Liverpool still won't win the premiership (2007/08 edition)

furious

Who do you support again blueski?

1. Manchester United
2. Chelsea
3. Liverpool
4. Tottenham
5. Arsenal
6. Everton
7. Newcastle United
8. Aston Villa
9. Portsmouth
10. Blackburn Rovers
11. Bolton Wanderers
12. Reading
13. Middlesbrough
14. Sunderland
15. West Ham
16. Wigan
17. Manchester City
18. Fulham
19. Derby County
20. Birmingham City

Any one from the top two, I think it will be very close. I expect Arsenal to struggle and maybe miss out on a CL spot. Tottenham should keep scoring for fun and maybe add a wee bit more consistency and finish above Arsenal for the first time in yonks. Reading losing a good player and not being a "surprise package" any more will see them drop down a bit, especially with what I expect to be a resurgent Newcastle and Villa. Man City and Wigan will struggle but survive again. Sunderland will maintain enough momentum from the Championship to ensure survival. Birmingham will be pish.

Alan Smith to Newcastle it seems. Good move for him I think, barring injuries he should play a fair few games what with Owen probably being injured, Viduka being fat and Martins being sulky about having to play Derby.

I wish I had the balls to make predictions.

It's okay to admit you think Liverpool will win the title Pete.

Liverpool - it's all about FERNANDO TORRES. I think he is a bit of a jessie, but I hope he proves me wrong.

I think TEVEZ will be PLAYER OF THE SEASON.

I saw an advert in a telly shop today (OK, it was John Lewis) and it was footage of LFC in action and the slogan was "The beautiful game just got more beautiful". I thought about Michael Jones.

I suppose it was about HIGH DEFINITION.

Is anyone going to get Setanta Sports for 9.99? I'm not. I have no idea if it is a good deal or not.

I would quite like to go to the Charity Shield, for the reasons mentioned above. How does one go about obtaining tickets for fifteen nicker? That is quite reasonable.

I too wish the season were two months away. Such is my enjoyment of Major League Soccer. I wonder if Juan Pablo Angel does a video blog for Colombia or wherever he's from.

I am glad to see Villa have been upgraded to "unknown quantity" rather than the usual "big pile of shit". I think they will continue to be a big pile of shit, but will finish eighth, not ninth, as so many people seem to predict.

I shall be interested to see how MAN CITY get on.

I wish DERBY COUNTY well. Billy Davies (?) is waiting until the end of the transfer window to make his moves.

I think transfers are possibly more interesting than football itself these days.

Tevez will take about a third of a season to get going and suddenly become unstoppable.

Torres will be amusingly rubbish and this year's Shevchenko. Six goals in La Liga = lol massive flop in the Premiership.

turns out - we get setanta for free - or we do for now anyway, I bet they turn it off just before the season starts :(

Matt - are we having a bet on that?

Villa snap up American teenager
Aston Villa have completed the signing of United States Under-20 international Eric Lichaj.
The 18-year-old former Chicago Magic defender will go straight into Villa's Academy squad.

Lichaj is Villa's first American signing since the club were bought by Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner.

The 6ft defender, formerly at the University of North Carolina, will not be able to play until September as he is recovering from a broken foot.

"He signed a two year deal with options," said Lichaj's agent Steve Kelly.

"He was injured before he signed, but they saw his talent before that."

1:Man Utd
2:Liverpool
3:Chelsea
4:Arsenal
5:Spurs
6:Blackburn
7:Newcastle
8:Aston Villa
9:Everton
10:West Ham
11:Portsmouth
12:Reading
13:Man City
14:Middlesborough
15:Sunderland
16:Bolton
17:Wigan
18:Fulham
19:Birmingham
20:Derby

Derby and Birmingham surely certs to go down. Only putting in Fulham cos I hope they do. Either Bolton or Wigan would be nice though.

Can't see Spurs breaking top 4, it's more likely that they'll be pulled back by Blackburn, who've bought well up front. Everton never have two good seasons in a row, and Man City and West Ham have made too many changes to do well under dodgy managers.

I did not realise that the Charity Shield is today. That is TOO SOON!

One of the money teams is going to go down this season, dunno if it'll be Man City or West Ham though.

Presumably Man City when Thaksin goes to jail forever and the club is sued inside out by the government of Thailand.

I was thinking last night that Hargreaves could be a totally crucial signing for Man U and I can see them winning the Prem at a canter this season.

Oh, and Sunderland for a Top 10 finish.

Oh, and Allardyce gone by January.

Nah, Allardyce to miss out on Europe by one point then to be fired three games into the 08/09 season

At least the West Ham players know each other - it could take months for Sven to put together a cohesive squad out of a load of disparate foreign players bought in the space of a fortnight.

Fulham have spent £20m! How did that happen?

I'm trying to reconcile this late "start of the summer" feeling with this early start to the season and it's not really working.

Allardyce will be around for ages. They're not going to let him bring half his Bolton backroom team with him just to sack him after a season.

If Newcastle are bottom 3 for any length of time, which I can see, he'll go. That job is horrible and near impossible.

Reading and Everton are the only two teams to have not signed a striker off-season.

Allardyce will be around for ages. They're not going to let him bring half his Bolton backroom team with him just to sack him after a season.

