Chelsea
City
Arsenal
United
Liverpool
Spurs
Everton
First and second are nailed on. 3rd, 4th and 5th are interchangeable.
I think the top 3 are nailed on with Woolwich Arsenal coming third but never being in the mix for the title.
You could throw a paper bag over Spurs, Liverpool and Manchester United for 4th. If Lamela turns out to be a 30m player then I fancy the sons of Zion to nick it.
Spurs have a much better squad that Man United at present, even with the signing of Di Maria and Pochettino is a decent manager. I would be confident of them finishing ahead of United. Think Liverpool might just pip them for 4th as playing in the Europa League seems to be an awful hinderence to English sides and most seem to drop points the Sunday after a Europa League game
Liverpool don’t have the squad to cope with the demands of European football at all. United are best placed of the teams battling for fourth as they don’t have the distraction of midweek football. It helped Liverpool massively as they had a week to prepare for games from January on.
Top 4 City/Chelsea first or second, Spurs 3rd, United 4th
Arsenal spunked the transfer window and Ramsey/Wilshere are made out of glass, an injury to either and they are fucked.
[QUOTE=“Esteban de la Sexface, post: 1006727, member: 2695”]Liverpool don’t have the squad to cope with the demands of European football at all. United are best placed of the teams battling for fourth as they don’t have the distraction of midweek football. It helped Liverpool massively as they had a week to prepare for games from January on.
[/QUOTE]
You are not taking into account the fact that United are shit at present, they’ve already dropped 5 points to 2 possible relegation candidates. How are they going to fare against decent teams?
Sunderland are going to be a comfortable midtable team this season, you headcase
[QUOTE=“Esteban de la Sexface, post: 1006727, member: 2695”]Liverpool don’t have the squad to cope with the demands of European football at all. United are best placed of the teams battling for fourth as they don’t have the distraction of midweek football. It helped Liverpool massively as they had a week to prepare for games from January on.
Top 4 City/Chelsea first or second, Spurs 3rd, United 4th
Arsenal spunked the transfer window and Ramsey/Wilshere are made out of glass, an injury to either and they are fucked.[/QUOTE]
Liverpool will be fine.
Liverpool started in the same form last season. 1 point from 2 games, I think, and they ended up second. It is a long season. Van Gaal will get it right at some stage, unfortunately, plus they have a large amount of injuries at the moment.
Liverpool have weakness all through their squad, Mignolet is very weak. Johnson is poor enough defensively, they don’t have a left full of the required quality. Allen and Henderson are average, Gerrard will need to be rested with midweek/weekend games. I just don’t see the strength in depth of the squad to cope with midweek games.
Spurs have looked impressive so far. I don’t think they’ll be as spineless in the big games this season as they were last year under Villas Boas/Sherwood. They’ll play a weakened team in the Uefa Cup, depending on the draw.
City and Chelsea look the most complete squads this season, but I think Chelsea will pip it, Mourinho knows how to set up not to lose the big games, Pellegrini tries to win every game. Those draws from games they should lose will see them through, although an injury to Costa will see them back where they were last season, without a striker to get the goals.
[QUOTE=“Esteban de la Sexface, post: 1006763, member: 2695”]Liverpool started in the same form last season. 1 point from 2 games, I think, and they ended up second. It is a long season. Van Gaal will get it right at some stage, unfortunately, plus they have a large amount of injuries at the moment.
Liverpool have weakness all through their squad, Mignolet is very weak. Johnson is poor enough defensively, they don’t have a left full of the required quality. Allen and Henderson are average, Gerrard will need to be rested with midweek/weekend games. I just don’t see the strength in depth of the squad to cope with midweek games.
Spurs have looked impressive so far. I don’t think they’ll be as spineless in the big games this season as they were last year under Villas Boas/Sherwood. They’ll play a weakened team in the Uefa Cup, depending on the draw.
City and Chelsea look the most complete squads this season, but I think Chelsea will pip it, Mourinho knows how to set up not to lose the big games, Pellegrini tries to win every game. Those draws from games they should lose will see them through, although an injury to Costa will see them back where they were last season, without a striker to get the goals.[/QUOTE]
They don’t have a left back of required quality? What is this based on, last night’s performance? Bar one mistake I think Moreno had a decent game and is still settling in… Allen had a fine game last night- Gerrard and Hendo are problems i’d agree. Can and Marovic are suited to the physicallity of the league and will have an impact. Manquillo will replace Johnson. Mingolet is finished tho in my books… You’re throwing out a lot of assertions there and probably have’nt seen a minute of Liverpool’s season. If they had won last night you’re the type of cunt that would be lining them up for the treble.
