England: Premier League Ante-Post 2009/10 Season

[JimmyHarris1980]

When all the summer transfer activity is over and the season is about to begin we can revisit the "without top four" market. I bet my bottom dollar that City will be shorter than 11/4.

[BetfairGuy]

Fulham might be worth a punt to go down at 15 on Betfair, from a trading perspective. They really need to beef up their squad having qualified for the Europa League, while it's likely that someone will make a bid for Hangeland, who is the key man in their defence.

The w/o Big Four market is interesting. Can't seen why Villa are a smaller price than Everton, having lost players as important as Barry and Laursen. Everton also had Yakubu and Arteta out for long periods last season, so with them returning and a couple more inspired buys by Moyes (Owen on a free?) they should be stronger than last season.

Man City could well be challenging Arsenal next season for the fourth spot, in my opinion. What really let them down last season, was the lack of a striker that can lead the line and a lack of class in central midfield. Barry has come in and they are bound to bring in a decent front man.

With Arsenal, it all comes down to who they can bring in and whether they can hold on to Fabregas. Adebayor will go, so they will need to bring in a striker, but won't be able to afford the David Villa's of this world.

Spurs are always two or three players away from having a really strong team, but always seem to have someone poached in the summer, that sees them go back to square one (Carrick, Berbatov, Keane). They need to bring in a big front man, as Keane and Defoe aren't a great combination, especially away from home. Holding on to Modric is also important, as he really came into his own in teh second half of the season.

[JimmyHarris1980]

City been heavily linked with Eto'o today. His ability to score goals is not in doubt, the big question is whether he still retains the desire to give 100% week in week out having won it all at Barca. Providing he isn't turning up to collect his massive wages and coast through games this potential signing will be another big step towards clinching at least a 5th place finish next season.

[Jase82]

I can't see Fulham getting relegated under Roy. They get tipped for relegation every year, yet always prove their doubters wrong, and under Roy Hodgson they have stability, a great home record and are difficult to beat on the road. There are possibly 6 other teams I'd rank below them.

The Europa league might mean they slip a few places to 11th or 12th, but I can't see relegation being a fear for them.

Not when you consider how useless Hull are. Bolton have been flirting with relegation since big Sam left. Every club has found out Stoke, so they are likely to need a plan B (Other than hurling long throw ins into the penalty area). Wigan are likely to have an unexperienced EPL manager and finished last season in a whimper. Burnley have proven they can compete with top teams, so should put up some fight, but I'd have concerns over the size of their squad.

I'd expect, out of the promoted teams, that Birmingham should have enough about them to stay up. Wolves are another dark horse, however Mick McCarthy didn't fare to well on his last outing in the EPL, they should have enough financial backing to make it count.

[ivor1875]

From the fulham perspective,it should be an interesting year.We do start the europa cup early doors so the key priority is getting a few quality bodies in to boost our admitedly low on numbers first team squad.

It looks like gary o,neill will be coming from boro,and i think that we will be bringing in at least another central defender and the area where we do desparaetly need to strengthen is a new centre forward.Ten league goals from zamorra and johnson at £18 million pounds betwen them was the major dissapointment of an otherwise greeat season.Johnson injured alot as ever these days needs a good season ,whilst zamora wiil be on the way out i am sure,he can hold the ball up well;he just canot score at premier league level.We will have to take a hit on him,methinks.

Roy hodgson will be keen to do well this season as it was his second season at blackburn that was his undoing;having too got rovers onto the old uefa cup.Roy feels that he never got enough time from jack walker,whilst in the midst of an injury crisis,but rovers fans may well view that differently.

I believe he never saw the sack coming,and he almost had a mental breakdown over it,it so upset him.

However what is not in doubt is roy hodgson's determination to show his mettle in english football,his reputation in uefa coaching circles and within the european game goes before him;and that is why he turned down the general mangers job at inter to have one more try at seemingly relegated fulham.

For the first time we at last do seem to have a few coming through from the academy,chris smalling and wayne brown should be getting their chances this season.And the good news is that it loks like brede hangerland will be signing a new contract.

Jase is right to say that every year we are tipped to go down by so many in the pre-season betting guides and yet here we are entering our 10 th season.Never say never and i have been fan for over 35 years so i have seen it all at the cottage ,but i will be majorly surprised if we go down this season,not to say extremly dissapointed.

Another key factor is that al fayed is as commited as ever to funding the club,i am sure that he could find a buyer if he so wished ,but no.

I can see stoke struggling.Pulis talks about upping the style this season and changing tack ,but go back to him where ever he has been,gillingham,et.al,and he is never going to be a flowing footballer type of manager and ,fair play that is his right.But surely so many teams will not be caught out by their game plan this season.

