Like funeral clothes discarded
This crimson red misery
Stained with tears and fears of a faltering hope.
Eleven atheletes in disarray
Pacing up and down, back and forth
Kicking and flicking
To patch together a win
Perhaps a point.
Red-faced over one who has ears only
For Gallic style and ideals
For the beautiful game
That the feet and hearts of boys
From many nations
Cannot carry nor hoist
With honours
For the season ends too soon
Too soon.
In keeping with a tradition of an annual prediction of the English Premier League, I have reluctantly decided to post something here. It’s been agony to see Arsenal’s best players sold to competing teams and to see them replaced by veterans who may have already played their best several seasons ago. Doing this prediction thing is not as fun as before, especially as Arsenal are perhaps on the borderline of missing out on one of the top four slots. So disenchanted have I been, I have given away my genuine Arsenal jersey to a blogger friend up north in Petaling Jaya. I still have an Arsenal key chain. Maybe that will go too…..if Arsenal is not in the top four.
These are my predictions for the current season:
First, Manchester City: because they used oil money to buy five of Arsenal’s best players, though two are not in the squad.
Second, Manchester United: because it is a team in transition with several new team members.
Third, Chelsea: because Abrahamovic’s money has given them a lifeline.
Fourth, Arsenal: how can I call myself a fan, if I leave them out of the top four. Somehow they will beat Liverpool and Tottenham to this last spot.
What is your take?
Arsenal to win the championship as the young guns have matured, played together and toughed it out over the last few years and added needed people. When a consistent steady goalkeeper is added in January, Arsenal’s trophy cupboard, empty in the last few years, should brighten up in 2011.
Manchester United will be second. Ferguson is master of the negative split and in the second half of the season expect a strong surge from Manchester United.
Chelsea is an experienced team but the squad has been whittled down and the players are over the hill. Age and injuries to key players, will see them lose vital points in the second half of the season.
Manchester City will push Tottenham Hotspur to the sidelines and pip them to be fourth in the league table. They deserve it, after all that oil money that gushed out to buy ready-made players.
Never had my predictions come out right in all these years, so hope to do better this time round.