End of the Season's Greetings!!!

Well there's not a lot to catch up on, is there?

First thing's first. Well done, Man City. It's been a practical demonstration of the limitless power of immense wealth in this day and age. City are going to be the best team in the Premier League until the oil runs out.

I don't mean to be churlish. You couldn't ask for a better finish to a season. The toe-curling agony of them fans at the Etihad is going to be hard to beat. Never have I seen a football scarf so brutally treated.

But, much as when Chelsea first started getting bank-rolled by suspiciously-obtained roubles, the Premier League is the least Citeh should have expected. Toure, Kompany, Aguero and Silva have been terrific of course, as has Joe Hart (although he's going to have a bit more to do in Poland and Ukraine.)

Mancini has somehow managed to keep his hands on the tiller despite the mutiny and the fireworks. Ironically Tevez returned to help steer the ship and his only saving grace is that when you stick him on a football pitch with a ball to chase he becomes the most loyal of Argentine Terriers.

As for the United fans, well, they've tasted very little sour since Fergie took over. And this is bitter stuff indeed, but I can't say I'm too downhearted for 'em. The future has looked flaky before - and the impending retirements of Scholes (again), Giggs and Ferdinand pose some questions about the short-term. Long-term, it's about replacing the gaffer himself. And as he's irreplaceable, I suggest they just stick a cut-out of Fergie in the dressing-room, with some guttural Glaswegian on a loop, and a hairdryer in its hand, and I'm sure it'll be business as usual.

As for the bottom end, Bolton's departure saddened me until some anti-Coyle Burnley fan roared his approval in my ear at a boozer. She meant it n all. But the Trotters have been dogged by ill-fortune, near-tragedy and some well dodgy decisions and they've not been utterly undermined by the numpties in charge as has been the case at Blackburn and Wolves.

And QPR have played with all the headless chickenness of a Mark Hughes team: niggles, snarls and more red cards than a Soviet Union ticker-tape parade. You almost pine for those calm and thoughtful days when that beacon of football purity Neil Warnock was in charge.

In the meantime Roy Hodgson announces his first England squad and it reminds you instantly of two things: one, I've seen more strikers on a North Korean picket line; two, Roy is a honest but uninspiring bloke.

The big decision was to leave Rio behind and take Terry. A bolder man would've seen this as a time to lay a foundation and just left 'em both behind. Roy says it's a football decision, as if football is immune to external pressures. It isn't. Terry's position in the squad is no less invidious because Ferdinand's absent. He's not been playing well, he's up on a racism charge, and he's a bit of a knobhead. Why take him?

I'm also bemused by the absence of Micah Richards, Adam Johnson and/or Aaron Lennon. And the presence of only four strikers, when the only decent one can't play for the first two games, by which time the plodding Terry will have been outpaced by some speedy foreigner and the seven billion miles the England squad will have travelled for three games of football will have counted for nowt. Crouchy should be in there.

Nevertheless, Carroll's inclusion is welcome. He seems finally have got his act together.
As is Oxo-Chamberpot's.

I'd have had: Hart, Ruddy, Green (if we must); Richards, A.Cole, Baines, Jagielka, Lescott, Cahill, Jones, G.Johnson (in the absence of Kyle Walker); A.Johnson, Gerrard, Parker, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lampard (in the absence of Wilshere), Walcott, Milner; Crouch, Defoe, Rooney, Carroll, Welbeck/Sturridge (it's like choosing between cheese and cheese.)

Then of course Fenway Sports Group trump all this by all but fire-bombing the temple of Anfield. You cannot sack Kenny Dalglish. You have to invite him to leave, like you would the Archbishop of Canterbury. It's like pulling down Nelson Mandela's trousers in public. It's like saying David Attenborough's a piece of shit. You can't do it!

Two Cup Finals does mean something, surely? But not as much as the slush fund available should you make the Champions League and for Dalglish that was as remote a possibility as an intelligible press conference.

But sentiment aside, it's a sensible decision. Dalglish has bought some right dopes. His team have functioned only fitfully. And Everton finsihed above them. That's right, Everton - the quiet neighbours who live in a shed and shop at Aldi's (where you can get a Jelavic for a fifth of the price of a Carroll).

Next in line for LFC...? Capello. What's the point in ruining a budding career like Rodgers's or Lambert's when what you need is a fierce, dogged bastard in charge?

Whoever it is, he'll need a hotline to God Almighty to get past Man City next season.