It’s early doors, lots of new faces settling in and one marquee one gone…Lot of football to be played yet.
Lamela will win a Ballon d’Or in one of the next 5 years.
Ok, Lets get into detail shall we? All of Liverpool’s defensive problems stem from Skrtl, he is too rash, breaks the defensive line, he is basically a schizophrenic defender, very hard for other defenders to look good next to him, Loveren is a good addition, he defends intelligently, but it is pointless next to Skrtl he needs to go if Liverpool are to improve their defense. Moreno looks like a decent player, but all City’s joy came down the left of Liverpools defence last night, all three goals came down that side. Nasri, Jovetic and Zabaleta all lined up for the second goal, Navas had 20 yards of space to play the ball into Aguero. He was targeted and found out last night. I think he’ll be another Enrique. Half decent going forward, but ultimately a liability
edit*. Allen had a fine game but he contributes nothing for a midfielder that doesn’t win the ball back. If he isn’t going to win the ball back he needs to contribute goals and assists, which he doesn’t do enough of for me. A fine passer of the ball and a decent player, but no good for a side looking to win leagues. He wouldn’t get in City or Chelseas second best teams.
[QUOTE=“Esteban de la Sexface, post: 1006798, member: 2695”]Ok, Lets get into detail shall we? All of Liverpool’s defensive problems stem from Skrtl, he is too rash, breaks the defensive line, he is basically a schizophrenic defender, very hard for other defenders to look good next to him, Loveren is a good addition, he defends intelligently, but it is pointless next to Skrtl he needs to go if Liverpool are to improve their defense. Moreno looks like a decent player, but all City’s joy came down the left of Liverpools defence last night, all three goals came down that side. Nasri, Jovetic and Zabaleta all lined up for the second goal, Navas had 20 yards of space to play the ball into Aguero. He was targeted and found out last night. I think he’ll be another Enrique. Half decent going forward, but ultimately a liability
edit*. Allen had a fine game but he contributes nothing for a midfielder that doesn’t win the ball back. If he isn’t going to win the ball back he needs to contribute goals and assists, which he doesn’t do enough of for me. A fine passer of the ball and a decent player, but no good for a side looking to win leagues. He wouldn’t get in City or Chelseas second best teams.[/QUOTE]
I agree on Skertel and have been calling for his head for over a year now. It’s way too early to make a call on Moreno- He was hobbling on one leg for the third goal but only seeing the highlights, you wouldn’t know that- Yeah he could have hacked the ball away for the first but if Loverns was in position and if Gerrard tracked his man that goal wouldn’t have materialzed- Likewise for the second, it was a lovely bit if skill from Jovetic but who the fuck picked him up after that??? It was the perfect place to give him his debut, he is now under no illusions as to what the league is about but writing him off after one game is horse-shit.
[ATTACH=full]1635[/ATTACH]
Bandage in his new role as United Chief Exec
2 fine looking lads
[SIZE=5]Whatever agenda Yaya Toure was working from we could be pretty sure about one thing. The top item could not have been excessively concerned with any hot and snarling protection of the image of the Premier League - or his Manchester City’s momentum as they seek to broaden their horizons beyond last season’s less than overwhelming title win.[/SIZE]
As the Ivorian playfully cuddled the hugely relieved Bayern coach Pep Guardiola just a minute or two after Jerome Boateng’s late goal had presented City with a daunting challenge in a group in which Roma had just completed a five-goal rampage, you were bound to ask a couple of questions.
One queried the extent of the big man’s enduring passion for the club that made him one of the world’ s best rewarded stars when he said farewell to Guardiola at Barcelona.
The other was more general but it certainly demanded an emphatic answer: are City, like Sunday’s opponents Chelsea, in danger of becoming not much more than flat-track bullies in a league which seems in danger of losing touch with the highest European standards?
This idea was difficult to resist in a week which slid from bad to worse. Arsenal were undressed in Dortmund. Liverpool got emotional about a Mario Balotelli goal and a Steve Gerrard penalty but seemed a lot less ready to properly analyse the weakness of their return to the Champions League against the best team in, well, Bulgaria.
