2010/2011 Premiership Countdown - Birmingham City

If Fulham was the surprising club of Europe last season, Birmingham City was certainly the most amazing team in England last season. Birmingham City did not have a deep team with household star players and most fans even considered them to be a relegation favorite. To everyone surprise, Birmingham was very competitve and hard to beat. Their Scottish manager Alex McLeish may not be the second coming of Alex Ferguson just yet, but he had done a wonderful job in making Birmingham very well-organized and hard to beat. What Birmingham City has been relying on is team defense, resulting in some important 1-0 victories. Considering their whole key squad merely composed of local English and Scottish veterans such as MF Lee Bowyer, FW Kevin Phillips, FW McFadden, CMF Barry Ferguson without any quality foreigners, McLeish has done an unbelievable job to lead the team to 9th place finish. The question is if they can keep up with their outstanding 2009/2010 season. Usually promoting team can surprise in their first promoting season, only to see them slip up quickly down to Championship Divison the following season. In an attempt to improve the team's limited attack, they have signed Serbia 6'7' giant CF Zigic to provide an extra attacking dimension. With great team spirit and coaching, I still expect Birmingham to stay put in premiership but they likley will finish below mid-table as West Ham, Newcastle, Fulham and Sunderland could all improve.

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

Taylor

Carr Ridgewell Johnson Murphy

Larsson Bowyer Ferguson McFadden

Zigic Jerome

Prediction: Survival - Mid-table

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown- Blackburn Rovers

Under manager Sam Allardyce, Blackburn Rovers is a hard fought side that not many teams enjoy playing, similar to Stoke City and Wolves. Allardyce is a dirty manager in that his troop will make physical hard fouls at all cost to get result. Allardyce has been one of the most efficient managers in the league in managing limited budget. Since domestic players are relatively more costly and over-priced, Sam loves to get in lessor-known and bargain-priced foreigners. However, with the introduction of new premiership home-grown player requirment, Blackburn may now face some trouble as majority of the key squad being foreigners. The team do possess hard fought players such as Congo CB Samba and Irish DMF Andrews, but they do not have skillful creative players nor a reliable goal scorer. They rely heavily on Allardyce's strength in efficient set-piece tactics and Senegal veteran WG Diouf in drawing foul for creating set-pieces. Their attack is so one-dimensional that sometimes even giant CB Samba needs to go forward to support attack. Althought the team does have some growing young foreigners such as French CMF N'Zonzi and Croatia FW Kalinic, Blackburn will soon be involved in relegation battle without new player acquisition, despite finishing 10th last season.

Strongest line-up: <4-4-1-1>

Robinson

Emerton Samba Nelson Givet

Diouf Andrews N'Zonzi Pedersen

Dunn

Roberts

Prediction: Survival

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown: Stoke City

It's not exaggrate to say the most difficult side to face in the premiership is Stoke City! Ask the league big 6 teams, there is no one wants to play Stoke especially at Stoke home ground due to their old-school traditional English style- a team with tall and strong players playing long ball and extremely physical style. When teams want to play the ball on the ground, Stoke will ruin your game plan. Once Stoke gets the ball, they will kick the ball up high. Tall strikers will be on the receiving end, using their height and muscle to win the ariel battle. The most disgusting secret weapon for the team is their super-long range powerful throw-in from Irish veteran utility man Delap. His throw-in is as powerful as a free-kick/corner-kick and opposing always needs to stay alert of Delap's long throw-in. This kind of ruby like style is the secret formula for Stoke's steady survival in the league for the past few years. In fact, they have even improved to 11st place with some more experienced and talented players gradually coming in comparing to their deubt premiership season, such as experienced veterans CF Beattie, WG Entherington and Turkish ST Tuncay. Although teams have now get used to coping with their long-ball tactics, Stoke remains a competitive side despite their generally low-skilled players in the squad. Another successful survival season is anticipated.

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

Sorensen

Huth Faye Shawcross Higginbotham

Delap Whitehead Whelan Entherington

Fuller Tuncay

Prediction: Survival

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown: Fulham F.C.

