Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool need ‘useful’ signing as Premier League table predicted
The full Premier League table is predicted as Martin Zubimendi plays an unusually large part. Plus, thoughts on Chelsea racism and more.
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Predicting the Premier League
1. Manchester City â same old, unfortunately. Haaland will be well-rested and firing. Things could change if Rodri, the worldâs most important player, were to be sidelined. They currently donât have a Zubimendi waiting in the wings, more on him later. Savio arrives with low fanfare but is a typical Pep player. Controversial pathway via two of their âsister clubsâ. Iâve just learned thereâs 12 of them, wow. Quiz question to name them all.
2. Arsenal â same old, unfortunately. Iâd like them to win the title to fight the current monopolisation â maybe Calafiori can add to their left-sided build up to unleash Martinelli the way Xhaka did. Havertz has solved the number 9 issue. Speaking of which, Jesus should be primarily used to save Sakaâs legs at RAM. Zubimendi would be useful as Rice is not a 6 and Partey isnât a very good one.
3. Liverpool â whether the Slot machine will be as effective as Kloppâs Liverpool remains to be seen. Zubimendi would be useful as MacAllister is not a 6, though Endo isnât bad to be fair. A centre back purchase could change things. The sale of Salah could also change things, but I canât see it actually happening. On the contrary, it sounds like heâs in excellent shape ahead of the coming season.
4. Chelsea â fourth seems to be the place for the good team who arenât involved in Europe. They improved under Pochettino once the players became familiar with one another so, of course, Boehly sacked him. Nkunku should make a difference, as should Tosin and Colwill, as could Reece James. Cucurellaâs full-backing was better during the Euros, less so his singing. Good start essential after playing City on the opening weekend. Funny transfer dealings Team 1 (no surprise), Kellyman 19 million?
5. Newcastle â no Europe, so on the proviso Bruno G, Gordon and Isak stay and stay fit, fifth seems attainable. Livramento is class so Trippier should be on his way. Hall should be Englandâs left back before long. Howe could be Englandâs manager before long. Pochettino would be a good fit if so. Funny transfer dealings Team 2. 20 million for a Forest third choice keeper? Odysseas Vlachodimos? Who?!
6. Man United â just as it was alarming that they hadnât fixed the midfield issue at the beginning of the 22/23 season, the temporary stop gap that is Casemiro being in line to start versus Fulham is concerning. But, things can change. Zubimendi would be useful. As would Ugarte and Branthwaite, otherwise it is asking a lot of Yoro, despite Martinezâs important return to fitness. Rashford could be firing. He needs to unleash some anger.
7. Aston Villa â Luiz was crucial, but Onana dominates a lot of midfield space and mitigates the loss. Zubimendi would be useful. Theyâve bought a lot of players to cope with a heavy Champions League schedule and it will interesting to see if Rogers continues his form. Funny transfer dealings Team 3. Dobbin? 10 million?
8. West Ham â Kilman tightens things up and Kudus, Bowen, Guilherme and Paqueta(?) are top four players in waiting. They need a right-back and itâs probably going to be Wan-Bissaka, who is solid enough. Duran might be the forward they need if they can get him.
9. Tottenham â they had a great start but I dare say theyâve been found out. Son is 32 and they havenât replaced Kaneâs goals or fixed their defence. Bergvall and Gray are exciting signings but, as with Yoro, inexperience is the immediate stumbling block. Should sign Toney, if possible.
10. Crystal Palace â Olise may go on to be a world class winger elsewhere, but if they can keep Eze and Wharton then theyâll be fine. Watch Wharton closely this season. Can he continue his extraordinary trajectory? Could he have been Englandâs answer to Zubimendi? We shall see. Munoz is an exciting attacking fullback.
11. Brighton â Minteh could be a steal. Banco is an exciting left back. Adingra looked good last season. Ferguson needs to stay fit and push on. Three other stars to appear out of nowhere. Probably Osman, Wieffer and Yalcouye, who only Brighton scouts have any awareness of.
