Another 9 months..

Sorry peeps it’s not another pregnancy, just another season of English Premier League Football…. Yes, it’s not soccer mate, it’s football!   As a Manchester United fan for the last 16 years, I can promise that my preview of the season will be extremely unbiased and fair.  Everybody knows that Manchester United fans are the most impartial people around :p.  It’s interesting when you see the English reacting with surprise when they hear that their clubs have such a large following in faraway places like Singapore.  It is even more bizarre when you see Singaporeans defending ”their” clubs with such passion almost as if they are from there.  Heck, some of them haven’t even been there!  On a personal note, I’d swap all the titles Man Utd has won for Singapore to be in the World Cup finals (Just a personal opinion).  Anyway that hope has been extinguished but that is another story altogether that will be published once I can get some patriotism burning in my belly.  Nuff’ said:  Here are the teams (well not all of them, just those I feel like writing about).

The Contenders!

Arsenal:  Yes you guys are first based on alphabetical order, unfortunately for this season mates, that well may be where it all ends!  According to soccernet, the world’s most reliable source of information, Wenger’s admission that Arsenal is a selling club could have negative effects on the players as well as the fans.  The departures of Flamini (AC Milan) and Hleb (Barcelona) will be a massive blow to the Gunner faithful.  The arrivals of Samir Nasri (hopefully he plays better than Nazri Nasir!) and Aaron Ramsey re-emphasise his focus on youth.  Nasri has been tagged the new Zidane, which applies to any player is French of North African descent and attacks.  If he can replicate the feats of Robert Pires, that will be good enough since Pires seemed to score 20 goals a year from midfield during his time at Highbury (Yes, that was before they moved to the Emirates).   The footballing philosophy from Wenger has been delightful to watch.  As a neutral, I do most certainly hope they win something this season….. other than the league and the champions league :p.

Prediction: 3rd

Chelsea:  Buy lah buy lah..everybody also want to buy…nnn.  Will be thereabouts as usual. 

Prediction: 2nd

Liverpool:  How many league titles have Liverpool won?  Doesn’t that question sound vaguely familiar during your banter with a Reds fan some years ago.  Notice that it crops up less because of the well-crafted response of “When was the last one??” lol.  1990 is a long time my friends.  Just to illustrate how long ago it was…. in 1990:

-  Nobody quite knew who Saddam Hussein was because the Gulf war hadn’t started yet!

-  George Bush Snr was still president of the United States

-  The Berlin Wall still existed

-  Lee Kuan Yew was still Prime Minister of Singapore

-  Oh and not to forget quite a few of our friends weren’t actually born yet..:p

Robbie Keane is a good boy erhm.. i mean buy in my opinion and should add some extra firepower to the Liverpool strikeforce, Martin Skrtel looks promising as well but the presence of the extremely over-rated Jamie Carregher should upset their challenge.  Don’t get me wrong, he is a good player but makes too many mistakes at the top level.  I guess it’s easy for me to say it sitting in an armchair commentating.  After all, I only play amatuers. 

Prediction:  The lofty heights of 4th, sets them up for another freak campaign like 2005. 

Manchester United:  No new signings but still utterly unbelievably strong as usual (I think that’s a fair comment).  Berbatov may arrive but even if he doesn’t there is just too much firepower to suggest anything else other than United winning the league.  After all, we are best team in the world and the most famous club in all europe.  Anybody who dares to suggest otherwise should be shot.  =p.

In all seriousness, this could be a campaign that United could well lose their title, with Ronaldo and Rooney likely to be missing the opening day and no new signings to strengthen the side.  The arrival of Berbatov will definitely add a buzz into the place and the likely continuous improvement of Anderson and Nani should keep United going all the way till the end.  Darren Fletcher is a highly under-rated player in my opinion and deserves more credit that he usually gets.  He must be highly-rated by Fergie for a reason!  That being said retaining the title will be tough but achievable.

Prediction:  Champions for the 18th time equalling the record of a certain other red team. 

Cheers,

Dan