The EPL season will start in mid August. It has been another eventful off season with the biggest news in England being the departure of Ronaldo to Real Madrid and arrival of Ancelotti as the new coach at the rotating doors of Chelsea. Blogs and commentary of predictions for the new season are under way. In my view, there will be a few reasonably certainties which are easy to predict. Here they are:
Liverpool & Manchester United will be the main two contenders for the title again this year. Liverpool have lost Alonso but replaced him with the talented Aquilani. Sir Alex may have lost Ronaldo and Tevez, but has the ability to get the best out of Michael Owen. However, I think it is time for Liverpool to win the Premiership for the first time, 21 years after their last league title.
Chelsea, under yet again another (albeit experienced) coach new to the English game, and with an aging squad will be hovering around and will have a chance should Manchester United or Liverpool slip. However, I would still like to see a tactical approach to accommodate a Ballack/Lampard/Deco combination. If Ancelotti manages to do this, the effect may be irresistibly powerful.
As for the rest, and notice I did not mention Arsenal above, the following are my predictions:
1. Arsen Wenger's young Arsenal side will not have enough depth and experience to fend off the Top 4 wannabees this year like they did last year with Aston Villa and later in the season Everton.
The Gunners have not signed any new quality "experienced" players. No matter how entertaining the young players will play under the guidance of the magnificent Wenger, Fabregas, Arshavin, Gallas and other senior players will not be able to fully eliminate the lack of consistency which will catch up with Arsenal this year and they will lose them their "top 4" mantle for the first time in many years.
The fact that Wenger this week made the highly unusual statement ..."qualification for Champions League is not essential to Arsenal's finances"...shows nerves are already twitching at Arsenal!
2. Everton and Aston Villa will still be competitive but Moyes and O'Neill will still need to resort to getting the best out of their limited squads and hope injuries do not wreck their season.
This year Everton will need Moyes' magic and luck to reproduce a Top 5 finish. Aston Villa meanwhile will need O'Neill's magic but to also get over the loss of influencial Gareth Barry to Manchester City.
Both teams will be in the Top 8 by the season's end but will they be able the crack Top 4?
3. Manchester City, with all their money, are only managing to sign left overs from the big European Clubs' wish lists. I am not however suggesting the likes of Barry, Tevez, Santa Cruz, Robinho, Given, Adebayor, Bellamy etc are not great players. But none are in the "Galactico" level of popularity to give the Club the worldwide exposure which the new owners of Manchester City are hoping for.
a) Whilst I respect and like Mark Hughes, I am also not sure if he is the right person for such a difficult position and doubt whether he will manage to stay in the job till the end of the season. He did a great job of making Blackburn a competitive team. But what is being ask of him here is not exactly in the same level as his achievements up to now.
b) It is no longer easy to simply become a global name overnight by throwing money around as it was when Abramovich took over Chelsea,
c) Chelsea was already a semi glamorous Club due to its location in London and the likes of Guillet, Viali and Zola, and winning the Cup Winners Cup in the late 90s by the time.
d) However, the main problem with Manchester City is that even if they overcome everything else and Hughes moulds the players into a compact unit, Manchester City will always have to deal with the huge shadow over their head in the form of Manchester United.
4. That leaves the London trio of Spurs, West Ham and the much improved and impressive Fulham to fight for the remaining Top 10 finishes.
5. The relegation battle this year will potentially be the most exciting of all time! I make this claim, because two of the main contenders for relegation last year survived the battle! This makes the field of candidates for relegation the largest in the living memory:
Hull and Stoke are still in the EPL this year but will have to count on every point to survive again. However, they have immediate EPL experience in their survival battle to count on, whilst the newly promoted Wolves are yet to survive the EPL more than one season and it remains to be seen whether Birmingham will be as gritty as they were under Steve Bruce in their last successful spell in the EPL.
Burnley are making their EPL debut and first appearance in the top flight since 1976, but are a Club with rich footballing history, one of the founding English League Clubs and one of the few who have won all four major English League Championships.
To add to the above list, it takes a bad start, a few injuries to crucial players, and a loss of confidence for the likes of Sunderland, Portsmuth and Wigan to find themselves struggling. At the end, most of the usual strugglers have a better chance of taking valuable points from their relegation rivals this year than at anytime in the past as the bottom teams are more evenly matched this year.
It is hard to predict the teams most likely to be relegated, but I think Burnley, Hull and Wolves will be the most likely, closely followed by Stoke City.
This brings me to the end of this post, and the time to predict the hardest of them all this year: Who will end up as the fourth team and get the potential lucrative entry to the Champions League:
A glance at the respective squads and level of experience of the contenders tells me that if Mark Hughes and his team get it right, Manchester City on paper has the capacity to make the leap forward into Top 4. Everton and Aston Villa simply do not have the depth in their squads to match Manchester City. However, any slip from Manchester City or any of the other pretenders, and Wenger and his young squad will steal the 4th spot again.
At any case, another exciting EPL is awaiting us. It's a league which in terms of technical and tactical ability is far from the best in Europe. That accolade goes to Spain, and then Germany in my view, especially considering that EPL laggs behind Spain and Germany in average goal per game and average attendance per game (although it sometimes beats Spain in attendance averages).
Nevertheless, EPL is the most exciting and popular football league in the world and makes compelling viewing. Enjoy! and may your team does well, as long as Liverpool wins the title this year! :)
