2007/08 Premier League Season Preview - Summary
From Frikipedia
Contents |
Friki's Final Premier League Table Prediction
1 Manchester United Champions
2 Chelsea CL Qual
3 Liverpool CL Qual
4 Arsenal CL Qual
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5 Tottenham Hotspur UEFA Qual
6 Newcastle United UEFA Qual
7 Blackburn Rovers UEFA Qual
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8 Everton
9 West Ham United
10 Aston Villa
11 Reading
12 Middlesbrough
13 Portsmouth
14 Manchester City
15 Sunderland
16 Fulham
17 Birmingham City
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18 Bolton Wanderers Relegated
19 Wigan Athletic Relegated
20 Derby County Relegated
Any Other Business
Champions League
CONTENDERS: Hmm, tricky. Virtually every season, Barcelona are deigned to be Champions League winners. Their pre-season capture of Thierry Henry from Arsenal has simply added to the frightening strikeforce available to them. And yet, the Champions League remains a knockout competition, meaning that even the best can occasionally be outplayed, as indeed Barca were last season as Liverpool knocked them out. Barca still have a questionable defence behind their unquestionably multi-talented attack, as well.
Who else then? An English winner? Chelsea? Manchester United? Another unfathomably strong run from Liverpool? Probably not.
The German sides seem a little weak, and perennial dark horses Lyon have lost their manager and most of their truly good players. Real Madrid? It has been a while since the Galacticos set the European stage alight, largely because the club has become a bloated sponsorship machine as opposed to a football team. They have done little to bolster their squad pre-season, apart from signing balding insurance salesman Arjen Robben from Chelsea. Cup holders and match fixers extraordinare AC Milan? Always possible, but there hasn't been a back-to-back European Cup winner in yonks. Who else then? Porto? Valencia? Olympiakos? Shakhtar Donetsk? Possibly.
FRIKI'S PICK: But Friki is going to put a tidy sum on Sevilla. Twice winners of the UEFA Cup in the last two years and possessing a tidy enough team liberally peppered with the world class and the workmanlike. They bottled last season's four-way La Liga title fight, but Friki will assume that they do much better in cup competitions.
DARK HORSES: Inter Milan. Following last season's farcical round of slapsies which marred their elimination at the hands of Valencia, Inter may just be shamed into actually playing football.
UEFA Cup
CONTENDERS: Difficult to tell. The stupid format of the modern-day UEFA cup means that most of the favourites for the cup will enter as the 3rd place teams in the Champions League group stage are parachuted down into the competition. The UEFA Cup knows it's place, these days, sadly. Like an abused child kept under the stairs and fed on fish heads, it has had all the competition beaten out of it, and can simply long for the day some kind soul (Mr Platini?) takes it under their wing and nurses it back to health.
FRIKI'S PICK: Of the clubs certain to play some part in the tournament, Bayern Munich stand head and shoulders abouve most of their rivals, in that they are this season's "Why the hell aren't they in the Champions League?!" team.
DARK HORSES: Pff. Spurs? Villareal? Perma-UEFA Cup riddled AZ Alkmaar? Who knows. Friki will simply stick it's neck out and say that perhaps a Champions League refugee of the ilk of PSV Eindhoven may find their way into the latter stages. Really, though, as a prediction event, it's like trying to guess someone's name knowing only their favourite colour and shoe size.
FA Cup
The "Greatest Cup Competition In The World" (copyright the BBC) has been rather dully dominated by Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal for such a long time now, it's almost impossible to remember the "olden days" when "anyone" could win the cup. Far be it from Friki to tow the predictable line, but it assumes this season will be no different. And having done a best of three name-out-of-a-hat thing just now, it will apparently be Chelseas year again. Hopefully they can make it at least slightly more interesting that their woefully tepid 2007 triumph.
League Cup
Yawn. Increasing fixture clogging redundancy of this competition really precludes making any really viable predictions. Most Premiership sides with any aspiration will field weakened sides in the early rounds, full of youth team players and promisiong English goalies too good to be allowed to leave the club on loan but not good enough to claim regular starting place, meaning that early elimination is always possible. However, since Middlesbrough's triumph back in 2004, the final has been dominated by "big four" clubs, so expect any two of them to end up at Wembley contesting this little-needed prize. Friki's going to throw a bit of a curveball on this one, though, and predict that the renewed scrap for Premiership honours may preclude the big guns from fighting four-fronted campaigns this season, and reckons Blackburn Rovers have as good a chance of any of nicking their own piece of dull history instead. Them or Spurs, but Friki would be cheating if it entered two guesses, really.
Championship
CONTENDERS: Freshly relegated trio of Charlton, Watford and Sheffied United will doubtless begin as favourites to return to the Premiership. Though expect Watford at least to struggle on their return. And Sheffied United now have clueless Bryan Robson in charge. Oh dear. Preston have lost talismanic striker David Nugent, while West Brom need to put last season's play-off heartache behind them. The Championship is usually the most open of the leagues, so expect nothing to be decided at either end of the table until the closing weeks of the season.
WINNERS: Charlton Athletic
RUNNERS UP: West Bromwich Albion
PLAY OFF WINNERS: Cardiff City.
RELEGATED: Scunthorpe United, Colchester United, Blackpool.
League One
CONTENDERS: Leeds United, a name which brings a spot of schadenfreude to even the most kind hearted of football fans. Six short seasons ago, the club was filled with massively-waged superstars and had reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. Now, having showcased the fleeting joy and often financially crippling cost of life at the top, they are well and truly on their way down. Having survived administration, they are sadly still controlled by mad Santa-a-like chairman Ken Bates, which won't help matters, and face a race against time to even have a squad together for the start of the season. Clueless manager Dennis Wise isn't helping matters either. Leeds are joined in League One by fellow fallen angels Nottingham Forest, who completely flunked their lines last season, but should put that right this time around. Could this be the season that Yeovil's bubble finally bursts, having missed out on a third promotion in five years by the skin of their teeth last May?
WINNERS: Nottingham Forest.
RUNNERS UP: Luton Town.
PLAY OFF WINNERS: Millwall.
RELEGATED: Swansea City, Yeovil Town, Hartlepool United.
League Two
CONTENDERS: The bottom rung of the league ladder is a lonely place at times, where the misfits and forgotton men of English football reside. Former Premiership side Bradford nestle in amongst England's first football franchise, the Milton Keynes Dons. Friki would like to claim it knows the ins and outs of this league in intelligent detail. But really, by this point, it's just blindly guessing.
WINNERS: MK Dons.
RUNNERS UP: Bradford City.
PLAY OFF WINNERS: Darlington.
RELEGATED: Morecambe, Macclesfield Town.
Summary
That's the lot. Come mid-May, we can see how much of this useless prattling turns out to be true, and exactly how wrong Friki was on the rest of it.
