If BBMlive.com could predict the Premier League season in a nutshell…
1. Manchester United
2. Manchester City
3. Chelsea
4. Arsenal
5. Liverpool
6. Tottenham Hotspur
7. Everton
8. Fulham
9. Stoke City
10. Aston Villa
11. Sunderland
12. Newcastle United
13. Queen’s Park Rangers
14. West Bromwich Albion
15. Bolton Wanderers
16. Blackburn Rovers
17. Wolverhampton Wanderers
18. Norwich City
19. Swansea City
20. Wigan Athletic
A few postscripts:
i. Chelsea are still too old, City too inexperienced. United, whether they buy Wesley Sneijder or not, will win their 20th title comfortably. If they do sign Sneijder, they’ve got a chance of beating Barca, and Anderson will have a decent season. If they don’t, Anderson will have a great season.
ii. Arsenal midfielders will score a good amount of fantasy points. They’ll be in the running until February, when their legs will all fall off and they’ll draw five games in a row. Now Cesc Fabregas’s shadow has been sold, Aaron Ramsey will have a good season.
iii. Because Spurs don’t have a decent striker, Rafael van der Vaart will be their top-scorer, but because his legs also tend to fall off after 60 minutes he won’t be enough to beat Liverpool to the Europa League spot. For the Reds, Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez will rip it up, and they’ll beat United home and away, but they’ll be let down by average players elsewhere (see: Glen Johnson, Jose Enrique, Jamie Carragher, Stephen Gerrard’s groin).
iv. QPR, or more accurately, Adel Taarabt, will be the ‘surprise package’ (© some pundit somewhere) and finish comfortably mid-table.
v. Blackburn have new owners with an interesting take on improving the squad: buy no-one and scrape survival.
vi. Wigan’s hopes lie on Victor Moses coming good to fill Charles N’Zogbia’s boots. They’ll go down.
vii. The rest are too boring to deserve a mention.
viii. I don’t for one minute imagine I’ve got any of this right.
By Jude Ellery
www.twitter.com/judeellery
