The season we finished 4th. 2004/05
The club was all doom and gloom after Rooney's departure and the players we'd signed didn't seem like good additions at the time.
We'd lost Gravesen in that bizarre move to Real Madrid as well.
We'd skirted with relegation the season before and we were odds on for a lot of people to go down.
Got hammered by Arsenal opening game of the season and things were looking bleak.
But then we started winning and winning and winning. Most were smash-and-grab 1-0's, but we were the talk of the Football world for a time.
It did peter out somewhat in the run in, we lost a fair few of our final ten games including a 7-0 shoeing to Arsenal, but we did enough to finish above that lot and gain a Champions League place.
What happened in that CL qualifier stitch-up against Villareal somewhat spoiled things for the following year.
It was clear UEFA didn't want 5 English clubs in the CL (That lot had finished 5th, but won the CL that year)
The fact we drew Villareal was suspect to begin with, then they brought Colina out of retirement to officiate (A lot of people who deny this was a stitch-up often forget that this guy had actually retired and came back for just 1 game, writing off a perfectly good goal, gifting them the momentum and the win, before heading back into retirement again)
It was a surreal time to be a blue to say the least.