Another madcap season looms

It was Roberto Mancini who called it a “crazy season”, so crazy that, after all the madness which had preceded the dawning of the final day in the Premier League last time around, Alex Ferguson was left with not unreasonable grounds for hoping the noisy neighbours would do “something stupid”, maybe even a “Devon Loch”, at the death.

In fact, it turned out to be even crazier than that, with City duly performing a belly-flop in the final furlong only to hop up on their hind legs again just in time to get their noses over the line to claim first place in the most mind-boggling of photo finishes.

I suggested in these pages last week that, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, the new Premier League season didn’t only have a hard act to follow in the form of London 2012; it actually had a much harder act to follow in terms of the thrills and spills served up in 2011/12.