This season will be more interesting than last.
Because nobody will walk the title, as Chelsea did last term.
Most of us realised who would win the 2015 title & I knew it before my readers.
How? Because I knew how great Fabregas would be.
And, having watched Atletico Madrid every week, I knew how aggressive and skilful Diego Costa was.
( I don’t know when I first wrote that Chelsea would win the league. And it would take too long to look it up.)
The Next Four were led by Spurs, who won 19 league games compared to Man United’s 20 and Arsenal’s 22.
Next came Liverpool and Southampton, who each won 18 games.
Swansea won 16 games. Enough to give Garry Monk 8th place, the highest finish in their history.
When Southampton were winning tight games, and when Spurs were scoring loads of goals, the EPL was fun to follow. When those two went off the boil, the league became a bit dull.
Always remember that football is about players, not managers.
The goals of the fiery Alexis Sanchez allowed Arsenal to retain the FA Cup and finish third.
The injury to keeper Huge Lloris, a huge influence at the Lane, was damaging to Pochettino’s hopes.
Exciting striker Saido Mane gave Southampton a goal boost when Pelle dried up. But when Mane got injured, the Saints dipped.
Because I’ve been thinking about the Next Four all week, I started to pay attention when I saw the Special One on TV this morning.
Mourinho was saying that top teams will always lose matches: “Because of that, maybe less points will win it this time.”
I was thinking something similar all week.
Chelsea won 26 games and got 87 points and finished 8 points above Man City. For various reasons, that margin was less than I thought it was going to be.
Looking at the Premier League on this first Saturday of the season, I have a feeling that Crystal Palace may be able to beat some of the clubs in the Next Four and even one or two in the Big Four.
Yohan Cabaye, a classy midfielder with a good range of passing, will help them to control games. They might start by winning at Norwich this afternoon.
I’m expecting a fast, fluent Arsenal to beat West Ham by 4-0 or 5-0.
And I’m looking forward to West Brom v Man City on Monday night.
Aguero is still Citeh’s main man and new boy Raheem Sterling will start by creating chances for Argentina’s mighty atom. Then he will begin to score himself.