You've gotta remember that Allardyce doesn't have the fans on-side, all it's going to take is a couple of bad results, or the chance of Europe to vanish, and they're all going to start chanting for Keegan or Shearer or Sid the Sexist for manager.

laffing at underachieving Newcastle will never ever get old. and yeah, Everton could well stage a relegation challenge.

I suppose I'm hedging my bets on Newcastle due to not really knowing what the new board will do. Not having to deal with Freddy Shepherd is a bonus.

Also Allardyce has generally bought well over the summer - could do with a couple more defenders but Capaca is a strong signing.

Top marks to The Sun for the headline in the "Hossam Ghaly's transfer to Birmingham cancelled after he refuses to run in training" story:

WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

kenny dalglish on the top 10 predictions...
http://tinyurl.com/2t4x5u

King Kenny's Premiership Top Prediction

1. MANCHESTER UNITED
2. LIVERPOOL
3. CHELSEA
4. TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
5. ARSENAL
6. EVERTON
7. WEST HAM
8. PORTSMOUTH
9. BLACKBURN ROVERS
10. NEWCASTLE UNITED

King Kenny's on Krack

Free Setanta forever on Virgin Media telly, hurrah! Except I'm moving to a non-cabled area in three weeks, boo!

Kenny's gone mad! West Ham in seventh?

Saturday: AFCWvFCUM
A great day out apart from the strange smell of sewagehttp://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/AFCWpenalty.jpg
Sunday: Wemberlee
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r299/crunchydog_2006/wemberlee.jpg

I got AFC Wimbledon into the Championship on FM2007, btw.

What did you think of Wembley?

Better than I thought it would be. I was one row from the back, so right up at the top, and it's pretty steep there, but you've still got a decent view. In fact the view was great compared to the equivalent seats at Old Trafford (where you're crammed in like sardines and the roof comes down so steeply that you can barely see the far touchline, never mind the rest of the stadium).

Don't think I've ever been so high up in a ground, or had so much leg room. What about the atmosphere? It was rubbish at the cup final.

I've got vertigo even looking at that Wembley photo.

Matt, you've left yourself wide open for a Spurs gag there.

The atmosphere was alright really. At least it started off boisterously for both halves and then died away after half an hour or so. I suppose that's the difference you get when all the tickets go to supporters instead of corporate sponsors / regional FA officials etc. (and also the effect of several hours drining lager in baking sunshine). You're right about the legroom: normally you feel they've just tried to fit as many seats in the ground as possible, but this was spacious.

did you have a pie? they're nice but not worth the queue or the price

My mate had one. It didn't look appetizing at all.

i have a feeling you only get "free" santana on virgin of you've got the [scuse me] XL telly package, which we don't, so to get sultana we'd have to pay an extra £9 a month, although banana are showing a lot of conference blue square premier (retch) matches...

...cheer dickie.

argh, it's not even that simple, as the cost of our sky sports package would come down if our telly pack got more expensive...

(clearly i am rly just doing this to get to watch the baseball on NASN ;))

Ooh explain how the baseball ties in?

In what way was breaking up the TV rights supposed to be better for the Great British Consumer again?

stop them consuming hopefully

It means you get a legitimate excuse to go to the pub more.

If you're on XL package with Virgin you get the Setanta Sports package except for NASN (which is baseball heaven) for free. If you're on a smaller package you pay £8? a month and NASN is included. To get NASN if you're XL means you have to shell out the £8 a month as well. (if that makes sense)

Breaking up the TV rights means you can get some live Premiership football for less than a tenner a month on freeview and you don't have to give your money to Uncle Rupert in the process.

If I see an entire Premiership game live on TV this season I'll be surprised.

Why pay for Sky when you watch it in Chinese for free? They'd better not have closed that site down in the summer...

hmm if you can get it to actually work...

It only let me down a couple of times last season. But when it did, it was very frustrating.

were you using PPLive?

Sometimes Sopcast and sometimes one another that I can't recall.

They've been fair spunking money into the Hospice for the past few years anyway tho

Avram Grant sacked according to the BBC news.

Heaven needed scowling.

Funny that its happened after todays earlier rumours about Mourinho having cosy chats with abramovich and going back as boss.

If Mourinho is the next Chelsea manager, I'll run naked through the streets of... wherever Avram Grant is from. Tel-Aviv?

Frank Riijkaard, surely.

No, I think you'll find it's Tel-Aviv.

aye, very good.

I'd love to see Dick Advocaat let loose with Abramovich's cheque book given how mad he went with Sir Minty Moonbeam's.

Mourinho as short as 11/2 with some bookies :/

Still 16s with Paddy Power. Rijkaard and Mancini both 7/2. Mancini would be a bad manager for Chelsea.

Carlo Ancelotti at 25/1 seems worth a flutter.

[As for his own reluctance to retire being fuelled by an ambition to overhaul Liverpool's tally of 18 league championships and five European Cups, Ferguson remarked; "I did my job of getting rid of Liverpool from the top a long time ago. The club will take care of the rest."]

!!

Comedy Ferguson vanity that. Liverpool have been more than capable of getting rid of themselves for the last 20 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/F10237190?thread=5493359&show=50

Trying to find the dumbest opinion on this thread is an effort.