english football - the 2007-2008 season

ManU Champion

Despite the impression that ManU hugely deserved, that they were more solid than Arsenal and more brilliant than Chelsea, the final run was in fact extremely narrow. ManU and Chelsea had the same number of points after 37 games and in their last game, that ManU needed to win away at Wigan, ManU could have had Scholes expelled in the first half for a second, very obvious yellow card – critical referee decision.

MU was not quite as strong this season although they scored almost the same number of points (89 v. 87) and they dropped points in the final games. It is the smallest total since MU in 2002-2003. The gap between 1 and 2 (2 points) and between 1 and 3 (4 points) is by far the smallest in recent history. Last year the 1-to-3 gap was 21 points as number three (Liverpool) was never really in the race. Chelsea led by Avram Grant made second again and won more points than last year under Mourinho (85 v. 83).


The Arsenal Season

Arsenal scored 83 points, a huge improvement over the last two seasons (67 and 68 points), and more than France Champion Lyon (79 points, 7 defeats).

On February 11, I was at the Emirates, invited by Teun, to see Arsenal bear Blackburn 2-0 and take a five-point lead over ManU. It was my only visit at the Stadium this year. We knew that the Season was far from over and the fixtures tricky (away games at Chelsea and ManU), but a five-point lead should be a good-enough cushion.

On the next game on Feb 23, the turning point came at Birmingham City, one of the weakest team (they would eventually be relegated). Eduardo was horribly injured and the Birmingham player expelled, Walcott then scored twice for a 2-1 lead and it seemed that we would keep the 5-point lead over ManU; but in injury time, Clichy made this horrible mistake that led to a penalty, a 2-2 draw and the loss of two points. I saw that at the pub. I was furious and petrified. Everybody was. The end of the season was still far away and the game had no particular significance but everybody felt that that double blow was bad omen. We were losing another key striker for the rest of the season after can Van Percie injury, and moreover, confidence was broken. In this occasion the captain Gallas did little for the morale and solidarity of the team, making it even more melodramatic. He sit alone in disgust and disbelief on the pitch long after the final whistle, like he needed to calm down before going back to the dressing room, to avoid killing Clichy.

It was indeed the first of an awful series of four draws against secondary teams: Aston Villa (H), Wigan (A), Middlebrough (H), while ManU was winning all their games. So the 5-points lead became a 3-points tail by mid-March.

It is bitter to realise that DESPITE that bad run we had in March, we STILL could have clinch the title. We were one up at Chelsea 20 with 20 minutes to play. We were one up at Manchester with 30 minutes to play. Then Van der Saar made this fantastic save to deny Rio Ferdinand awkward back pass. With most goalkeepers this was a sure own-goal, Arsenal would have been 2-0 up with 25 minutes to play at Old Trafford; Arsenal would have probably won that game. 3 more points to us, 3 points less to ManU; the final ranking would have been Arsenal 86, Chelsea 85, MU 84. But then I guess we were lucky on other occasions, like the injury-time Gallas goal that avoided losing to ManU at home in November and the 2-3 10-men victory over Bolton.

Considering how narrow it has been in the end, one cannot avoid to think that, had Wenger bought one more striker during the winter window to compensate for Percie’s long term injury, the Eduardo injury would have had lesser consequences. Adebayor had a great season: he scored 24 league goals including in decisive games like at Liverpool in Champions and at Old Trafford. But after the Percie/Eduardo injuries he could not hold the attack alone and nobody was there to support him when, like everybody else, he had this period of tiredness in March (Bendtner was little help).

Champions League

We had to suffer another horrible moment this season during the second leg of the Champions League quarter final against Liverpool. After a 1-1 draw in London, we scored first in Liverpool, showing great football. Then two Senderos mistakes and a good Torres goal made 2-1 for the Reds. 10 minutes before time I was resignated to being out. But then Theo Walcott restored hope with this fantastic 80 metres run. It was worthy of the greatest runs in football history, those by Maradona, Tigana or Giresse. After eliminating six or seven Liverpool players he finally delivered to Adebayor who scored for 2-2.

We were qualified on away goal with 7 minutes to go. It was all the more painful when two minutes later an awkward situation made a penalty for Liverpool – a situation that looked a lot like the fault on Hleb that was NOT sanctioned by the referee in the first leg. Gerard scored. 3-2, it was over. Losing is OK, but losing on a penalty, five minutes from time, after having scored this extraordinary goal by Walcott/Adebayor, that was very very hard. But I want to remember this epic Walcott run, as well as the victory in San Siro over trophy holder Milan AC, with a glorious shot by Fabregas.

There was other fantastic games this season: the second leg of Chelsea-Arsenal was great and the Moscow Final Chelsea-MU was thrilling. Chelsea was horribly unlucky (three woodwork including Terry’s slipping on a decisive penalty) ; normally I hate Chelsea more than ManU but during that game I found myself supporting Chelsea especially after Ronaldo screwed his penalty shooter. And that’s too much glory for ManU…

The domination of the Big Four

The top four shows the usual big four. Over the last six seasons only Everton (fourth in 2004-2005) and Newcastle (third in 2002-2003) have put their names in the top four. This year, Newcastle’s returning coach Kevin Keegan said after losing to Chelsea that there is no way Magpies or any other club can make top four for all eternity. It shocked the locals and trigger and press argument: is it a good or a bad thing? A majority of pundits said it is true that there are two Premiere Leagues, top four and the rest, but it is OK because both are thrilling. It is true that the average points of top four has been steadily increasing over the last six years: 83 points this season, 74 points six years ago, and only 69 points this year in France.

The English big four are also dominating European football with, for the second year in a row, three English teams in the semi-finals, and a 100% English final.

Goal of the year
Ex aequo Adebayor’s volley against Spurs and Rooney’s exquisite lob against Portsmouth.

my world-famous clafoutis recipe

A recipe is probably the last thing people who know me would expect on my blog. But Clafoutis is the one and only recipe I know. I should know more: after all my grand-father Emile was a patissier. He retired at 67 when I was an 8-years-old boy and for a while I lived with my grand-pa and granny in this tiny town in Limousin in the centre of France. He gave up professional cooking and one of the only cake he was still doing occasionally was Clafoutis, a typical and easy pudding from Limousin. He called that 'family pastry' dismissively by contrast to serious patisserie. Emile was doing cherry clafoutis, during the cherry season, and also pear-apple ones in winter. But it actually work with other fruits - I have also tested peach/rasperries and it was a success in several London picnic occasions, if I may say so (unless my friends are good liars).

For 8-10 people
6 eggs
200 ml milk
100g sugar – 6 tpsp
80g flour – 10 tsp
(in fact it is simply, more or less, a pancake dough)

Butter
1 tea spoon of rhum or kirch
Vanilla
Cinnamon

Fruits
- 500g cherries (keeping the kernels in makes clafoutis more juicy and spitting the kernels is part of the fun of this traditional country cake)
OR
- 450g peach, 170g raspberries

Preparation: 25 minutes
Cooking: 45-50 minutes (don't forget it takes an awful lot of time to cool down when out of the oven - I always forget and I arrive late at picnics)

Conversion:
1 tablespoon = 8g flour
1 tablespoon = 15g sugar