Well, so far, albeit at this early stage, my predictions in my extended review of the new EPL season have not worked out too well! But it's only the early days!
Here are my predictions for the winners of other major leagues in Europe for the 2009-2010 season:
Bundesliga (Germany): Bayern Munchen (who else!)but competition will be stiff
Serie A (Italy): Inter Milan
Juventus have not bought sufficient quality players, and Milan have lost Kaka on top of that, to be able to challenge Inter Milan,s supremacy of recent seasons.
Inter on the other hand, as evident by their demolition of Milan on the opening the of the season, have bought the Brazilian Captain Lucio from Bayern, and swapped the over rated Ibrahimovic for the brilliant E'to, making them even more dominant, although European glory will continue to be out of their reach.
Primera Division (Spain): barcelona: As I have stated in my previous postings, Barcelona should be able to AND will embarrass Real Madrid's Perez and his extravagant money wasting shopping spree of "Galacticos" by winning the Primera Division again!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The 4th spot and relegation places are the hardest to predict in the EPL 2009-2010 Season
The EPL season will start in mid August. It has been another eventful off season with the biggest news in England being the departure of Ronaldo to Real Madrid and arrival of Ancelotti as the new coach at the rotating doors of Chelsea. Blogs and commentary of predictions for the new season are under way. In my view, there will be a few reasonably certainties which are easy to predict. Here they are:
Liverpool & Manchester United will be the main two contenders for the title again this year. Liverpool have lost Alonso but replaced him with the talented Aquilani. Sir Alex may have lost Ronaldo and Tevez, but has the ability to get the best out of Michael Owen. However, I think it is time for Liverpool to win the Premiership for the first time, 21 years after their last league title.
Chelsea, under yet again another (albeit experienced) coach new to the English game, and with an aging squad will be hovering around and will have a chance should Manchester United or Liverpool slip. However, I would still like to see a tactical approach to accommodate a Ballack/Lampard/Deco combination. If Ancelotti manages to do this, the effect may be irresistibly powerful.
As for the rest, and notice I did not mention Arsenal above, the following are my predictions:
1. Arsen Wenger's young Arsenal side will not have enough depth and experience to fend off the Top 4 wannabees this year like they did last year with Aston Villa and later in the season Everton.
The Gunners have not signed any new quality "experienced" players. No matter how entertaining the young players will play under the guidance of the magnificent Wenger, Fabregas, Arshavin, Gallas and other senior players will not be able to fully eliminate the lack of consistency which will catch up with Arsenal this year and they will lose them their "top 4" mantle for the first time in many years.
The fact that Wenger this week made the highly unusual statement ..."qualification for Champions League is not essential to Arsenal's finances"...shows nerves are already twitching at Arsenal!
2. Everton and Aston Villa will still be competitive but Moyes and O'Neill will still need to resort to getting the best out of their limited squads and hope injuries do not wreck their season.
This year Everton will need Moyes' magic and luck to reproduce a Top 5 finish. Aston Villa meanwhile will need O'Neill's magic but to also get over the loss of influencial Gareth Barry to Manchester City.
Both teams will be in the Top 8 by the season's end but will they be able the crack Top 4?
3. Manchester City, with all their money, are only managing to sign left overs from the big European Clubs' wish lists. I am not however suggesting the likes of Barry, Tevez, Santa Cruz, Robinho, Given, Adebayor, Bellamy etc are not great players. But none are in the "Galactico" level of popularity to give the Club the worldwide exposure which the new owners of Manchester City are hoping for.
a) Whilst I respect and like Mark Hughes, I am also not sure if he is the right person for such a difficult position and doubt whether he will manage to stay in the job till the end of the season. He did a great job of making Blackburn a competitive team. But what is being ask of him here is not exactly in the same level as his achievements up to now.
b) It is no longer easy to simply become a global name overnight by throwing money around as it was when Abramovich took over Chelsea,
c) Chelsea was already a semi glamorous Club due to its location in London and the likes of Guillet, Viali and Zola, and winning the Cup Winners Cup in the late 90s by the time.
d) However, the main problem with Manchester City is that even if they overcome everything else and Hughes moulds the players into a compact unit, Manchester City will always have to deal with the huge shadow over their head in the form of Manchester United.