Fulham was the surprising club of Europe last season when they advanced all the way to the Europa League Final, upsetting the likes of Werder Bermen and Juventus. Manager Hodgson was voted manager of the year as he worked his magic to guide the team to unbelievable success, bringing out the best out of under-achieving CF Zamora and helping veterans WG Duff and CMF Murphy to gain back their old fresh form. The club has been focusing their effort in Europe all season, but still achieved a respectful domestic league finish at 12nd. However, manager Hodgson has moved to Liverpool and his replacement is Mark Hughes, a big name in football but never convince me as a quality manager. His track record with Wales and Manchester City never convince me. Yet, the key core of the team established by Hodgson remains in tact, with under-rated talents such as Australia GK Schwarzer, Norway CB Hangeland and USA AMF Dempsey, three of the best players in the league in their respective positions. The team may not experience a similar successful run in Europe like last year; however, they can enjoy an improved domestic league run with less long hard European journeys. Mid-table is a likley finish, competing with the likes of Sunderland, West Ham and Newcastle.

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

Schwarzer

Pantsil Hughes Hangeland Konchesky

Etuhu Murphy

Dempesy Gera Duff

Zamora

Prediction: Mid-table

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown: Sunderland F.C.

Considering the amount of money Sunderland has spend for the past few years since their promotion season, Sunderland should be considered as a "failure". Their result never matches their spendings, huge attendence, and home staudium "Staudium of Light", one of the largest in the country. After the Roy Keane's disaster experiment, the highly-respected Steve Bruce was appointed last season but still failed to lead the team reaching first half of the league table with a disappointing 13rd place finish. The key cause of the problem was Roy Keane's wasteful signings during his era when he locked up long-term contracts with some over-priced players, making the team seemingly too deep but in reality lacks of capable quality to fight with the top teams. Steve Bruce has now gradually improved the team. The team mainly built up from English domestic talents such as CB Turner, CB Anton Ferdinand, DMF Cattermole, WG Richardson and FW Darren Bent. Granted that newly signed Argentina RB Angeleri and Paraguay AMF Riveros are both South American full-internationals, the team still needs 2-3 higher calibera star foreigners to bring that extra quality to establish the team to be a consistent top 10 team in the league fighting for the Europa League qualification. A mid-table finish is not out of question with their deeper squad than most rivals but hard to see them get beyond 9th position nevertheless.

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

Gordon

Angeleri Bramble Turner Richardson

Malbranque Cattermole Riveros Zenden

Campbell Bent

Prediction: Mid-table

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown: Bolton Wanderers

Bolton endured another struggling season, but was safe for premierhship stay at the end thanks to the arrival of Burnley highly-rated manager Owen Coyle during January. Before his appointment, the team was generally weak on the creativity area without funds to acquire talents and relied heavily on the height and power of strikes Kevin Davies and Elmander. Upon his appointment, Coyle intelligently loaned in Arsenal, future English sensation AMF Wilshere and Chelsea young winger Weiss. Now, with both youngsters returned to their orginal teams, Bolton could face the same old problem. Fortunately, Bolton has successfully made a key free-agent signing in ex-Man. City Bulgarian winger Martin Petrov, who could turn out to be one of the signings of the season. Although the team has several under-rated domestic talents such as CB Gary Cahill, DMF Muamba, LWB Matthew Taylor as well as Korean future hope RW Le Chung-Yong, they still do not have a graruntee 10+ goal scorer. Unless the team can get in a high quality striker, they will continue to struggle and hardly could reach mid-table.

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

Jaaskelainen

Steinsson Cahill Knight Taylor

Lee Chung-Yong Muamba Davis M.Petrov

Davies Elmander

Prediction: Survival

2010/2011 Premiership Countdown: Wolverhampton Wanderers

Under Irish manager Mick McCarthy, Wolves has been playing like an Irish team. The team does not possess premiership level talent, but there is never any team in the league enjoy playing against the never-say-die Wolves. Under McCarthy, players are very disciplined, work hard for each other, use the width of the pitch effectively and making dangerous crosses from the flanks. Sometimes, this kind of team relying on fighting spirit can survive in their first promoting season, but they tend to struggle and lose the relegation battle swiftingly without talent reinforcement in their 2nd season. Wolves is a young team and players can certainly improve. However, in the ever competitive premier league, Wolves should face a massive struggle this season in my opinion, because eventually the team just does not have enough depth and quality while hard-work alone is never sufficient in premiership.

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

Hahnemann

Foley Stearman Craddock Elokobi

Knightly Milijas Henry Hunt

S.Fletcher Doyle

Prediction: Regelation