Despite the season turning into one of relative success and Latics finishing off with a run of form that would do for 80% of the division, I’m struggling to motivate myself to pull together a review of what hopefully will prove a real watershed for the club. In fact the whole nine months has been a real struggle, not so much because of goings on at the JJB but because of some strange mal-de-football that crept up on me over the summer.
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How do you want to play this? Shall we ignore the fact that there were two teams on the pitch and focus on United’s success or shall we give condescending praise to Latics for bothering to turn up? Well, the media seem to have both those angles covered well enough without me having to bother. They even seem to have boxed off the ‘United were lucky on the day’ angle, if not with as much seriousness as someone wearing blue tinted glasses may treat the refereeing decisions that went the way of the champions.
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With draws against Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea in the bag, Steve Bruce may already have thought his side had already had their say in the title race and would be looking forward to a nice final afternoon in the sun, helping his old gaffer celebrate the close of another successful league season. Instead it will be all eyes on Latics as they face the unlikely sounding prospect of Premier League winners medals being dished out on the JJB sandbank. Read the rest of this entry »
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Well, I got it wrong again. After writing off any possibility of Latics deciding their own destiny they returned from Villa Park not only with safety confirmed but with three points, enough to take them to the magical forty point mark, and a performance that, notwithstanding next week, could rank up there as the best of the season.
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With the finish line in sight, it’s almost as if Latics’ own results don’t matter. I doubt I’d be saying that if we were playing Newcastle and Sunderland over the next two weeks, but instead we’ve got one of the form teams in the division and the team with poll position but plenty to do before the league is sewn up. In essence we’ve have to account for getting no more points this season and look to results elsewhere to keep us safe.
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You could almost hear the orgasm in Clive Tyldesley’s voice as he announced, without any sense of irony the biggest game ever between two English club sides, the ultimate vindication of the media fallacy that the Premier League is the biggest and best footballing arena in the whole wide universe. Yes, it’s great, but in reality having three of the four semi-finalists in European football’s biggest money spinner tells us little about the state of the domestic game.
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Latics 0-0 Reading
Saturday 26th April 2008
Well, my head is fairly battered after that one. A game that was, at best, 75 minutes too long and a good chunk of mental arithmetic, that turned out to be wasted when I finally got around to checking the fixtures and realised that it was Fulham and not Reading that Birmingham have next week. So we’re back where we started and whilst the table and the sums are on our side, the fixtures mean that we’ll be looking to other games on the last two weekends of the season, just to make sure of another year at this level.
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Whilst the January window may not have brought the shopping spree that many expected, this summer looks set to be an interesting time for both Latics fans and Dave Whelan’s accountant. The club posting an £8m loss isn’t the best omen for those hoping that we’ll finally see some squad strengthening, rather than rebuilding, but with a new man at the helm with a bit more of a reputation in this area, there’s every chance that the chairman’s yearly promise of cash may finally be tested.
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Latics 1-1 Spurs
Saturday 19th April 2008
This time two years ago, I wasn’t watching Latics, aided by a superb Bullard volley, beat Aston Villa as that fantastic first top flight season wound to a close. Despite my best efforts to convince Mrs Perm otherwise, it will be a couple of years yet before the 19th April becomes a match going day again.
More’s the pity, because, 2nd Birthday or not, a draw where both sides have abandoned thoughts of defending properly is as good an introduction to football as you can hope to get.
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I’ve just sat down to throw together a half cocked preview of tonight’s game at Stamford Bridge and, to my dismay, the first phrase that came to mind was ‘this is another one of those games’. It should hardly come as a surprise to find myself thinking that way, and I wouldn’t be the only Latics fan who has mentally written off any chance of the lads returning from West London with anything other than a few signed shirts and assorted other goodies from the Chelsea superstore.
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Despite the season turning into one of relative success and Latics finishing off with a run of form that would do for 80% of the division, I’m struggling to motivate myself to pull together a review of what hopefully will prove a real watershed for the club. In fact the whole nine months has been a real struggle, not so much because of goings on at the JJB but because of some strange mal-de-football that crept up on me over the summer. 
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