2010/2011 Premiership Countdown - Manchester United

Despite losing C.Ronaldo and Tevez, Manchester United still lost to Champion Chelsea by only one point in a tightly fought title race last season behind a career season from Wayne Rooney as he scored 26 goals in 32 games. The current Manchester United squad is not the most talented pool comparing to most of their past league champion sides over the last 20 years; however, Ferguson is one of the best managers in the world in making average talents "over-achieved"! Such statements is not an understatement of Man.Utd. players' quality, but rather a true compliment and tribute to the experienced "old fox" Alex Ferguson. Player to player, Man.Utd. could be inferior to Chelsea, Arsenal,Liverpool and Manchester City stars. A great evidence is that only Vidic, Evra, Parks, Rooney, Hernandez making the South Africa World Cup this year. (with Ferdinand and Nani out injured) Yet, under Ferguson, Manchestered United can play at incredibly high effectivness and efficiency with great organization, tactical awareness, understanding and passing-movement. With less attacking quality in the side, Ferguson has the ability to trun the team into a rock solid defensive team with effective counter attack. Without the individual brilliance of C.Ronaldo, Ferguson still managed to guide Portugal WG Nani and Ecaudor WG Valencia play to the best of their ability and produce highly effective attack from the wings. Even losing star DMF Roy Keane for retirement with replacement Hargreaves never been able to avoid injury, Ferguson still capable of developing Scottish CMF Fletcher into an efficienct hard-working DMF and switching formation to play 2 DMF to lessen the weakness in DMF position. At the age of 35-36, club veteran heros Giggs and Scholes still manage to provide great leadership, goals and assists for the team at key moment through effective substitution and game time management under Ferguson. As the board facing growing financial problem with less transfer fund making available, Ferguson and his scout team still managed to get in young talents such as Brailizan wing-back brothers Fabio and Rafael, Mexico FW Hernandez,Italian FW Macheda with local talents such as MF Gibson and N.Irish CB Evans coming through the ranks quickly. Whatever problem the team has to face, Ferguson always have the answer in leading the team sustaining at very top level in the league.

Manchester Untied once again is the top favorite to win the league this season. However, without Tevez and C.Ronaldo, the team has been relying too heavily in the scoring ability of Rooney up-front. Last season, the team has kept a tight race with Chelsea until they lost Rooney through injury near end of the season which immediately led to loss of important league points with title chance fating away. Therefore, Ferguson has acquired talented Mexico star FW Hernandez to improve the depth in the striker area and he could well be one of the surprising finds of European football! Still, the performance of disappointing Bulgarian FW Bebertov and FW Michael Owen will be the the decisive factor for the team's title race as Rooney sure needs much more support up-front in a long hard season and ever competitive premier league.

Although the team did not get in more talents to strengthen the squad especially in CB (as Ferdinand gradually injury more often) and CMF (Fletcher,Carrick,Scholes,Anderson CMF combo is not quality enough for Champion League), the Red Devils remains the most balanced , well-coached and consistent team with a great mix of veterans and youngsters among all title challengers. As youth development has always been an intergal part of the team, the new Premiership home grown player rule should favor the team compared to the likes of Chelsea and Man.City. In conclusion, Red Devils has a great chance to re-claim the league title, but should expect to face fierce challenge from Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea. Will Ferguson, Giggs and Scholes get league title before their farewell season which should come very soon? (as a LFC fan, I sure hope not!)

Strongest line-up: <4-3-3/4-2-3-1>

Van Der Saar

Brown Ferdinand Vidic Evra

Parks Fletcher Scholes

Valencia Rooney Nani

Prediction: Champion! (warning: my prediciton is always wrong! )

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown - Chelsea

Chelsea was the Premiership champion last season after edging out rival Manchester United by one point in ex-AC Milan manager Ancelotti's debut season. The key players in the team all reached their peak which includes Drogba, Lampard, Anelka and Ashely Cole as they broke Premiership historical record by scoring over 100 goals in one single premier league season.