12. Nottingham Forest â Nuno has solidified their back line and theyâve signed players to strengthen other areas. Splashing 35 million on Elliott Anderson makes them funny transfer team number 4. Morgan Gibbs-White always gets 5 goals and 12 assists and heâs their Jack Grealish Villa-version. Fourth lowest xGC since Nuno arrived but the keeper let in low xG shots. Now thereâs a 6â8 guy called Carlos Miguel in nets.
13. Everton â Sean Dyche doing Sean Dyche things. Organised. 1-0s on repeat versus poorer teams and Arsenal between humblings to the other top six sides. Onana is a big loss, but theyâll probably keep Branthwaite. Funny transfer team number 5, Tim Iroegbunam for 9 million
14. Wolves â Gary OâNeil seems to be able to maximise performance and his Portuguese must be fairly good by now. Of course they have signed the usual unknowns, this time itâs Lima and Gomes (Rodrigo to go with Toti and Joao), while Cunha needs to stay fit and Kilman has to be replaced.
15. Bournemouth â they look well-resourced enough to stay firmly in the mid-bottom half without major concern. Spurs might start looking at Solanke if they canât get Toney. That could cause problems. Alex Smith might be one to watch.
16. Brentford â Toney might have to stay as the new striker, Thiago, is already broken. They need to keep Mbeumo fit. Good bottom half squad, most of whom have names that escape me. Wissa is a player I like and he will score ten important goals.
17. Fulham â Pahlinhaâs true value will be recognised now that he has gone. Smith-Rowe is a very good player, but with a question mark over his ability to stay fit. Muniz didnât make it at Boro, but astonishingly appears to be realising his potential as Mitrovicâs heir to the Fulham throne. Tosin is a big loss too. Tim Ream must be pushing 50.
18. Ipswich â sadly, itâs more about the relegation zone order in which theyâll finish. Greaves is a good signing, but how they were promoted with Boro castoffs Luongo and Morsy in midfield is beyond me. Like Edwards, McKenna seems to be a scholar of the game, capable of footballing sorcery. That said, theyâll probably swap places with Luton again, who seem best placed to return in time for 25/26.
19. Leicester â Faes and Vestergaard arenât enough. Their best player last season is now a Chelsea player and their promotion-winning manager is his manager. Dakaâs miss compilation from last season is incredible. Iâm surprised Vardy hasnât joined the MLS.
20. Southampton â theyâve signed a lot of players as Burnley did. Donât expect it to turn out any better as it probably wonât.
AC in Milan
MORE ON TRANSFERS FROM F365:
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Losing the love
No, youâre not on your own Mat.
The Premier League these days is as predictable as a Hulk Hogan main event circa 1985 to 1989.
You could just switch off, and in all probability I will as well. But as the autumn leaves start to fall and the nights draw in, someone will suggest going to the pub to catch the game and after a few pints, theyâll have you again.
So I wonât be able to ignore the football for the whole season (who could?) but Iâll try and ignore Stewie for the whole term.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
Oh ChelseaâŠ
Wow! So after a âcharity donation,â Chelsea has racism-washed Enzo. Stunning.
Not sure what his black teammates think. I know what I think, and I am white.
How can a player who plays on a team with a lot of black players â in a league where the teams take a knee before the game to remind everyone that racism exists, is real, and is hurtful â sing a totally racist song?
All this âI didnât think it would hurtâŠâ, âI didnât know what I was doingâŠâ, and âIt was in the heat of the momentâŠâ are, sigh, simply not enough.
These guys earn so much; throwing a few pounds at a charity really doesnât cut it. It takes no thinking and, more importantly, no inward soul-searching and understanding as to how what he does impacts black people â his teammates, for f*cks sake! Crikey, even Kurt Zouma took more heat over his abuse of a cat! I am sure the community service hit home that what he did was so wrong.
Under new management, we might have moved on from the days of oligarchic ruble washing.
I donât know whether I am more pissed at Enzo or the Chelsea management for sweeping this all under the carpet.
I have always admired Sterling for speaking up and out on racism, especially given all the hate and crap he has to deal with from the red tops. Hopefully, he sorts Enzo out.
