkSport presenter Stan Collymore show there is no shortage of morons out who are either racist, or stupid enough to think anonymously sending racist comments to black sportsmen and media personalities is clever.

British football is possibly teetering on a precipice when it comes to race: the next England manager will, potentially, have to deal with a team split between the anti-Terry lobby and those who can't care less. We don't need the remaining four months of the domestic game mired in a worsening atmosphere of poison.

Dead men walking in the Roman empire

"I knew my time was up. I knew from the start, from the very beginning I was just a dead man walking." Those were the reflections of Claudio Ranieri, the likeable if somewhat erratic Roman sacked by Roman Abramovich as Chelsea manager after a year of speculation. The poor man had to endure almost a season of rumours, including the clumsy, clandestine meeting between the Russian oligarch and Sven-Goran Eriksson.

When Ranieri was sacked, after a season in which he had earned the tag "Tinkerman" for his often eccentric team selections, he left with a rare dignity in an era of professional disrespect in football. Contrast that with his replacement, Jose Mourinho.

Roll on seven years and history has repeated itself: Carlo Ancelotti, another highly likeable Italian, has been dispatched by Abramovich, with the club explaining that: "This season's performances have fallen short of expectations and the club feels the time is right to make this change ahead of next season's preparations." This is the same club which won the Barclays Premier League title and the FA Cup in Ancelotti's first season in charge, the first league and cup double in Chelsea's history (patronisingly, the official club statement does make a nod to the Italian's achievements by adding: "Carlo will always be welcome at Stamford Bridge, where he will be given the reception and respect his position in our history deserves." Cheers. Thanks. Grazie.)

It is, of course, ludicrous to sack a manager who wins The Double in one season and only manages the  runners-up spot in his next. By this token, Arsene Wenger would have been fired years ago. But when you're Roman Abramovich, Britain's third richest resident and the 53rd richest man in the world, you can - and patently do - whatever you want.

What makes it all the more ridiculous, however, is that Ancelotti was the manager Abramovich wanted in the first place, even before he signed Mourinho (who remains Chelsea's most successful manager ever). So the story goes, when the newly-minted billionaire decided that his next 'must-have' bauble would be an English Premier League club, he began an obsession with winning the European Champions League - just as AC Milan seemed to be very good at doing...under then-manager Ancelotti.

Abramovich is said to have courted Ancelotti to become Chelsea manager several times before he eventually prised him away from the San Siro in 2009. Until then, all Abramovich had been able to get out of Milan was the perma-crocked and extremely expensive Andrei Shevchenko. With Ancelotti finally he had the manager he'd always wanted; and with the results of the 2009-2010 season, it would appear his obsession with the Reggiolan had been worth it.

Come the new season, and Chelsea came back out of the traps like Wile E. Coyote strapped to a new Road Runner-seeking rocket, winning their first two games 6-0 and seemingly running away with the Premier League before most people's summer tans had started to peel. But then the wheels started to fall off: Ray Wilkins - the genial former club captain-turned media-friendly coach was informed - at half-time of a reserve match, if you please - that his contract wasn't being renewed. Both the timing and the motivation of this stank. Almost at once, Chelsea's fortunes turned, soon conceding top spot and the generous margin it had built over Manchester United, and enduring a winter of discontent which even saw them fall out of European positions for next season.

Whatever magic Ancelotti had applied in his first season had somehow been irretrievably lost down the back of the sofa by Christmas. Nothing, and no-one seemed to be getting the side up on its feet. Ancelotti was already looking like the next dead man walking. Given that Abramovich had dispensed with Jose Mourinho after an indifferent Champions League match in September 2007, his successor, Avram Grant went within days of taking Chelsea to within a penalty kick of the European Cup, and his successor Luis Felipe Scollari walked the plank after just seven months in February 2009, Ancelotti's departure was a foregone conclusion, regardless of the logic.

To his credit, the club rallied: despite or in spite of the preposterous £50 million arrival of Fernando Torres in the January transfer window (an arrival which has produced just the one league goal since), Chelsea clawed their way back into contention for the league title itself. However, as incredible as it seemed that they could still retake the top spot they'd conceded to Manchester United some months before, defeats in Europe and the league to the Mancunians sealed Ancelotti's fate.

Disarming and dignified to the last, the Italian maintained a que sera sera stoicism that whatever would happen wouldn't bother him. There would be no wailing or gnashing of teeth, no Latin histrionics. He would politely walk away.

No Chelsea manager walks away empty-handed, of course: the modern penchant for golden parachutes means that in prematurely jettisoning five managers in seven years, Roman Abramovich has also forked out a substantial amount of money - as much as the price of a Torres - in payoffs.

And so, Chelsea starts its search for the eighth manager of the Abromovich era. Money is already changing hands on who will be the next lucky individual. Meanwhile, Sir Alex Ferguson celebrates his 19th league title in almost 25 years as Manchester United manager. That's almost a quarter of a century, and 27 trophies in all. No prizes for guessing the secret of his success, then.

Success for anyone mad enough to take on the Chelsea job will always be fleeting. Jose Mourinho won back-to-back Premier League championships but was still sacked; Ancelotti was even the one Abramovich had wanted, but was still sacked. Whoever enters the Roman lion's den next will have but one objective - win the Champions League. If he fails, there will be only one outcome.