Chelsea dithered against Schalke in a way that cast doubt about the authority of their smooth passage to the top of the domestic league. City were massively in debt to goalkeeper Joe Hart.
All in all, it was not exactly an announcement that we will be witnessing the peaks of the game when City and Chelsea seek to redefine themselves at the Etihad Stadium.
However, what can be expected with reasonable certainty is an entirely more assertive level of performance around top of what so frequently announces itself as the richest, most powerful and glamorous league of them all. This week’s showing made a grim parody of such a claim and what might have represented a genuine test of will and accomplishment on Sunday now seems more a matter of rehabilitating the best hopes of both teams.,
With a hopefully refreshed Diego Costa restored to the starting line, Mourinho will no doubt be exploring all of his tactical resources while hoping to reproduce the best of his team’s performance in last season’s fixture. That, albeit briefly, seemed to put Chelsea into a class of their own as they inflicted a home defeat far more wounding than the one-goal margin implied.
Mourinho, you might have believed, had not only found his mojo again but had walked across the water to retrieve it. Certainly he will want victory quite as badly as the glum-faced Manuel Pellegrini.
It wasn’t that City lost in Bavaria that was so deflating to those who believed that under Pellegrini they had become much more contented, and assured, in their own company. It was the lack of ambition that went into it. David Silva found some of his mesmerising form but long before the end he was a virtuoso operating on an unresponsive keyboard. City did not begin to be more than the sum of their parts, no more than did Arsenal or Liverpool or Chelsea.
At least, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger acknowledged the degree of his team’s failure, and when he pulled off Mesut Ozil[/URL] and [URL=‘http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Aaron_Ramsey’]Aaron Ramsey he did so in a way that suggested not so much disappointment as betrayal. What he also seemed to be confronting, yet again, was the possibility that his team simply isn’t built for sustained achievement at the highest level. It is a spectre which Pellegrini and Mourinho cannot lightly discard before the weekend action.
Most disappointing for Wenger, surely, is the irresolution of Ozil. Back in his homeland, and so soon after being feted as a World Cup winner, Ozil had the chance to impress the vast and impassioned following of Dortmund. Instead, he slipped from sight and later, in the dug-out, his face wore an expression of almost eerie detachment from another dismayingly slight performance.
City’s late demise was, to be fair, considerably less enraging. Even if the debt to Hart would have been so big, they did get within a minute or two of a sustaining result. However, if that would have prevented the pressure which came down so hard with Boateng’s goal and the Roma result, it would not have altered the fact that, Silva apart, they hardly played with the expectations of a team representing such a depth of resources.
CONVINCE
The graduation of the club as a serious force at the highest level of the game has always depended on the ability of a Roberto Mancini or a Pellegrini to convince their players that they have the ability, and the competitive character, to inflict themselves on any situation.
Mancini surrendered this possibility with an initially passive approach which, coupled with a failed relationship with the dressing room, was never properly shaken off - and certainly not when the first great prize, the Premier League title was acquired, against a feeble Queen’s Park Rangers, almost by default.
Pellegrini has certainly promised more. He won back the dressing room. He conjured goals and the sense of a team who might just have found themselves. But now, at another critical point, he plainly has to ask for more.
Certainly he craves the consistent influence and the sheer overwhelming skill and physicality that Toure unfolds when he is at peace with himself and his surroundings. There were a few such moments in Munich but too quickly they subsided against the fact that it was Bayern, a somewhat patchwork Bayern, who relentlessly set the rhythm of the game.
City were obdurate to a degree in their biggest challenge of their season but they never got anywhere near to their front foot and the consequence was a night of almost total unemployment for the world’s best goalkeeper, Manuel Neuer.
Chelsea were similarly unpersuasive against German opponents. Now when you add Arsenal and Liverpool to this uninspiring mix there is no disguising the pattern that has so quickly developed in the wake of Chelsea’s unlikely, even outlandish triumph in the 2012 Champions League final in Munich.
It is of a Premier League struggling desperately to keep pace with a new elite - and a fresh set of tactical demands. This week we had the most alarming wake-up call thus far. At the weekend maybe we’ll get the encouraging impression that some-one was listening - and maybe even got round to mentioning it to Toure.
3 goal in 3 minute for Arsenal at the Villa, Welbeck off the mark with one, Ozil and and og the others
1-0 West Ham :o
For fuck sake.
Welbz. 
2-0 