4. That leaves the London trio of Spurs, West Ham and the much improved and impressive Fulham to fight for the remaining Top 10 finishes.
5. The relegation battle this year will potentially be the most exciting of all time! I make this claim, because two of the main contenders for relegation last year survived the battle! This makes the field of candidates for relegation the largest in the living memory:
Hull and Stoke are still in the EPL this year but will have to count on every point to survive again. However, they have immediate EPL experience in their survival battle to count on, whilst the newly promoted Wolves are yet to survive the EPL more than one season and it remains to be seen whether Birmingham will be as gritty as they were under Steve Bruce in their last successful spell in the EPL.
Burnley are making their EPL debut and first appearance in the top flight since 1976, but are a Club with rich footballing history, one of the founding English League Clubs and one of the few who have won all four major English League Championships.
To add to the above list, it takes a bad start, a few injuries to crucial players, and a loss of confidence for the likes of Sunderland, Portsmuth and Wigan to find themselves struggling. At the end, most of the usual strugglers have a better chance of taking valuable points from their relegation rivals this year than at anytime in the past as the bottom teams are more evenly matched this year.
It is hard to predict the teams most likely to be relegated, but I think Burnley, Hull and Wolves will be the most likely, closely followed by Stoke City.
This brings me to the end of this post, and the time to predict the hardest of them all this year: Who will end up as the fourth team and get the potential lucrative entry to the Champions League:
A glance at the respective squads and level of experience of the contenders tells me that if Mark Hughes and his team get it right, Manchester City on paper has the capacity to make the leap forward into Top 4. Everton and Aston Villa simply do not have the depth in their squads to match Manchester City. However, any slip from Manchester City or any of the other pretenders, and Wenger and his young squad will steal the 4th spot again.
At any case, another exciting EPL is awaiting us. It's a league which in terms of technical and tactical ability is far from the best in Europe. That accolade goes to Spain, and then Germany in my view, especially considering that EPL laggs behind Spain and Germany in average goal per game and average attendance per game (although it sometimes beats Spain in attendance averages).
Nevertheless, EPL is the most exciting and popular football league in the world and makes compelling viewing. Enjoy! and may your team does well, as long as Liverpool wins the title this year! :)
Liverpool & Manchester United will be the main two contenders for the title again this year. Liverpool have lost Alonso but replaced him with the talented Aquilani. Sir Alex may have lost Ronaldo and Tevez, but has the ability to get the best out of Michael Owen. However, I think it is time for Liverpool to win the Premiership for the first time, 21 years after their last league title.
Chelsea, under yet again another (albeit experienced) coach new to the English game, and with an aging squad will be hovering around and will have a chance should Manchester United or Liverpool slip. However, I would still like to see a tactical approach to accommodate a Ballack/Lampard/Deco combination. If Ancelotti manages to do this, the effect may be irresistibly powerful.
As for the rest, and notice I did not mention Arsenal above, the following are my predictions:
1. Arsen Wenger's young Arsenal side will not have enough depth and experience to fend off the Top 4 wannabees this year like they did last year with Aston Villa and later in the season Everton.
The Gunners have not signed any new quality "experienced" players. No matter how entertaining the young players will play under the guidance of the magnificent Wenger, Fabregas, Arshavin, Gallas and other senior players will not be able to fully eliminate the lack of consistency which will catch up with Arsenal this year and they will lose them their "top 4" mantle for the first time in many years.
The fact that Wenger this week made the highly unusual statement ..."qualification for Champions League is not essential to Arsenal's finances"...shows nerves are already twitching at Arsenal!
2. Everton and Aston Villa will still be competitive but Moyes and O'Neill will still need to resort to getting the best out of their limited squads and hope injuries do not wreck their season.
This year Everton will need Moyes' magic and luck to reproduce a Top 5 finish. Aston Villa meanwhile will need O'Neill's magic but to also get over the loss of influencial Gareth Barry to Manchester City.
Both teams will be in the Top 8 by the season's end but will they be able the crack Top 4?
