Premier League 2009-10

Time to kickoff the new English Premier League season one where Manchester United are going for their 4th consecutive league title without Cristiano Ronaldo, Chelsea who have been the perennial runnersup in recent years have the same team as last season but a new coach in Carlo Ancelotti, Liverpool are a consistent top 3 or 4 club but still are chasing that elusive league title which they have not claimed since Margaret Thatcher was in office, Arsenal are maintianing their youth policy but appear to be slipping every so slightly as they have new challengers for a top four finish such as big spending Manchester City plus Aston Villa and Everton. And Birmingham City, Wolverhampton and Burnley are new to the league this season.

As always the premier League season will give us plenty to talk about throughout the next 8 months and it all begins with these matches,

Played on Saturday (GMT)
Chelsea v Hull City (1145)
Aston Villa v Wigan Athletic (1400)
Blackburn Rovers v Manchester City (1400)
Bolton Wanderers v Sunderland (1400)
Portsmouth v Fulham (1400)
Stoke City v Burnley (1400)
Wolverhampton Wanderers v West Ham United (1400)
Everton v Arsenal (1630)

Played on Sunday
Manchester United v Birmingham City (1230)
Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool (1500)


My predictions for the season,

Champions- Chelsea
Relegated- Burnley, Wolverhampton and Bolton

Cralo Ancelotti is a coach who does betetr in the Champions League than everyweek league play so I do not think Chelsea will take the league crown. before xabi Alonso left I was thinking this could have been Liverpool's year but now I do not think so. That leaves Manchester United repeating it's title. They have the consistency even with Ronaldo and Tevez. nani, Rooney and Berbatov will step up. Manchester City will move up and replace Arsenal in the top four.

My relegation choices are Wolverhampton, Burnley and Sunderland.

I think it is Portsmouth who are in a real mess as the season begins, the club are trying to be sold but nothing has yet been finalised, accordingly they are in a bit of limbo. Nwankwo Kanu finally decided to sign a one month contract renewal as the club ar enot yet certain if they want him permanently and vice versa. I think if you are looking for a relegation candidate, there is one right there.

Eduardo's return at least partially counter balances the loss of Adebayor to Man City. Niklas Bendtner will I think be given more of a role as the "big" center forward but in many games I can see Wenger going with Eduardo and van Persie at forward. Look for Andrei Arshavin to have a big season for the Gunners now that he is with the club since the preseason.

I think it is a wide open title race this season, man united have to replace Ronaldo and Tevez, that is alot of goals some other players will have to score to make up for what ahs been lost. Rooney and Berbatov can do some of that but not all of it. Chelsea have the unknwon of anew coach, and one who does not speak English completely fluently. Other than that they are unchanged from lasts eason. Liverpool lost Xabi Alonso but gained Glen Johnson, Arsenal gain Eduardo but lost Toure and Adebayor, Man City have signed a squad full of new forwards, Adebayor, Tevez, Santa Cruz and a strong midfielder in Gareth Barry but even with Toure's arrival I question their defense, Aston Villa look pretty solid even after losing Barry and Stuart Downing's arrival will help but they still lack depth, Everton need some help at forward but once Yakubu recovers they should be all right.

As I think about it Chelsea probably look like the safest choice to win the title but I think the chasing pack are moving closer to the big four which hopefully should make for a competitive league season.

My predictions are,

Champions: Chelsea
Other champions league finishers: Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa
Relegated: Burnley, Birmingham, Wigan

No club has ever won 4 consecutive league titles since the Premier League was formed which weighs against Manchester United, as does losing Ronaldo and Tevez. I think Valencia is a good signing and Nani is ready to step up too. Owen is capable of taking up some of the scoring slack from Ronaldo and Tevez as I think will the combination of Nani, Rooney and Berbatov. So I think United will be fine this season and they Liverpool and Chelsea should have quite a battle for the championship. One of these seasons Liverpool's championship jinx is bound to end. My concern about Chelsea is less Ancelotti's English ability rather it is the increasing age of the squad. I get the feeling they might be too old for a sustained challenge on two fronts. And this is the year I think where Manchester City steps up into the top four in place of Arsenal.

My predictions:
1. Liverpool
2. Manchester United
3. Chelsea
4. Manchester City

Relegation:
Burnley
Hull
Bolton

My predictions are:

Man Utd to win the league (not apparently the most popular choice this season but I still think they have the strength in depth to do it). For the other CL places, the usual suspects: Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal. I'd love to see other clubs there but I think that for this season at least they'll hang on in there.

For the drop: Birmingham for sure. Wolves to follow them, and for the third place I'll go with Burnley...a certain pattern there, as I'm sure you'll notice!

Who needs Adebayor? Arsenal didn't on Saturday as they scored 6 to beat Everton 6-1! Arsenal's smooth flowing passing game was capped by superb finishing. Cesc and Arshavin can be the ebst atatcking midfield combination in the league. Adebayor took 3 minutes to score as Manchester City won a tough game over Blackburn 2-0 with the 2nd goal coming in minute 90. That is when Chelsea scored it's game winner to defeat Hull 2-1, Didier Drogba with both Chelsea goals, his game winner looked more like a cross than a shot but it looped over Hull's goalie.

