Premier League Preview: Fulham-ManCity

Fulham

Roy Hodgson was one of the managers of the season last year. Getting Fulham into Europe is no easy task, en route Fulham beat Manchester United again no easy task. With a limited transfer budget it is tough to see Fulham matching their exploits of last season but with such a solid squad atmosphere and very proffesional players who knows?

Having signed Bjorn Helge Riise for 1.5 million and Stephen Kelly for an undisclosed fee and no key departures this summer it it is not easy to make a case for Fulham improving as a side. However, continuity would be more than enough for Hodgson this season.

Prediction 9th

Hull City

Wow, what a season Hull had last year. Their first season in the Premier League was less a roller coaster and more a large mountain. After a wonderful start, winning at Arsenal in the process there was even talk of European qualification for the ‘Tigers’, however, after a mauling by Manchester City and that infamous half time team talk on the pitch Hull fell dramatically perhaps a little fortunate to stay up on the last day of the season.

Having signed Steven Mouyokolo and more importantly Stoke’s Seyl Olofinjana, Hull will hope they have enough to survive again. The reality, though, is that if they do not significantly strengthen further they can only go one way…down. Manager Phil Brown has complained that players do not seem to want to sign for Hull and this could ultimately be their downfall.

They have kept the nucleaus of their squad but this does not seem enough to rectify the fact that during the last half of the season Hull were the worst team in the division.

Prediciton 19th

Liverpool

This is a massive season for Liverpool. If they fail to capitalise on last season and do not improve to take the league title then you have to wonder how long Torres and Gerrard will put up with it. The two stars seem to be carrying the team and with the loss of Xavi Alonso a huge blow, Alberto Aquilani will have to be one hell of a replacement to help improve the side.

The signing of Glen Johnson should provide a boost to the attacking elements of Liverpool, however, he is yet to convince defensively and at £17 million he could prove another costly mistake a la Craig Bellamy and Jermaine Pennant.

With apparent financial worries this may be the last year Liverpool can hold their players together and you have to think that if the season does not go to plan players will leave in the summer. Also Benitez may buckle under the pressure and decide to move on should a top job in Spain beckon.

Keeping Gerrard and Torres fit will be the key, if they do this they could make a real title challenge, if not they will most likely be well off the pace.

Prediction 3rd

Manchester City

A year on from the Dubai big money take over, it is still a shock to many to see Mark Hughes as manager. Hardly known for his elegant teams Hughes has somehow kept his job despite a disappointing first season in charge. He will have to deliver the goods this season to keep his job and if he fails to do this transfer budgets cannot be the excuse.

The talk of the off-season (bar Real Madrid), Manchester City have spent big and have got everyone talking. Not least by their signing of former Manchester United player Carlos Tevez, it is strange to see City have the financial advantage over their fierce rivals but they fought off apparent interest from Chelsea and Liverpool also to secure Tevez’s signature.

Arsenal also seem to have given in to City selling two of their best players in Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor. City will now feel they have a chance of taking the ‘Gunners’ expected last Champions League place.

Another coup is the signing of Gareth Barry who last season said he would only leave Aston Villa for Champions League football, however, it turns out that money is more of a factor and after rejecting Liverpool last year. £12 million could look a bargain come the end of the season.

The most expected transfer of the summer also happened as Roque Santa Cruz’s sulking finally won through and Blackburn let him go for a cool £18 million.

With so many forwards it is hard to see where they will all fit in. Tevez and Adebayor are unlikely to accept anything other than starting roles and Robinho and Santa Cruz won’t be expecting to miss out either.

Reinforcements at the back are still needed and should City sign Lescott then they could possibly challenge for Europe. However, missing out on John Terry, Samuel Eto’o and Kaka could prove their undoing as most of their signings will not be majorly feared by the top clubs. Adebayor, Toure and Santa Cruz had poor seasons last year and Tevez was mainly a substitute at United.

Prediction: 6th

Champions League or English Premier League?

Kings of Europe or Kings of England?

It sounds like a straightforward question. Surely to be the champions of Europe is a greater achievement than being the best in England, just because of the sheer number of extra teams in the whole of Europe compared with England.

So basic statistics suggests that it is a far bigger honour to be the Kings of Europe. But as most people in sociology will tell you, statistics are not everything.

Is it really tougher to win the Champions League? Perhaps, one of the best arguments for the Premier League being tougher to win is that in 2005 Liverpool won the Champions League, in the same season they finished a lowly fifth in the Premier League, even below their main rivals Everton.

If the Champions League is so tough to win then how on earth did the fifth best side in England win it? Maybe, another point to add to this one is that in two-legged cup competitions it is far more likely that a ‘weaker’ team can beat a ‘better’ club. The nature of cups is so that a fortunate goal here or there could end up winning you the competition. Something that is unlikely in a League where over the 38 games of a season luck pretty much evens itself out.

