We Are All Thinking It

It’s unspoken but it’s there, isn’t it?

We are all thinking it, aren’t we? Come on, admit it.

The win against the red half of Manchester, the stuttering return to team form, the increasing impact of Frank Lampard, the revelation that is David Luiz…

Yuri back, Yossi getting closer. I could go on but I won’t…

It all starts to point to one thing doesn’t it?

But wait a minute. Don’t say it. As soon as you say it out loud, as soon as those words are spoken, that’s when it all falls apart. So say nothing.

Do you remember last season? Of course you do but let’s have another look.

There we were, coming to the run in, having played (let’s be honest) not very well. Okay, crap then.

We had just lost at home 0-1 to you know who in the Champions League, then we had a difficult away trip to Blackburn. We needed to win.

Drogba’s early goal was a wasted opportunity. To quote Carlo, in the second half “we lost composure and conceded a goal”.

Under normal circumstances a draw would have been an okay result, but Man U and Arsenal both won. It wasn’t good enough.

Then it happened, remember? Five straight wins, the first two (for me at least) wholly unexpected. A 5-0 at Portsmouth, a 7-1 over Villa.

It wasn’t just the victory, but the manner of it: quite phenomenal. Then came THAT victory, with THAT goal: 2-1 at Old Trafford, and we were back in the driving seat.

We couldn’t afford to slip up though, to be fair to them United were playing pretty well.

So there it was: win all our remaining games and the title was ours!

Easy, then. A doddle. Those games involved away trips to a vengeful Villa, Spurs and Liverpool, together with none-too-easy games against the likes of Bolton, Stoke, Wigan. Simples.

A couple more wins, then the worse happened. We had points to spare but a crap performance – at White Hart Lane of all places – and we had to win all our remaining games to stay in pole position.

As it turned out, there was no repeat of that sub-moronic performance. Lessons had obviously been learned.

The game at Anfield was duly disposed of, all the points heading back to the Bridge. The other teams were consummately beaten, with a style and flourish befitting proper Champions.

The title put the FA Cup in the shade a bit: but we still went out and won it, just for good measure.

We didn’t need to be double winners, to be crowned champions was a fabulous enough end to the season. But we did it anyway. Double Winners.

Double Winners. I like repeating it. Doesn’t happen very often does it? Winners of ‘The Double’. Aaaah.

Oh, but I digress…

I suppose it really is too much to hope that we have a repeat. United are too far ahead, so even we did repeat those sort of performances, we would only manage a second place finish.

Unless of course, Man U started to feel the pressure. Today’s defeat to Liverpool at Anfield could be pivotal. Let’s see what sort of reaction now comes from Old Trafford.

Will they grow stronger in adversity, as Chelsea have done over the past few weeks? Or will the cracks start to turn into chasms? Will confidence, eroded by recent defeats, finally crumble into the turbid sea of lost chances?

Who knows? Maybe a repeat is possi…. sorry, I’m not going to say it out loud.

And don’t you either. Read it silently to yourself. But you know what I mean. The signs are there.

Nando looks like he’s settling in. Didier terrorising Man U and keeping them in his pocket for the last five minutes of Tuesday’s game, keeping them down by their own corner flag virtually on his own. The ever adapting Ramires…

Bosingwa returning to some sort of form. Nico finding a new position (as against Sunderland). Branners continuing his awesomeness.

But let’s maintain a dignified silence and see how things work out. It may be the run-in, but it’s still early days. And dare I say it, it’s a funny old game, football. Dare I say that stranger things have happened…

But say nothing. Yet.