Premier Predictions

In what seems like less than the blink of an eye the domestic football season is back.

Last weekend saw the Football League roar back into life and this weekend the elite twenty clubs will emerge from their summer slumbers and once again build and then almost certainly crush the hopes of millions.

As that intro clearly demonstrates this is the most cliché ridden time of the year, save perhaps Christmas. And as clichés go there are few better than the annual guesses, sorry predictions, as to who will finish where. So here we go.

Champions: Manchester United

No team bounces back like United. They have held onto all their major players and have brought in young starlets Bebe and Javier Hernandez. Pressure from cross-town rivals City will help to focus minds. Wayne Rooney must rediscover his form from last season whilst the only real worry in the squad is defence. Rio Ferdinand is injured again but the retaining of Nemanja Vidic is excellent whilst Jonny Evans is an able deputy for Ferdinand.

Runners Up: Manchester City

Possibly a surprise here but Roberto Mancini’s signings are good and the new squad rules will actually help him to set a boundary around his squad. Those not in the 25 will have no chance of playing and so moaning is pointless. Yaya Toure is key whilst Jerome Boateng will add real quality to the back line.

Champions League: Chelsea and Arsenal

Chelsea have lost Joe Cole and more worryingly Ricardo Carvalho from last season’s victorious squad. Carlo Ancelotti must replace Carvalho otherwise Chelsea’s defence will rely too heavily on John Terry, not a good idea on recent evidence.

Arsenal, on the other hand, have built on last season. The addition of Marouane Chamakh is a wise one, giving Arsene Wenger a different option whilst Laurent Koscielny will add strength in defence. A goalkeeper remains a priority, Mark Schwarzer would be ideal, as would Shay Given.

Europa League: Tottenham, Liverpool, Everton

Liverpool will be looking to rebuild after last year’s horror show and with Roy Hodgson at the helm optimism is returning to Anfield. Holding onto Gerrard and Torres is important as are the acquisitions of Joe Cole and Christian Poulsen. Will come close to the top four but will just miss out. Much improved though.

Unfortunately for Spurs I can not see them repeating last season’s success. The pressures of a Champions League campaign as well as the in creased competition at the top of the league will, I think, prove too much. Harry Redknapp has been unable to add much quality although should Ashley Young and Craig Bellamy join then there will at least be good depth in the squad.

Everton are a hard team to predict. If all their players stay fit then they will do well but, as Mikel Arteta’s absence showed last year, they do have a lack of strength in depth. Jermaine Beckford will be expected to hit the ground running but most important is the fitness of players like Arteta and Phil Jagielka.

Top Ten: Aston Villa, Sunderland, Stoke

Villa are in trouble. No manager and your best players leaving does not inspire confidence on the eve of the new season. Randy Lerner must appoint a manager quickly to allow the new man to bring in new faces. Everything must also be done to ensure that apart from James Milner no more players are allowed to leave. A small squad was Villas problem last year, they can not afford for it to get much smaller.

Sunderland should improve on last year’s showing. Steve Bruce has bought shrewdly; Christian Riveros and John Mensah are World Cup quarter finalists whilst Marcos Angeleri comes with a big reputation from Estudiantes. If these foreign imports can gel quickly with the increasing number of academy products at the club then a top ten finish is a reasonable aim.

Perhaps the greatest success story of the Premier League era, Stoke will again be looking at mid table certainty. Kenwyne Jones will fit in well with the style of play at The Brittania and help the club to another good season.

Mid Table: Fulham, Wolves, Birmingham, Bolton, Blackburn

In the realm of mid table obscurity we can expect to find the same old suspects. Bolton and Blackburn are about to start their tenth successive seasons whilst Wolves and Birmingham adapted well last year. All four have made some shrewd signings and will hope to completely avoid any hint of a relegation battle.

Fulham are slightly different. Much like their constricted stadium, one feels that there is only so far that the club can go, perhaps last years Europa League run was that peak. Mark Hughes will hope not but it is always hard to follow such a popular successful manager as Roy Hodgson and I fear that he may struggle to live up to the new, higher aspirations of the Craven Cottage faithful.

Survivors: West Ham, Newcastle

West Ham have been very quiet considering the normal brashness of their owners. Perhaps this is to try and not draw attention to the fact that the squad is looking a little short of quality. Holding onto Scott Parker is good but having the very unpredictable Frederic Piquonne as a key signing is a bit of a risk. However, they should be good enough to survive. Note, should.

As for Newcastle they will believe that they are back where they belong. They must be careful though as it was that sort of attitude that saw them relegated two seasons ago. It must be a worry that in essence this is the same team that went down although they have grown together and that can only be a good thing. They will struggle but I think they will survive. Just.

Relegated: Wigan, West Brom, Blackpool

This is always the most horrible part of predicting the league. This year my kiss of death falls on Wigan, West Brom and Blackpool.

Blackpool are simply not good enough and much as the romantic within would love to see them survive I can’t help but thing their promotion came a couple of years too early.

West Brom are better but not good enough. I expect them to be a lot less naive than they were under Tony Mowbray but it will still be a surprise should they be able to adapt to the higher level quick enough.

As for Wigan I think their time is up. They were poor last year and have not really added any great quality to their squad. This couple with the fact that the standard at the bottom of the league should be higher in general than last season will mean that Roberto Martinez will have a huge fight on his hands. Unfortunately I think it is a fight that he can not win.

Whilst these predictions are clearly just hypothetical musings, what is undeniably true is that the coming months will at least provide us with more entertainment than England did in the summer. Thank God for domestic football.

Let us know what you think of these and be brave, tell me where you think I am wrong.

Time to Think

The football season has not even started for the country’s elite teams and yet we already have one team looking for a new manager and continued debate surrounding the England team and its manager.

The resignation of Martin O’Neill caught many by surprise, something that can not be said about the criticism still being aimed at the head of Fabio Capello.

The England manager has named his first squad since the dismal showing in South Africa and has immediately found himself the focus of yet more criticism from all areas of the media.

However for the first time in a long while it seems as though the mainstream English football press have completely misjudged the public’s view of the situation. A quick read of the reader comments on BBC Sport editor David Bond’s latest blog (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/davidbond/2010/08/capellos_apology_welcome_but_n.html) reveals that instead of Signor Capello, the majority of England fans appear to place the blame squarely at the feet of the underperforming players rather than the extravagantly paid manager.

In fact, as well as blaming the players, a number of readers have pointed the finger straight at those who write and talk about football for a living. One reader blamed the media for building us all into such frenzy in the weeks leading up to the World Cup. Personally I find that more than a little pathetic, surely we are all capable of making up our own minds when it comes to how good a football team really is.

Pathetic it may be but it does highlight a refreshing change in the attitude of the average fan. The players now know that they are not exempt from the anger of the supporter. No longer can they hide behind the struggling manager or the wrong formation, they must surely now realise that they are the only people who can affect the result once that whistle blows. Surely they must now understand what it means to be a footballer representing your country.

This is something that I am sure we will not find out for a while yet, let alone tomorrow night at Wembley. If we have learnt anything about footballers it is that it takes a while for change to occur. Think evolution, or the movement of glaciers. However we also know that sloth is a word absent from the minds of many sports journalists and their editors and so please do not be surprised that, should England perform well tomorrow night, the whole sordid process of delusion begins again.

And please do not fall into the same trap as before. Think for yourselves.