It is very rare to hear anybody say that a team who wins a league did not deserve it. Even the most biased of fans have to admit that when a team wins a league it is a great achievement which is unlikely to be ‘lucky’.

Is the Champions League competition tougher in terms of teams than in the Premier League? In some ways ‘yes’ and in some ways ‘no’.

Yes, it is tougher in the way that all of Europe’s elite are competing to win the trophy. The likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Inter Milan are far better than the average Premier League side. But on the flip side of this teams such as Anorthosis, CFR Cluj, Bate Borisov and Aalborg are arguably far weaker than the average Premier League opposition.

Would fans prefer to win the English Premier League or the Champions League? This is a difficult question to answer, one that was perhaps far easier to answer four or five years ago. Back then, English Premier League teams did not dominate Europe’s top club competition in the way that they do now. It seems that if the league is weaker then it is more of an achievement to win in Europe.

However, this has all changed over the past few seasons and was proven by last season when English teams were only knocked out of the Champions League by other English teams. After an all English final and another season where so far all four English clubs have made the quarter-finals it is hard to deny that the EPL is Europe’s toughest to win league. As a result because it is played over 38 games it seems a much fairer way of assessing which English team is the best. If your team wins the EPL there are more reasons to brag than if your team wins the Champions League.

All in all it is very hard to assess which competition is the greater to win in terms of achievement and prestige. People such as Roman Abramovich and Massimo Moratti would far sooner see their teams Chelsea and Inter Milan win the Champions League than their own Leagues. However, the die hard fans of such clubs especially in England probably would rather see their side lift the league trophy, knowing what a great achievement this really is.

Yes, the Champions League is very tough to win but there is a greater luck factor involved, would Porto really have won the EPL the league they won the Champions League? Of course it is nice to beat teams such as Barcelona and Real Madrid rather than hammering Wigan or Fulham but until a season long league is created between Europe’s elite it is difficult to conclude that the Champions League is harder to win than the EPL.

Premier League Weekend Afterthought

The story of the weekend has to be Arsenal’s surprising win at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea who had gone over four years without a Premier League home defeat lost their second home game in recent weeks under dramatic circumstances. Arsenal, however, started the match very shakily and did not look comfortable as Chelsea seemingly dominated the possession and dictated the pace of the match. This was compounded by Djorou who put into his own net to give Chelsea a 1-0 half time lead.

Chelsea deserved their lead and looked good for it until a terrible referreeing decision allowed Arsenal to level midway through the second half. Denilson’s flick fell to Van Persie, who was visably a yard or two offside, no flag was raised and Van Persie slotted home.

A shell shocked Chelsea were outraged by the assistant referees mistake and were further made to pay when a sluggish Chelsea defence failed to clear allowing for Van Persie to turn on the ball and fire home the winner past a helpless Petr Cech a couple of minutes later. Chelsea never looked like scoring and again failed to come from a goal behind against strong opposition.

The Blues can look back on the match as an unlucky defeat but in truth Chelsea did not have enough spark at the Bridge to deserve anything from the match.

Scolari was surprisingly critical of the refereeing after the game. The Brazilian’s cool, calm and colleted reputation is quickly disappearing. The pressure may be getting to Big Phil, Chelsea are not looking they force they did at the start of the season. As the injury list grows and following the annoucement that Chelsea will not be buying players in January it is difficult to see how the home forn will be turned around.

As for Arsenal this result may have saved their season. They now are within 8 points of the top of the league and although it will be an uphill struggle the league title can still be theirs. Arsenal still lack a clear cutting edge but this result is sure to boost their confidence. Hopefully they will spend in January as the board have made it clear they have the funds to. Chelsea have now played all of the other three so called ‘big four’ at home this season and have only taken one point from those games not exactly title winning form.

Perhaps the fiercest derby in English Football went the way of Manchester United this weekend. United dominated the match and were good value for their win. Manchester City could not find the magic of last season to oust their rivals. Rooney scored a rebound tap in to seal the win for the Red Devils.

All did not end well for United, Cristiano Ronaldo was sent off for a needless handball late in the second half. The win has meant United have closed the gap significantly at the top and are starting to look like the team of last season again. City are now hovering dangerously close to the relegation zone. People at City will be starting to wonder how much longer their ridiculously rich owners will stand for the poor league position.

Liverpool claimed top spot despite failing to capitalise on Chelsea’s loss and could only draw in a drab match at home to West Ham. The Reds were booed off at full time and the Anfield crowd were less than impressed with another goaless home draw against weaker opposition.