However, there are several factors not favoring Chelsea's championship chance for this coming season. As majority of Chelsea top players have reached 30+ (Drogba, Lampard,Anelka), their form will only go downward gradually. Although all three have had excellent 2009/2010 season, they sure need more bench help with the team also focusing so much on Champion League- a competition team owner Abramovic have never won. Yet, Abramovic's wealth is dropping fast with the current economic cricis and he cannot afford to bring in big names like he did in the past. Added the new Premiership home grown player rule, Chelsea is now forced to cut down some of their important foreign players in order to make room for their local young players to fill out the squad. Yet, for the past several seasons, Chelsea had been so desperate for instant glory that they never pay much attention in developing their young players. Under the league new home grown player rule, every Premiership club must possess at least 8 players among their 25 squad with their football career experienced under English or Wales football system before 21 year old regardless of their nationality. This new rule could hurt Chelsea's type of team the most with majority of their squad being foreign players who were well established in other European leagues before they joined Chelsea.

The departing key players include free-agent English AMF Joe Cole, Portugal CB Caravalho, Portugal CMF Deco, Germany CMF Ballack and Brazil RB Belletti. So far, only Brazilian MF Ramires and ex-Liverpool Israeli AMF Benayoun have bought in as replacement. While Brazilian MF Ramires could make positive impact for his tireless run, he does not possess the passing ability of Ballack and Deco. Benayoun is one of the most under-rated playmaker in the league, but Joe Cole is younger and a higher quality attacker. Among all departing players, Caravalho will be a sure miss. Captain CB John Terry has slowly declining every season and his poor form could be more easily exposed without the under-rated and consistent Caravalho cleaning up his mistake at the back. In addition, star LB Ashley Cole is chasing hard by Real Madrid and he could also want to leave Chelsea to join his former boss Mourinho.

Although Chelsea still possess a quality and experienced team with the backbone of Cech-Terry-Essien-Lampard-Drogba, Chelsea has less depth with majority of their aging players soon pasting their peak. With their young players Kalou and Mikel have shown no sign of major improvement, Chelsea could decline faster than most people could imagine. Make no mistake, Chelsea will be challenging for all trophies again this season, but could eventually end up with nothing unless Drogba can stay injury-free and have another super-human season. However, it won't surprise me if Chelsea could drop out from top 3 with Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool all having younger and hungrier players. After their glory days, Chelsea could soon step into transition period.

Strongest line-up: <4-3-3>

Cech

Bosingwa Alex Terry A.Cole

Lampard Essien Ramires

Anelka Drogba Malouda

Prediction: 5th !!!!

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown - Arsenal

There is simply no other team in the Premiership playing such entertaining attacking football like the Gunners under Wenger, the 2nd longest serving manager in the Premiership history only behind Alex Ferguson. After leading the club winning the most trophies in the Premiership history only behind Manchester United, Wenger has not won Arsenal any major trophy in recent years as he refused to spend money to buy big name players for instant success. Wenger never wants to make Arsenal to become the next Chelsea/Manchester City. He loves to acquire unheard youth players at low price, train them and help them to reach their potential. Wenger also refuses to play physical style, but instead he always wants his team to play in the most "beautiful" way- pass-and-move and skill based football. Although Wenger has made Gunners the most fascinating team in the league, his stubborn "perfect" football theory and over-patience on waiting for his young players to improve has made the team "trophy-less" since the departure of their star veterans Henry,Vieria and Pires. Now, the fans and the board starts to lose patience in Wenger.