3. Manchester City, with all their money, are only managing to sign left overs from the big European Clubs' wish lists. I am not however suggesting the likes of Barry, Tevez, Santa Cruz, Robinho, Given, Adebayor, Bellamy etc are not great players. But none are in the "Galactico" level of popularity to give the Club the worldwide exposure which the new owners of Manchester City are hoping for.
a) Whilst I respect and like Mark Hughes, I am also not sure if he is the right person for such a difficult position and doubt whether he will manage to stay in the job till the end of the season. He did a great job of making Blackburn a competitive team. But what is being ask of him here is not exactly in the same level as his achievements up to now.
b) It is no longer easy to simply become a global name overnight by throwing money around as it was when Abramovich took over Chelsea,
c) Chelsea was already a semi glamorous Club due to its location in London and the likes of Guillet, Viali and Zola, and winning the Cup Winners Cup in the late 90s by the time.
d) However, the main problem with Manchester City is that even if they overcome everything else and Hughes moulds the players into a compact unit, Manchester City will always have to deal with the huge shadow over their head in the form of Manchester United.
4. That leaves the London trio of Spurs, West Ham and the much improved and impressive Fulham to fight for the remaining Top 10 finishes.
5. The relegation battle this year will potentially be the most exciting of all time! I make this claim, because two of the main contenders for relegation last year survived the battle! This makes the field of candidates for relegation the largest in the living memory:
Hull and Stoke are still in the EPL this year but will have to count on every point to survive again. However, they have immediate EPL experience in their survival battle to count on, whilst the newly promoted Wolves are yet to survive the EPL more than one season and it remains to be seen whether Birmingham will be as gritty as they were under Steve Bruce in their last successful spell in the EPL.
Burnley are making their EPL debut and first appearance in the top flight since 1976, but are a Club with rich footballing history, one of the founding English League Clubs and one of the few who have won all four major English League Championships.
To add to the above list, it takes a bad start, a few injuries to crucial players, and a loss of confidence for the likes of Sunderland, Portsmuth and Wigan to find themselves struggling. At the end, most of the usual strugglers have a better chance of taking valuable points from their relegation rivals this year than at anytime in the past as the bottom teams are more evenly matched this year.
It is hard to predict the teams most likely to be relegated, but I think Burnley, Hull and Wolves will be the most likely, closely followed by Stoke City.
This brings me to the end of this post, and the time to predict the hardest of them all this year: Who will end up as the fourth team and get the potential lucrative entry to the Champions League:
A glance at the respective squads and level of experience of the contenders tells me that if Mark Hughes and his team get it right, Manchester City on paper has the capacity to make the leap forward into Top 4. Everton and Aston Villa simply do not have the depth in their squads to match Manchester City. However, any slip from Manchester City or any of the other pretenders, and Wenger and his young squad will steal the 4th spot again.
At any case, another exciting EPL is awaiting us. It's a league which in terms of technical and tactical ability is far from the best in Europe. That accolade goes to Spain, and then Germany in my view, especially considering that EPL laggs behind Spain and Germany in average goal per game and average attendance per game (although it sometimes beats Spain in attendance averages).
Nevertheless, EPL is the most exciting and popular football league in the world and makes compelling viewing. Enjoy! and may your team does well, as long as Liverpool wins the title this year! :)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Are other big club Managers jealous of Perez and Real? Will Real's strategy of shuting other big teams out of the transfer market work?
Question: Are the likes of Berlusconi (Milan), Beckenbauer (Bayern), Ferguson (Manchester Utd, Wenger (Arsenal) and Laporta (Barcelona) simply jealous of Perez and Real, or do they have a an important point to make in their criticism of Perez and his outlandish spending this season?
Question: In practical terms, is Perez doing anything different to what Abramovich has attempted to do at Chelsea, or the Arab owners of Manchester City are doing?
Question: Hasn't the practice of assembling the world best players in teh one club been attempted by other clubs as far back as mid 70s (eg Barcelona buying Cruyff and Neeskens in the 70s, and Maradona and many others in the 80s?, or Milan with their Dutch trio and other stars last decade?)
Question: Is all the commotion anything but professional jealousy?
The answer to the above questions is Yes & No!