We coped with them so easy ,a strong defence ,hangerland attacked the first ball,back 20 yards or so and that was it from them.

[WHUPUNTER]

Originally Posted by kevshat

My view would be if you like it, open a Skybet account where it will pay you £10893.00

[discodave]

Originally Posted by SloppyJ

Money spent doesnt mean that much imo. For example City have just spent £12m on Barry, a player that played for Villa, who finished below Everton, albeit one of their better players. Tottenham have for years spent millions and produced nothing but one good season where they finished 5th.

Everton have a great squad and a young developing one at that. Vaughan, Anichebe, Rodwell, Gosling, Feillani should all come on this year, and the highly rated Jose Baxter might even get a few games. Then the key is their best players, Arteta, Cahill, Lescott, Osman, Saha, Yukubu are all hitting their prime ages.

There's a good balance to their squad, and in Moyes they have a manager that is capable of keeping that team spirit. I can't see them selling many players this summer and the addition of one or two squad players could see them putting in another good season.


Everton W/O the big 4 @ 9/2 Paddy Power looks good to me.

also everton had a couple of months when most of their strikers were injured and they still kept on winning, moyes is probably the best manager in the premiership outside of the top 4 i can only see everton improving where as villa will find it hard to replace barry and the squad may be a bit peed off with last seasons finish,

man city are an unknown quantity really and if the new players dont gel then i think they could be the next tottenham unless robinho realises he is paid to play away from home

and obviously you would only put money on spurs if you support them

[discodave]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevshat
My view would be if you like it, open a Skybet account where it will pay you £10893.00

__________________


also you get a free 15 quid bet so you could of actually got another 1700 on top of this

[1875]

Hull to be relegated @ Evens (Ladbrokes)

If there end of season form is anything to go by then they will be relegated by January if they keepit up in the new season. Once the other premiership clubs started to show Hull some respect and the surprise factor left hull then it was a downward spiral and only avoided relegation on the last day. If they didn't start the opening 3 months of the season so well then they would have went down quicker than West Brom. Signings like F. Campbell from Utd doesn't fill me with much confidence that they will change next season. Imo Hull will only stay up if the other bottom teams are woefully bad.

[boyd]

I have just had my first antepost bet in the Premiership for the season. Wolves have drifted out to 8/1 at Skybet for some reason when other bookies are 9/2 and 5/1 which i think is a fair price but 8/1 is massive IMO. I can't see them coming out of the bottom five places in the league. I think Wolves could be similar to what West Brom were last season, in trying to play attractive football to stay up. The only problem with this is that other teams are better than them at playing football and i'm not sure they will have the game to win games playing scrappy. There isn't that much difference in ability of teams between them and Burnley and they are best priced 9/4. I know cup games are played differently to a league campaign but Burnley showed they can play good football as well as dig in against Premiership opposition and i believe they have what it takes so not come bottom with there home record.

Wolves - 8/1 skybet to finish bottom

[1875]

Originally Posted by Celticlad

Hull to be relegated @ Evens (Ladbrokes)

If there end of season form is anything to go by then they will be relegated by January if they keepit up in the new season. Once the other premiership clubs started to show Hull some respect and the surprise factor left hull then it was a downward spiral and only avoided relegation on the last day. If they didn't start the opening 3 months of the season so well then they would have went down quicker than West Brom. Signings like F. Campbell from Utd doesn't fill me with much confidence that they will change next season. Imo Hull will only stay up if the other bottom teams are woefully bad.

Well Hull missed out on Campbell and Fortune but now have had a £5m bid accepted for Bobby Zamora. Do they not want to score goals next season. Looks like they could rely on Giovanni again. Ill be putting more cash on them to be relegated if they continue to go after these types of players.

[Jase82]

I think as has been mentioned Hull don't seem to be strengthening their squad. How Bobby Zamora ever gets a Premier League club, I have no idea. He was great when he first burst on to the scene at Brighton.....

Zero goals for Spurs....30 goals in 130 appearances for West Ham and 2 in 35 games for Fulham....They must be laughing all the way to the bank!

I must confess at being slightly confused at Phil Brown's transfer policy, especially when he brought in Jimmy Bullard for £5million. Bit of a gamble to shell out that much money on a 30 year old injury prone player who is probably past his best.

Burnley and Hull both to get relegated would be my bet. Burnley have a number of players over 30 and have not improved the quality of their overall squad in the close season. They also look like they still have the smallest squad in the EPL....even after the new signings.

[ivor1875]

Jase is 100% right,what a superb bit of business to get rid of zamora and for 5 million,that is the transfer deal of the summer from a fulham perspective,i and most of the fulham fans would have bit anyone's hand of for 2 million,let alone 5.