Paul McDevitt
âŠFull disclosure: Iâm a middle aged white, slightly overweight, male. The most privileged demographic on Earth. So perhaps my voice should be drowned out by those who actually suffer the horror of racism. But how in the shuddering fuck have Chelsea decided to take no action against Fernandez?! Well actually let me rephrase that, what a surprise Chelsea have decided to take no action against Fernandez.
FIFA, UEFA, The FA, every club, talk a good game about stamping out racism / homophobia but as soon as it might impact their bottom line they disappear. Absolute cowards.
Until all of those cited above actually and genuinely care about these evils football will never be rid of them. Chelsea can never, ever say they want to be rid of racism when they have taken zero action against a player committing horrendous acts of racism.
Wouldnât it be wonderful if the FA not only punished Fernandez but also Chelsea for not doing the right thing and being cowardly scumbags.
Toby â CTFCâ Hudson
We donât need Olympics football
A bigger issue than a Team GB football team is whether certain sports should even be in an Olympics. Football is one, IMHO, that shouldnt. Same for Tennis, Golf and those other highly professional sports that already have one or more major tournaments. Watching zillionaires compete for the Olympic ideal is, wellâŠan anachronism. Both the ideal and the sport.
Regardless of making it U-23s, to ideal-wash the inclusion of football, and the fact that highly paid teenagers were the stars of the recent Euros, making Garettâs argument for Walesâ non-inclusion a little moot, we donât need another football tournament.
We are long past the time, at least in football, where national teams (and indeed those countries club sides in European competitions) were used to promote cultural identities and nationalism. Itâs so global now.
I do get that it would seem wrong to not include the most played sport, when we have Olympic sports that are only âplayedâ or competed for to win an Olympic medal. Dressage, the Kirin, Skeleton (I know winter games) ski jumping, etc, have such a small pool of competitors â yet can win your country Olympic glory. Even what might be considered âmain streamâ events like the Hammer. I competed in track and field and donât recall the Hammer ever being competed. Discus yes, javelin yes, long jump yes, pole vault and hammer â no. The triple jump was equally poorly competed (and the 10k walk) so that in team events were the first 6 places received points, athletes who never competed in those events filled in to try and win the teams point or two â and we did.
But even with all that, leave the Olympics to those sports that receive minimal attention in the intervening 4 years.
Now on to why we donât need the FIFA World Club cupâŠ
Paul McDevitt
Penalties solved
Losing on penalties is a terrible way to go out of a competition. There have been attempts at a better solution (Golden/Silver Goal) but so far penalties seem to be the least bad option.
I first thought about this when I was watching the Scotland-Hungary game, the idea of games where a draw serves neither team seemed like fun and I wondered how we could make this more prevalent.
My first thought was fun but impractical, the idea that in knock-out games during a tournament we went full âwin or go homeâ so if the game ended in a draw, both teams are eliminated. Iâd love to see it, but the logistics of making it practical would be insane.
This got me to thinking of other ways we could make penalties less common and I think I have an excellent option. My idea was to add in a new decider for games before we go to penalties. The team that has drawn the fewest knock-out games in that tournament goes through after extra-time.
If you win your R16 game on penalties and your quarter final opponent wins their R16 in extra time then your quarter final will not go to penalties, if you are drawing at the end of extra time your opponent goes through. For example, the Portugal-France QF would not have gone to penalties, because Portugal needed penalties in the R16. They would have lost to France AET without needing penalties. They would have known that going in, which may have changed the game somewhat.
This would also mean you get teams going into knock-out games knowing that a draw is good enough, however, they also know that if they get a draw and go through, they are potentially at a disadvantage vs their next opponents so are still incentivised to win. If this rule was in place for Euro 2020, then the final never goes to penalties and England win if it is a draw AET as none of the England knockout games went to penalties.
I canât think of a downside to that idea but would love to be corrected. I did come up with another idea too. Why not take the penalties at the end of normal time? You still play extra time, but you go into it knowing whether or not a draw is good enough. That way you have 30 mins to fix the result if you lost the penalty shootout. It also gives the players a bit more rest before extra time.
You may have to cap the number of penalties that can be taken so the players donât need another warm-up and it takes some of the drama out of penalties but I am not sure that is a bad thing.
Ozzy AFC DC