Yes, this has been attempted many times before, most recently in case of Real in the early 200s with the Galacticos, Chelsea and Manchester City. But whilst professional jealousy certainly plays a part, it is not the only reason many people are worried about the reckless behaviour Perez and Real's Board.
Of course, every coach, and most fans would love to have the likes of Benzema, Kaka and Ronaldo playing for their team. But that is where the extent of the professional jealousy stops.
Perez is guilty of:
- Taking the "working man's game" to its ultimate breaking point
- If unsuccessful in "Buying" trophies, will once again take Real Madrid to the brink of bankruptcy
- Potentially shifting a huge amount of TV/Merchandising money from other leagues to Real, and starving smaller leagues even more than before of essential funds
What is the fun of watching football when a team "buys" its way to glory? How different is is it to match fixing in practical terms? How competitive are things when even Sir Alex Ferguson admits that Perez and his high spending strategy has made it difficult for the likes of Manchester Utd to stay competitive in the transfer market this season?
But football is a funny game, and coaches like Ferguson are clever tacticians! They will get more out of their players and will beat Real with fewer resources but more discipline.
I predict Real's success rate, considering the huge capital outlay, will in relative terms be no more than Abramovich's Chelsea have achieved so far. When/if my prediction comes true, Perez will go down in history as a typical Spanish "Madman" Club President.
The unfortunate thing is however, that he might take the Club and even the beautiful game down with him! Let's hope the game is stronger than money and the mad businessmen wasting it!
Question: In practical terms, is Perez doing anything different to what Abramovich has attempted to do at Chelsea, or the Arab owners of Manchester City are doing?
Question: Hasn't the practice of assembling the world best players in teh one club been attempted by other clubs as far back as mid 70s (eg Barcelona buying Cruyff and Neeskens in the 70s, and Maradona and many others in the 80s?, or Milan with their Dutch trio and other stars last decade?)
Question: Is all the commotion anything but professional jealousy?
The answer to the above questions is Yes & No!
Yes, this has been attempted many times before, most recently in case of Real in the early 200s with the Galacticos, Chelsea and Manchester City. But whilst professional jealousy certainly plays a part, it is not the only reason many people are worried about the reckless behaviour Perez and Real's Board.
Of course, every coach, and most fans would love to have the likes of Benzema, Kaka and Ronaldo playing for their team. But that is where the extent of the professional jealousy stops.
Perez is guilty of:
- Taking the "working man's game" to its ultimate breaking point
- If unsuccessful in "Buying" trophies, will once again take Real Madrid to the brink of bankruptcy
- Potentially shifting a huge amount of TV/Merchandising money from other leagues to Real, and starving smaller leagues even more than before of essential funds
What is the fun of watching football when a team "buys" its way to glory? How different is is it to match fixing in practical terms? How competitive are things when even Sir Alex Ferguson admits that Perez and his high spending strategy has made it difficult for the likes of Manchester Utd to stay competitive in the transfer market this season?
But football is a funny game, and coaches like Ferguson are clever tacticians! They will get more out of their players and will beat Real with fewer resources but more discipline.
I predict Real's success rate, considering the huge capital outlay, will in relative terms be no more than Abramovich's Chelsea have achieved so far. When/if my prediction comes true, Perez will go down in history as a typical Spanish "Madman" Club President.
The unfortunate thing is however, that he might take the Club and even the beautiful game down with him! Let's hope the game is stronger than money and the mad businessmen wasting it!
Friday, June 12, 2009
Money may win Real Madrid a few trophies, but it won't buy them lasting glory!
Real Madrid and their newly elected President Florentino Perez are once again making a mockery out of the "World game" by attempting to buy themselves glory.
Real under Perez's leadership did the same thing a few years ago with the now famous "Galacticos" policy. Perez went shopping and bought amongst many others, Figo, Zidane, Beckham and Owen at ridiculous fees to bring back the glory days to Madrid. They won the Premiera League a few times and a CL trophy (or perhaps two depending on how the time period of his presidency is looked at.....and then they started to believe Real had actually organically made it all happen and guess what happened next?
They started to fade away after the 2002 CL win, Perez lost his position, and they have been rather ordinary every since, blaming coach after coach for their failure to plan for the future and develop youngsters through the ranks.
