[JonnyBGood]

I'll write about the only bits anyone sane gives a shit about.


United will retain the title ahead of chelsea. Chelsea strengthened pretty well this year but they're still losing 5 players for a good month after christmas for the ongo bongo cup. Players like robben and ballack are not just going to be content to sit on the bench when they know they could play for a top-class team in another country with a sane manager. The defence is solid now, especially if they get alves but with an ageing makele I don't rate their midfield as highly as previous years. Drogba was excellent last year but in previous years he played some laughably bad football so it'll be interesting to see if he keeps at those standards. Malouda's good but is he really an improvement on robben? He probably fits into chelsea's style better though so he should help the team overall.

However if you look at United they've got the same team as last year pretty much if they want it. Judging by the charity shield giggs hasn't exactly gone off the boil and with the new arrivals they've got a bit of strength and ability to win more of those games where they needlessly dropped points last year. Evra's still a bit suspect for me and snoop dogg isn't much of a central defender without vidic but they're really just going to outscore teams fairly badly. They can put together a huge variety of attacking variations up front and unlike previous years when moving to different formations cost them they seem to have the players to do so now. Tevez and rooney together is an interesting combination and a lot depends on them but even if it's not working they've still got last year's title-winning side together and chelsea, while they did improve depth didn't improve the first team much. A lot could come down to injuries, how much chelsea miss drogba et al in january and small things that really don't deserve to decide a league but I'd give the edge to united. Anyone who thinks liverpool can win the league is insane and should never be allowed to comment on football ever again.

Arsenal or spurs for the fourth place is a close one. Spurs, and Jol in particular, seem to think that money might be going out of style and therefore decided to spend 16 million on darren bent. It's difficult to imagine a worse buy for that amount of money into a team which had a perfectly good strikeforce in keane and berbatov with perfectly good back-up. Someone needs to just buy jol a copy of football manager so he can splurge on mediocre players in there. The defence looks decent but there is an appalling lack of cover and a lot of fairly suspect players when you think about it. Let's face it, ledley king will be injured again soon (he's probably injured now anyways) and that spurs defence couldn't keep a clean sheet in so many games against dire teams last year it's funny. **** knows what will happen in midfield.

Arsenal lost a good player in henry but he wasn't exactly up to much last year. It's difficult to know what to make of them, turnover has been incredible (nobody left from the 38 not out guys now) but there are good players in there in toure, fabregas and van persie. Most of their signings I know dick nothing about so it's hard to judge but I saw them in some crap tournament the other day and they seemed to be able to play the arsenal way. If the eastern european brazilian they signed up front is good at finding the night they'll take fourth definitely. If they wander about like headless chickens and attempt to pass the ball around on the opponent's penalty area they'll lose fourth if spurs pull together right.

I'd just like to mention in passing that manchester city are a complete lottery ticket, west ham will finish 15th or something, blackburn look like a really competent team and if boro haven't fired southgate by christmas they'll probably go down. I don't actually include them in my relegation candidates because I'm so confident he'll be gone in time for a real manager to come in and make a couple of signings in january and get a better outfit than wigan, derby and fulham can put out.

Going down will be another accomplishment this year. It's virtually impossible to see a team as bad as derby staying up. The premiership should probably just give them 30 million and send them back down to play in division one. They've probably got fewer premiership quality players than any other team and probably by a good distance too. Sunderland and Birmingham haven't exactly spent well but they seem to have enough quality in their squads to stay up ahead of Fulham and Wigan. Wigan are beyond bad. It's not even funny. How they've stayed in the premiership is a testament to the dross that manages to finish behind them each year. I've never even heard of their manager this year and their star player is emile heskey. Fulham I just don't like because a) I think lawrie sanchez, despite his success with northern ireland knows less about football than I do and b) he managed to spend 22 million on some of the most mediocre players I can think of. If I was the fulham chairman I'd be crying over my wasted money right now.

Edit: Pig's irrationally wild optimism about aston villa all the time really makes me put him down as the stereotypical english football fan. That and the fact I reckon he's eaten more pie than I could fit in my bedroom.