Last season, the patience of Wenger on his talented young squad almost paid dividend. Arsenal had been in title race of majority part of the season. Eventually, the inexperience of their young players and their lack of quality depth to step in for injured top players once again cost them their title chance. Undoubtedly, Arsenal has the attack quality to compete with Manchester United and Chelsea, as they have always been among the top scoring teams with star attackers such as Spanish AMF Fabregas, Dutch FW Van Persie, Russia ST Arshavin, French AMF Narsi along with super youngsters England WG Walcott, Mexico FW Vela and England AMF Wilshire. At this moment, there is simlpy no other teams in the league with such attacking class. However, there remains 4 key weaknesses in the team. How well can Wenger solve these weakness can determine whether Arsenal is ready to challenge for the league title this season.

1) Van Persie is one of the most injury-proned star in the league. When healthy, Van Persie is one of the highest quality forward in the world. He has flair, skills and finishing. However, whenver he got injured, he could be out for an extended period of time. Wenger previously replaced him with Bendter and Arshavin in CF role without much success. This summer, Wenger has brought in one of the very best free-agent in the market- Morocco young rising in French league FW Chamakh, who could bring power and quality up-front.

2) Defensive midfield is never convinced. Wenger has transformed the team from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 to strengthen defense and free-up Fabegars in attacking midfield role. Although Diaby, Song and Denilson have all shown steady improvment, none have been consistent and reliable. Their performance and growth this season could be a decisive factor.

3) With the departure of Gallas and veteran Sol Campbell, who will partner the impressive Belgium CB Vermaelen at central of defense? Gallas and Campebll have both been declining and Weneger did the right thing to get rid of them; yet, their experience could also be important. Fortunately, Vermaelen had surprising great debut season. Considering to his 5'9' height, he had the ability to win headers at both ends and proved to be one of the stars last season. Relatively unknown French CB Koscielny was bought in as starting partner with Vermaelen. Wenger sure knows French talent, but will he be the answer? Still there is not enough quality depth in the CB position.

4) GK Alumunia is not a champion quality goalkeeper. Van Der Sar (ManUtd), Cech (Chelsea), Reina (Liverpool) and Hart (ManCity) are all superior goalkeeper. Do Arsenal need a better goalkeeper?

Although Gunners have obvious weaknesses, Wenger has again refused to "press the panic button" by getting in instant transfer help. Could this stubborness once again cost their title chance? Liverpool and Manchester City both have no Champion League football and may have an edge over Arsenal this season. However, there is no way either team can develop better team-work and passing-movement than Wenger well-coached side, because Liverpool Hodgson will only make his debut season while Mancini has bought in too many new players and sure need time to develop the understanding among players.

Strongest Starting Line-up: <4-2-3-1/4-3-3>

Alumnia

Sanga Koscielny Vermaelen Clichy

Song Diaby

Nasri Fabregas Arasavin

Van Persie

Prediction: 4th

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown - Tottenham Hotspur

Harry Redknapp has proved to be one of the English finest managers as he led Tottenham to qualify for Champion League first time in their club history as they finally broke into Premiership top 4. Over the years, Tottenham has been an inconsistent team in that they can be brilliant in certain games especially against some top teams but only fall right down to earth swiftly in the following games when they could easily lose silly points against bottom teams. Throughout their premiership history, Tottenham has been one of the most dangerous attacking teams in the country with the likes of Lineker, Gazza, Klinsmann, Ginola, Sheringham, Bebertov and Keane. Yet, they never have a stable defense and a hardworking defensive midfield. To address these weaknesses, Redknapp has signed Honduras DMF Palacio, the key X-factor in the team's revival. In defense, Tottenham has been relying on Ledley King and Woodgate, two of the highest quality English CB. Unfortunately, both are also the most frequently injured players. To Redknapp's credit, he was able to bring out the best of English CB Michael Dawson, Brazilian GK Gomes and Wales LWB Bale to tiden up the defense, as all have shown steady improvement. With improvment in defense, Tottenham still carry on their tradition with great quality in attack with Croatian AMF Modric and Kranjcar provide creativity to the attack that already includes domestic talents such as WG Lennon, RMB Bentley, CF Crouch, FW Defoe along with Irish FW Robbie Keane and Russia CF Pavlyuchenko. There are different attacking options providing variety of attaking threats: speed (Lennon), skills and flair (Modric), finishing (Defoe) and ariel threat (Crouch). Although the team has not made any squad improvment so far during this summer, Tottenham already has a deep and balanced team with two good players in every position. The only missing piece may be they still don't have a superstar in their team like Torres, Ronney, Drogba and Fabegars to edge out top teams in important encounters. Yet, Tottenham will certainly be challenging for top 4 again. However, with the team invlove in Champion League this season, they may find it harder to focus on the league. With Liverpool and Manchester City both improving without the Champion League distraction, Tottenham could miss out the 4th spot eventually.

