The Footie - World Soccer News

A Successful Season for Chelsea and Manchester United? But what about Liverpool and Arsenal?

by Sack the Juggler on May 21st, 2007

And so the FA cup final draws yet another season to an end, and what has it shown us?  Well for a kick off its shown us that the FA cup no longer marks the end of the season, as we still have a little matter of Liverpool v Milan later this week.

The FA cup final itself was a bit sterile, but just Chelsea edged it both in terms of play and in goals!  Chelsea seemed more up for it than United, for whom Ronaldo, Rooney and even Giggs seemed to go missing for large parts of the game.

Perhaps, after a long and stressful season United were more than happy with bringing home the Premiership title, something that Chelsea would have no doubt swapped for their trophy haul of FA Cup and Carling Cup. 

Manchester United have led from the front in the Premiership, and despite a few slip ups towards the end they managed to hold off a fierce push by Chelsea to finish 21 points ahead of third placed Liverpoo, which shows the size of the task facing the other potential challengers to title next season.  And thought they were close in both the Champions League and the FA cup, they will settle for their haul this season, and know they will have to keep raising the bar next season if they are to keep winning trophies.

The Chelsea Board have apparently already expressed their displeasure at the season’s results, although two trophies and runners up spot is still a good season for Chelsea, especially when considering they lost Petr Cech and John Terry for a large part of the season.

Arsenal have a new stadium, but the only thing that they have won this season has been the admiration of their football.  Other than that they have had little else to cheer about.  Although they have made it into the Champions League qualifying positions for next season, this season has seen them beaten on the field, and possibly beaten off it with a potential takeover bid that could split the club and its staff. 

But if they do get a new owner, it wont all be bad news.  A club is bigger than any one player, manager or owner, Arsenal will survive and will be looking to improve next season.

Which brings us to the one English club still left with something to play for; Liverpool.  It may not have always been pretty, but “shit on a stick” was probably a harsh description of their style of football this season.  The fact is that they are only 90 minutes away (or more likely 120 minutes and penalties away) from winning a sixth European Cup (in its various guises).

Rick Parry has already had a bitter dig at Chelsea saying that he hopes they are happy to have just won the Carling Cup this season, and even though Jose can now add the FA cup to his trophy haul to put alongside the Premiership titles that Parry conveniently forgot, I’m sure Chelsea would love to be in Liverpool’s shoes right now.

Whether or not Liverpool win the Champions League later this week is largely irrelevant.  They are there because they know how to avoid defeat, and regardless of the result they will boost their coffers for the following season, even if they don’t have another trophy to boast about. 

Chelsea could argue that Liverpool have equally spent many millions in not winning the Premiership title (albeit over a longer timeframe), however once all the back biting has finished, all eyes will be on Liverpool on Wednesday night, watching them trying to turn AC Milan over once again. 

I wonder that the odds are for a draw?

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