The year of the dark horse

It’s nigh on impossible to consider the likely outcome of tonight’s Champions League final in Munich without referencing what Roberto Mancini rightly dubbed “a crazy season” in the Premier League.

It was Alex Ferguson, with his innate feel for turf of two kinds, who had voiced the thought going into the final day that Manchester City might do something “stupid” and, specifically, that they might “do a Devon Loch”.

What he could never have envisioned, of course, is that while City would indeed commit their own version of a spectacular belly-flop only yards from the finishing post, they would miraculously get back on their feet and go on to win the title race by a nose with one final thrilling charge to the line.