Strongest line-up: <4-4-2>

Gomes

Corluka Dawson King Bale

Lennon Palacios Modric Kranjcar

Defoe Pavlyuchenko

Prediction: 6th

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown - Manchester City

Since the takeover from Dubai Group, Manchester City has quickly become the richest football club in England, even if not the richest in the world. The objective of the owner is clear- to win the league as soon as possible and takover Manchester United as no.1 team in city of Manchester by acquiring the best football talents possible. Two seasons ago, the team has broken the British transfer record by signing Brazilian ST Robinho at 32.5M. Last summer, major acquisition included big names from rivals ex-Arsenal Togo CF Adebayor and Ivory Coast CB Kolo Toure, ex-Man. Utd. FW Tevez, ex- Aston Villa England CMF Barry and ex-Everton CB Lescott. From their player acquisition, it's easy to see that their plan is not only to strengthen their own squad talent pool, but also to weaken rival's squad quality. Yet, do spending big money means instant success? We can look at Real Madrid in recent years and they have yet gained any success in Europe in recent years despite buying all the big names. To display the players' true potential and lead them to play as a collective and effective unit, a top manager is essential. The key reason why Chelsea could achieve sucess so quickly is not because their Russian owner spend big on big-names, but more due to the hiring of Mourinho as their manager. Despite rising to 5th place last season, the Dubai owner is clearly not satisfied. Although Italian manager Robert Mancini's performance has been superior to his precedent Mark Hughes, Mancini will probably be given no more than half season to show the owner that he is the right man to lead City to become the team in England! This could also apply to the squad as the owner's demand is skyhigh. Will this pressure be a motivation or a burden for the team?

Unlimited spending spree is again provided to Mancini this summer. So far, Mancini has been going at the right direction for majority of his transfers. Instead of adding more skillful individual stars, hardworking and team-oriented players have been the focus of transfers as Mancini understands that winning team tends to possess unselfish hard workers fighting for the team. (For example, in the past, French DMF Makelele has been the X-factor for Real Madrid, Chelsea and France. He is someone who doesn't demand the ball and personal glory but perform all the dirty work for his star teammates. Since losing Makelele, Real Madrid can never win major trophies for many years) Despite acquiring at relatively over-price as expected, Barcelona Ivory Cost DMF YaYa Toure, Hertha German DF J.Boateng and Lazio Russia LB Kolarov all seem to be efficient players who can make the team hard to beat. English hard-working WG/MF James Milner should also soon be joining to further improve the team work-rate and efficiency. To improve the team creativity and flair in midfield, Valencia Spain star AMF/WG David Silva has also been acquiried. Combining these new signings with the existing talented squad make Manchester City the deepest team in England. In fact, the team currently has too many players that Mancini need to off-load some of their good players like Wayne Bridge and Wright-Phillips! On paper, they now have the talents and depth to compete with Manchester United and Chelsea. Now it all depends how quickly can new players adapt to English football and how well can the team play under Mancini. Since Manchester City do not invlove in Champion League like Man.Utd., Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham, they are the dark-horse to win the league title, but it certainly won't be easy. If their owners unwilling to stay patient and provide time for the team to develop teamwork and understanding, but instead over-demand and blindly spending on more big-names, then City will never reach their dream.