I'll predict the same four finishing at the top with this year's winner being Liverpool. As someone else noted, Chelsea will find it difficult to compete on two levels with their aging squad. man United will be right there to the end but eventually I think they will miss Ronaldo and Tevez although Owen and Valencia I think will prove to be excellent signings. And Arsenal will be exciting to watch but ultimately not quite deep enough to maintain a championship challenge. I pick Liverpool for the title because I think they have a complete team and in Torres and Gerrard two of the top 10-15 players in the world. Few clubs outside of Barcelona and now big spending Real Madrid can claim to have two players of that quality.

Hey somebody forgot to tell Everton the season began this weekend!

Maybe the calendars are behind one week in Merseyside as Liverpool didn't show up to play on Sunday either losing 2-1 to Tottenham. Actually it was a good game from Spurs who passed the ball around well and with Wilson Palacios playing very well at defensive midfield they restricted service to Fernando Torres. Luka Modric also played well in midfield as Tottenham stretched Liverpool's defense with their ball movement. But this game emphasised to me that Liverpool will miss Xabi Alonso even though they sold him for a huge profit.

I turned off Everton-Arsenal at halftime, so disgusted was I with the Toffees' feeble defending in front of a curiously passive Tim Howard. But it's good to see Spurs get off to a better start.

No idea here who'll win the title, but I'll predict that Burnley, Wigan, and Hull will go down.

Needless to say I was quite pleased with Arsenal's start. Martin, may be right, nobody told Everton the season began last weekend! They were very feeble defensively but Arsenal looekd good moving the ball and having Arshavin around through preseson will I think make aworld of difference. And this new Belgian centerback Vermaelen looks like he's aproper defender.

Strangely I found myself wishing Spurs would win against Liverpool. I guess that just shows which of those two I consider more of a threat to the Gunners! It was good play from Spurs but they are a Ledley King injury away from having problems defensively. Because we all know Woodgate will also be laid up!

Damian Duff has signed with Fulham. He once was a good player.

Manchester City have been pushing hard to sign Everton's centerback Joleon Lescott and now comes news that Everton have left Lescott off their roster for tomorrow's Europa League match, a sign his departure from the club is likely imminent. I would say they also don't want to Cup tie him if he's sold then I remembered Manchester City are not in Europe!

Michel Salgado has signed for Blackburn after he amicably reached an agreement to rescind his contract with Real Madrid. Salgado was a great servant to Madrid for over a decade, he's certainly not the same player he once was but his new coach at Blackburn Sam Allardyce is pretty good at getting a few extra kilometres from an old car. I wish Salgado well, I always liked him as a player.

I've always liked Salgado. I first saw him years ago when he was still at Celta Vigo in a game at Real Betis. He just ran rampant on the right. I'm sure he's not quite as rampant these days and he's always been a little suspect defensively, but a fun player to watch.

I absolutely agree. I always enjoyed watching Salgado who was always so tenacious getting up and down the flank. Merengue makes a good poiint about how Allardyce ahs resurrected the careers of other veterans before-Okocha, Djorkaeff, Ivan campo to name a few. H emight be the right coach to do the same for Salgado.

How about Burnely beating Manchester United yesterday in their first home game in the English top division in 33 years? I don't know how the rest of the season will go for them but Burnley's fans won't forget yesterday's match. And Tottenham routed Hull 5-1 to show their opening day win over Liverpool was no fluke. Meanwhile the Reds blasted Stoke 4-0 to get abck to winning ways.

Amazing story for Burnley. I hope they stay up. Just a few weeks ago, they were playing a USL team--the Ventura County Fusion--at a high school in Ventura, CA. And now they beat Man Utd. What a journey!

Ventura County Fusion, isn't that the team that had some player sign with Everton this summer? He'll likely play in the reserves but jumping from a lower level US semi-professional league to Everton is quite some move.

Manchester United and Arsenal each destroyed their opponents today, Man U putting 5 past Wigan and Arsenal with 4 past Portsmouth. Rooney with 2 goals and owen one in Manchester United's win while Abou Diaby with two and yet again William Gallas were among Arsenal's scorers. Nice early goal from Emmanuel Adebayor, receiving a fine pass from carlos tevez made it look like manchester City were going to have it easy against Wolverhampton but that was not the case as a combative Wolves kept it close, losing by the lone goal.

A nice debut for Jozy Altidore in Hull's 1-0 victory over Bolton. A second half sub, Altidore's first touches after 28 seconds resulted in the only goal of the game. He came narrowly close to scoring a couple of minutes later and even managed to mix it up with Zat Knight. Hull's obviously high on the young American, and their supporters were chanting "USA, USA" on more than one occasion.