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Who will win it then?

United.

This season for one will be quite difficult and will be a 70-80 point season. There is a list of 6-8 teams that cans surprise the top 4 on their day, and I expect that to happen quite frequently this season and the team amongst the top 2 that skips around this minefield successfully will win, hoping United’s and Fergie’s experience to save us.

Something that the London press have made it a point to ignore to build up Chelsea is the transfer of ‘rock-solid’ Makelele out of Chesea! Deco is not the answer, the one person who can step into that role is Essien and Mikel would be a good back up but it would take both of them put together to make up for one Makelele. United will miss Ronaldo’s goals and there is a big question mark on whether he can match last season, least improve on it. This long break and all these pressure will fire him up for sure, that’s what the last 2 seasons have taught us about the boy.

Will it be a 2-horse race?

It will be, but I expect the other ‘competitors’ to push them very close this season. Liverpool and Arse are not favourites for the Champion League slots, the Torres-Keane-Gerrard Combination is being built up, as good as it sounds, the backup again is lacking. Provided they qualify for the CL proper, they need more for their Alonsos and Benayouns. Same for Arsenal, the defence is very suspect, when your best defender is William Gallas, that’s says everything does it not? So it’s a 2 horse race yes, but a very tight one.
Relegation

Any 3 from Boro, Fulham, Hull and Stoke will do down.

Boro – All depends on Alves and his goals, Wheater should improve with an extra year under his belt but again, Arca and Downing alone cant save a team and are inconsistent and injury prone.

Fulham – Some clever purchases and a very experienced manager means that I could very wrong with this, but again when you buy players like Zamora and Pantsil who cant get into a struggling team like West Ham, it does not show a lot of promise

Hull & Stoke – Unknown and for me don’t have any names that inspires any confidence. Trusting the same players who took them into the premiership is heartening but not clever!

UEFA cup slots

Arse, Pool, Portsmouth, Everton (provided the impending transfers do come), Villa and of course Spurs.

Amongst the list above, the team that gets out of the cups including the UEFA cup the earliest will nick the UEFA Cup slot. Due to the fixture list because of the no of teams in Europe this year, we can expect another season of cup upsets in the FA Cup and the League Cup.