Strongest line-up: <4-4-2>

Hart/Given

Boateng K.Toure Lescott Kolarov

Milner Y.Toure Barry D.Silva

Tevez Adebayor/Robinho

Prediction: Top 3

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown: Aston Villa

Although Martin O'Neill never led Villa to seize a top 4 spot, he has made Villa a very organized and competitive side. For the past three season, O'Neill has led Villa to finish at 6th spot for three successive seasons. Initially, O'Neill was given fair sum of transfer fee to build up the depleted Villa squad. Instead of spending on star foreigners, O'Neill has shown his old-schooled British manager theory by spending millions on acquiring many domestic rising players, such as WG Ashley Young, DMF Reo-Coker and recently MF Milner and WG Downing. There is nothing wrong to build the squad around domestic talents which is especially logical given the recent premier home grown player rule. However, it also may indicate limited knowledge of O'Neill about foreign players. Villa now has a full squad of up-rising English talents knocking on England national team door; however, most of them are England bench and fringe players. With the current squad of over-priced domestic players, they find it hard to compete with the big six with variety of foreign talents in their team. O'Neill is a competent tactical manager, especially good at designing counter attack and his strategy of attacking through the wing is very effective. Yet, the team remains somewhat lacking in bench depth and also they do not have a reliable scorer as target man Carew and Heskey can hardly combine 15 goals per season.

Now O'Neill has just announced his resignation from the club, Aston Villa could soon sell their last season best performer James Milner to Manchester City and club's biggest assets Ashley Young. Although this could mean the club can obtain money from these player sale for player transfer, the Villa owner has no money to improve the club and more key players could gradually leave the club. Whatsoever, the club must try to strengthen its depth. With no help from the bench, Villa always run out of steam around last 2 months of the season and tend to lose from 4th/5th spot to 7th/8th at the end. Therefore, strengthening the bench is essential for Villa to remain at 7th to 8th position, let alone fighting for the top 6.

Strongest line-up: <4-5-1/4-3-3>

Friedel

Cuellar Davies Dunne Warnock

Agbonlahor Petrov Reo-Coker Sidwell Downing

Carew

Prediction: 8th or lower

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown - Everton

What can we say about David Moyes? Although he has never been provided with adequate funds by the Toffees board, he has led Everton to stay in the top 5th to 8th place in the ever fiercing premier league for many seasons. Moyes is another great Scottish manager like Ferguson and McLeish, a great motivator and always make Everton very hard to beat. Everton never play fascinating football, but they has been very consistent and never give the league Big 4 any easy game. The team is built from solid defense over the years. The departure of Lescott and the injury of Jagielka has undermine the team defense, but Moyes had been able to replace them with French CB Distin and Dutch CB Heitinga. The midfield has a nice mix of all-around midfielder (Belgium CMF Fellaini and Auiss AMF Tim Cahill) and flair (South Africa winger Pienaar and Spanish AMF Arteta). Yet, the key weakness of the team is they never have a reliable scorer who can give them 10+ goals on consistent basis. Nigeria FW Yakubu has experience but is too injury proned. French veteran FW Saha had a rejuvenated season, but has past his prime. Instead of given millions to spend to improve on their major weakness, Moyes again needs to make his magical bargain purchase on Leeds United Division 2 top scorer, rising Englishman Beckford. His performance will be vital in Everton's fate this season. Compared to the top 6 teams, Everton has a thinner squad, meaning that an injury to any of their key player could have a severe negative impact on the team. If they can stay injury-free, Everton could reach as high as 6th place.

Strongest line-up: (4-2-3-1)

Howard

P.Neville Heitinga Jagielka Banies

Bilyaletdinov Fellaini

Arteta Cahill Pineaar

Beckford

Prediction: 7th over Aston Villa