Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors

The final day. After a week of great confidence I've woken up a little nervous, but still confident. Just want the games to start.

My nervous energy has prevented me from doing too much analysis of the day's articles but anyway...

In The Sunday Times there is actually an article which says what everyone in their right mind can see but which the papers usually don't admit:

It is a fascinating finish, the most compelling since 1972, when Brian Clough’s Derby County pipped Leeds and Liverpool, both by a single point, while sunning themselves on a beach in Majorca, and the outcome could challenge the time-honoured tenet that any league is always won by the best team in it.

In terms of points, there is nothing to choose between Manchester United and Chelsea going into the Premier League’s denouement day. Only United’s superior goal difference - an insurmountable margin of 17 better than that of Chelsea - separates the European Cup finalists at the top of the table.

So much for the arithmetic. In terms of the quality of football played these past nine months, there is clear daylight between them, reflected in the fact that the defending champions have scored 14 goals more than their rivals, averaging more than two goals per game, and possess both the country’s most prodigious and prolific talent in Cristiano Ronaldo and its most watertight defence.

In the eyes of all bar those viewing the issue through blue-tinted spectacles, United are the most accomplished and talented team, and yet . . .

The last few weeks I have taken great confidence from the fact that the best team always wins the league, and we are self-evidently the best team. I still say that today, I really can't see us not beating Wigan.

Hugh McIlvanney in The Sunday Times writes on the final day, but the bit I want to quote is not specifically about us, it's about football in general and I thought it pretty good:

But for a multitude of us the basic appeal of football, of the playing and spectating pleasures that have made it unchallengeably the most popular team game ever devised, remains more than strong enough to survive the vandalising effects of the money-driven culture now enveloping its values. On a day like this, though we can’t forget the ills, we can happily embrace the thrills. A suspicion that somewhere up ahead the bullion train will hit the buffers needn’t stop us from relishing a Sunday ride of raw excitement.

And on that note I go direct to the final story, there was more about, but like I say, I just want to get to 3 o'clock.
The News of the World reports:

MANCHESTER UNITED have taken the first steps in a sensational move to sign Michael Owen.

Informal contact has been made between United and Owen's representatives over a summer transfer.

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson believes he can snap up the England striker for a cut-price £7million and is pushing for a speedy conclusion to the deal.