We have now taken 10 million of hull city for z amora and jimmy bullard,bullard to be fair is a quality player but injuries will get the better of him,and that was a very good deal again from a fulham viewpoint.

To go back to zamora,he did start off ok and he did have some good games,he can hold up the ball quite well and does not have a bad touch,but he is slow,easily brushed off the ball and when he gets in the box is a head up row z forward.And to boot when he has occasionaly scored he has been having it out with the fans.

It is no secret that we are now trying to get peter crouch in,although sunderland have agreed terms,but it seems that crouch may prefer to stay in the south,we shall see.i believe that markus berg is another target,along with johnathan greening.

Maybe phil brown knows what he is doing but these are to my mind really dodgy signings,tallied to their dreadul finish last season and god,i'd say that they are in for a tough season

[Jase82]

Is anyone considering taking Man City at 17/1? Stranger things have happened.

Arsenal have been bringing through the youth for about 4 seasons now with no end product in sight and still lack a top quality holding midfielder and centre forward.

Manchester United have weakened their squad by selling Ronaldo. Scholes and Giggs are still light years ahead of any other midfielder they have at the club despite their ages, but are unlikely to play more than 25-30 games this season. Michael Owen is an unknown quantity and Berbatov has failed to live up to his price tag. I feel the side has been kept afloat the last few years by Ronaldo and there are still no replacements for their aging stars. Fergie has never won 4 EPL titles in a row, and I would be extremely impressed if he broke that trend this season.

Chelsea have appointed an unknown in Carlo Ancelloti as manager. Another very successful manager on the continent that doesn't know the EPL. Chelsea missed Joe Cole for me last season. Their entire campaign rests on John Terry and Frank Lampard. The average age of the squad is going up. It will be interesting to see who Ancelloti brings in, but we could have another Scolari situation on our hands. Abramovich would, I expect, prefer a Champions League trophy over an EPL trophy come June 2010.

Liverpool have improved their squad with the signing of Glen Johnson but still rely heavily on Torres and Gerrard. If both those players stay fit they may just win it this season, but they still need another world class midfielder for me, to take the pressure away from Gerrard and Torres. They were linked with Franck Ribbery recently. If they signed him, I'd jump all over Liverpool for the league.

Blackburn did it in 95 by bringing in quality players. Man City have clearly shown their intent to smash the monopoly held by the top four. They now possess arguably some of the best forward players in the EPL, if not Europe. As a possible bonus, they also won't have any European competiton to contend with this season, which should go in their favour because it's clear that top four clubs value the Champions League extremely highly, maybe even higher than the EPL. That is definitely the case where Chelsea are concerned.

[Stuey]

Originally Posted by Jase82

Is anyone considering taking Man City at 17/1? Stranger things have happened.

I have took Man City in an each way accumulator basically for the exact reasons you have listed. Looks like there gonna go all out to get Terry or Lescott or maybe both and if they do their defence will be solid. If they are anywhere near come January they can go out and spend X amount of millions again and with the big 4 likely to still have the CL as a distraction they will be in with a big chance

[Djslutmonkey]

Originally Posted by Jase82

Chelsea have appointed an unknown in Carlo Ancelloti as manager. Another very successful manager on the continent that doesn't know the EPL. Chelsea missed Joe Cole for me last season. Their entire campaign rests on John Terry and Frank Lampard. The average age of the squad is going up. It will be interesting to see who Ancelloti brings in, but we could have another Scolari situation on our hands. Abramovich would, I expect, prefer a Champions League trophy over an EPL trophy come June 2010.

The Scolari/Ancelloti comparison doesn't stand up imho - Scolari had literally never managed a European club side, had never managed a a team in a league competition as we know it (ie where the games at the start mean the same as the games at the end, in Brazil he had always had end of season play-offs), and had been in international management for nearly 10 years. Ancelotti may not be English, but he's much better placed to succeed than Scolari ever was.

I personally agree that Everton are a decent shout w/o big 4 at 5/1 now. City are obviously a team on the up, but plenty of questions remain. How will they line up? Will they get any defenders in? Will the balance of the side be right? How will such a group be handled by someone as relatively inexperienced as Hughes - its not like Fergie or Mourinho being able to impose themselves on star players by virtue of their medals.

If it clicks at City, then they could be awesome, if it doesn't they could be fun to watch for all the wrong reasons. Spurs are a threat, but look like they are struggling to get any of their top 3 centre-backs fit for the start of the season. Villa I think will really miss Laursen - their season went to pot after he got injured last year. Not to mention Barry.