Now Perez has once again been elected with the promise to "buy" Real's way back into the history books at any cost and in a totally shameless fashion. And as the nature of Club Presidency in Spain dictates, Perez has to be flashier and more outrageous this time. So, he's paid more than 200m Euros for Ronaldo and Kaka, both of whom will reportedly earn more than 300 thousand euros a week after tax.
In doing so, Perez hopes to get enough time to "buy" a few trophies for Real, before his ego once again clashes with the Board's collective egos, the coach gets blamed, and Ronaldo starts throwing his usual narcissistic tantrums!
You might challenge me by asking the same question about other rich European clubs. Chelsea and their appearing overnight "funny Money divided between so few Putin supporters" Russian money aside, who have as yet failed to buy their European glory (thanks to John Terry slipping on the ball in last year's CL Final), most other big European clubs such as AC Milan, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, Juventus and Bayern all try to buy the best players in their desperate attempts to get their hands on the CL trophy.
That is a fair comment. However, none go crazy like Perez and Real do, and all try their hands on developing some of their young talent as well. Take Barcelona and its Youth Academy or Manchester United and Sir Alex for instance. Love him or loath him(and I belong to the later group) Sir Alex has an uncanny ability to nurture young talent into his first team (endless list of Neville brothers, Beckham, Giggs, Ronaldo, Butt etc) as well as letting restless players leave. Even the self serving, self promoting Berlusconi at AC Milan never behaved as shamelessly as Perez is at Real.
At the end of it all, Perez is simply taking the Beautiful game further and further towards disaster whilst trying to buy his way into glory of the history books.
In years to come, rest assured Real fans, and football fans worldwide will remember the expensive players who won Real the trophies. But Perez will be judged as one of the architects of "prostituting the passion of the beautiful game in order to buy himself glory"
Real under Perez's leadership did the same thing a few years ago with the now famous "Galacticos" policy. Perez went shopping and bought amongst many others, Figo, Zidane, Beckham and Owen at ridiculous fees to bring back the glory days to Madrid. They won the Premiera League a few times and a CL trophy (or perhaps two depending on how the time period of his presidency is looked at.....and then they started to believe Real had actually organically made it all happen and guess what happened next?
They started to fade away after the 2002 CL win, Perez lost his position, and they have been rather ordinary every since, blaming coach after coach for their failure to plan for the future and develop youngsters through the ranks.
Now Perez has once again been elected with the promise to "buy" Real's way back into the history books at any cost and in a totally shameless fashion. And as the nature of Club Presidency in Spain dictates, Perez has to be flashier and more outrageous this time. So, he's paid more than 200m Euros for Ronaldo and Kaka, both of whom will reportedly earn more than 300 thousand euros a week after tax.
In doing so, Perez hopes to get enough time to "buy" a few trophies for Real, before his ego once again clashes with the Board's collective egos, the coach gets blamed, and Ronaldo starts throwing his usual narcissistic tantrums!
You might challenge me by asking the same question about other rich European clubs. Chelsea and their appearing overnight "funny Money divided between so few Putin supporters" Russian money aside, who have as yet failed to buy their European glory (thanks to John Terry slipping on the ball in last year's CL Final), most other big European clubs such as AC Milan, Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, Juventus and Bayern all try to buy the best players in their desperate attempts to get their hands on the CL trophy.
That is a fair comment. However, none go crazy like Perez and Real do, and all try their hands on developing some of their young talent as well. Take Barcelona and its Youth Academy or Manchester United and Sir Alex for instance. Love him or loath him(and I belong to the later group) Sir Alex has an uncanny ability to nurture young talent into his first team (endless list of Neville brothers, Beckham, Giggs, Ronaldo, Butt etc) as well as letting restless players leave. Even the self serving, self promoting Berlusconi at AC Milan never behaved as shamelessly as Perez is at Real.
At the end of it all, Perez is simply taking the Beautiful game further and further towards disaster whilst trying to buy his way into glory of the history books.
In years to come, rest assured Real fans, and football fans worldwide will remember the expensive players who won Real the trophies. But Perez will be judged as one of the architects of "prostituting the passion of the beautiful game in order to buy himself glory"
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