It was the same result at Villa Park as a gutsy Fulham earned a good point. Villa missed out on the chance to consolidate their position in the top four and have now fallen to fifth. The league has tightened even more this week and no one at the top is taking control over their rivals.

Towards the foot of the table things are so close that a win can take some teams up six or seven places.

West Brom lost again despite leading away to Wigan and look like the real certainties to go down at the moment.

The other team on a downward spiral are Sunderland, hammered at home 4-1 by Bolton of all teams. An embarressing result and it looks as though Roy Keane has become disillusioned with life in the North-East. He will not sign a new contract and has admitted he may leave the club which is hardly reassuring to the players and fans. It is difficult to see how they can turn their fortunes around under such a fickle manager. Maybe Keane should just leave now so that the club can appoint a new manager and raise the spirits on the club before it is too late.

There were also good wins for Everton away at Spurs and Portsmouth at home to Blackburn. Stoke and Hull managed a draw as did Middlesborough and Newcastle.

1	Liverpool	15	13	34
2	Chelsea	15	27	33
3	Man Utd	14	16	28
4	Arsenal	15	8	26
5	Aston Villa	15	6	25
6	Hull	15	-2	23
7	Everton	15	-2	22
8	Portsmouth	15	-4	22
9	Bolton	15	1	20
10	Fulham	14	1	19
11	Wigan	15	-1	19
12	Middlesbrough	15	-6	19
13	West Ham	15	-5	18
14	Stoke	15	-10	18
15	Man City	15	6	17
16	Tottenham	15	-4	15
17	Newcastle	15	-5	15
18	Sunderland	15	-11	15
19	Blackburn	15	-12	13
20	West Brom	15	-16	11

The foreign players versus home grown players debate

Anyone who has followed football over the last few years will have heard many different views on how foreign players have effected club and international football. There has been a huge increase in foreigners across most of Europe’s leagues in the past decade. This has caused suggestion that the amount of foreign players playing for a club should be capped. FIFA president Sepp Blatter and UEFA president Michele Platini have both backed proposals thata their must be a minimum of 6 home grown players and a maximum of 5 foreign players per team.

Whilst such a proposal would expect to result in an increase in standard of certain national teams whose youngsters will get the chance to play top flight football, it is of little doubt that the standard of football in these leagues would decrease.

Maybe the argument is purely a club versus country debate. Which is more important and which do the fans prefer.  Well, it is tough to judge whether international football is preffered to club football. Fans tend to like both types of football and without polling Europe to find out, it is very difficult to draw any significant conclusions because of the undeniable popularity of both.

So rather than try to determine which is favoured it is probably easier to analyse whether foreign players have improved the top European leagues and whether less foreign players will help national teams to prosper.

Using the English Premier League as an example, most people will agree that the quality of football has dramatically increased over the past few seasons. With English teams dominating the champions league’s latter stages not many would deny that the English Premier League now has the highest standard of football anywhere in Europe and probably the world. The bigger nations in Europe such as Spain, Italy and Germany also seem to have gained something with the increase in foreign players. This has seen the revenue of these leagues increase by millions and millions in recent years.

Perhaps this increase in revenue and popularity still would have occurred without foreigners and of course there is no definite way to judge it but it is hard to dismiss the impact of foreigners in the bigger European nations.

The countries that have suffered most from the increase in foreign players in the top leagues in Europe are the smaller European countries and the rest of the world. Countries such as Holland, Brazil and Argentina are finding it increasingly difficult to hold onto their home grown players. As soon as players within these countries start attracting interest from the big European footballing nations they have an impossible task to hold onto their players.

So on the upside in England, Spain, Italy and Germany the standard of football has improved over the last few years. On the negative side pretty much every other country’s club football is suffering because of it.

The next question is whether or not the state of the national teams in England, Spain, Italy and Germany are deteriorating because of the influx of foreigners into their leagues.

A lot of Englishmen will point to England’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008 as a prime example of how foreigners have ruined the state of their national team. However, even before the decrease in English players in the Premier League England failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, a tournament in which they made the semi-finals four years earlier. Of the other main European footballing nations who have a similar amount of foreigners in their league, Spain won Euro 2008, Germany were the beaten finalist’s and Italy are the current World Cup holders. So on the whole it can be argued that in fact the impact of foreign players has not had a negative effect on the leading European nations national sides and may have even had a good effect. Even England, who can have the most complaints in this respect, are having a great qualifying campaign this time around.

It is unclear if countries should limit the number of foreigners playing in their club teams. It would be a great shame to see the worlds best clubs being limited in talent and the top European leagues would probably lose a lot of global appeal. Maybe this is the reason FIFA and UEFA have failed to sanction such a proposal despite their head henchozs both being in favour of it.