Everton have been 5th 2 years running. They have a pretty good squad now, players like Arteta and Jagielka should be returning in Autumn, they have Saha, Yakubu and Jo up front, Fellaini and Cahill are both excellent players, etc etc. At the price I see them as being an incredibly safe e/w bet, I'd be amazed if they finish outside the top 7.

[ValueFinder]

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...g?t=1248807082

Fantastic bet.: Didier Drogba +5 handicap top scorer @ 15/1 E/W 1/4 odds 1-4 skybet

Drogba and Torres are obviously going to be top of the charts if they stay injury free and to give DD a 5 goal start on torres (scratch) is beyond belief.

Only dodgy thing about it is said injuries but a bet you just got to have, ridiculous. Profitable even on the E/W place.

[AK1979]

remember Drogba will go missing for the African Nations Cup for a few weeks too

[christo85efc]

Originally Posted by AJ

Don't like it at all, sorry.

They don't have the financial clout of Villa or City, both of whom will spend big. I forsee 9th or 10th for Everton next season

Not picking on you Aj, but yours was the first post to go against the tough old toffees!

I see no reason, just like last year, why we can't be up there once again. Last years pundits said exactly what you have posted here 'Everton will be mid-table at best' 'Everton will finish 9th or 10th' Makes me laugh, because we do not lose any of our key members of the squad and we improve slightly each year. Its well publicised that we have the smallest squad in the premiership and hardly a penny to spend, however we keep the team from the previous season playing together, and we have a superb first 11 with some very very good youngsters and squad players. Yakubu and Arteta were missing for large parts of the season and will be like 2 new signings. Arteta makes everton tick and without him we did amazingly well - pienaar stepped up - cahill stepped up to replace the yak up top. Jo has signed on for another season. If we can keep hold of Lescott (please!!!) we will do very well once again. This is all without talking of any new players which would be a welcome addition!

Spurs spend big every summer and get nowhere - i dont even rate their squad... Crouch is not exactly going to change their fortunes - i believe they will still finish behind us again this season. Villa have spent on Downing nothing to be worried about there in my opinion, i dont think theyll make enough improvements to finish ahead of us. City are the only team im slightly worried about - although i wont be fretting too much - for all the strikers they have bought they can only play 3 at the most, haha, they will take time to mould for sure so i still think we will finish ahead of them. Fulham will get distracted by europe. Hmmm so i cant think of any other team that could challenge.

So people can think that we will finish further down the league and then be surprised once again when we are right up there come the end of the season. In Moyes we trust

[christo85efc]

Pompey to be bottom of the league at xmas @ 11.00

As others have commented already, i too think Pompe will really struggle next season. Having lost Crouch recently (even though i dont rate him) this further reduces their firepower up top - if they dont sign anyone, it looks like it could be a strikeforce of the ageing Kanu and Nugent - the less said about that strike partnership the better id say. I cant see where the goals are going to come from. Add to this, they lost their best defender and best player Glen Johnson, with no replacement made i think we will once again see a very very leaky defence. Also a lot of press reports suggesting Distin will be out the door too leads me to think this is a great bet. I think the promoted sides this year will be stubborn in grinding out a lot of draws and and winning some tight games at home. I cant see it with Pompey, i see no steal, no backbone to the team.

Premier League Top Scorer - Van Persie 20/1 EW

I cant wait for the new season. I love watching arsenal play football, and i believe they will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season, especially if they find a couple of gems with the money received for Adebayor and Toure. Arsenals free flowing play and movement creates so many chances, and with a bit more clinical finishing they will be banging them in each and every game. Van Persie will be the main man this year with Adebayors departure. Hes got a great finish on him, takes free kicks and penalties for the gunners. He drops deep to get the ball in usual circumstances, like Bergkamp used to do, however i think be play more advanced this year and so will be more dangerous closer to goal. I recall last year when he couldnt stop scoring only to be sidelined by injury for a few months which set back his bid to be last seasons top scorer. Great bet i think this one.

West Ham to finish in the top half of the Premier League @ 2.25

One team i fancy to do reasonably well this year is West Ham. I really like the way Zola goes about his business, his style of play is exciting and i think we will see this more with the Hammers this coming campaign. Zola has brought in Jimenez who i think is a gem of a player, seen him play for Inter a few times last season and have to say i was very impressed. Surprised that west ham have been able to get him actually and am looking forward to seeing him play, could be a great bit of business. He's going in my fantasy football team anyway on the cheap He's got some good youngsters coming through as well, notably Tompkins who will look to form a solid partnership with Upson (if City don't get hold of him). I see West Ham playing some nice stuff again this season and perhaps just missing out on europe, but finishing in the top half!