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Title Favourites?
Topic Started: Jun 28 2009, 11:00 AM (190 Views)
AntMcfc
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Manchester United once again start the season in disarray, but this time it's serious. Star players are leaving the club left, right and centre, Ferguson's tactical awareness has been epically exposed by a wonderful tactical mastermind from a rookie coach, and United fans are starting to question whether Ferguson still has what it takes to bring a title back to the red sixteenth of Manchester.

The gaps left by Ronaldo and Tevez will inevitably leave United with nobody to carry them, 50 goals per season short, and currently no world class stars to replace them. Moves for the likes of Wigan's Antonio Valencia go a long way to prove that United are a selling club, unable to hold onto their best players, and are now having to scrape the lower echelons of the Premier League for replacements.

Chelsea go into the season with yet another new manager, and despite the glamourous name of Ancelotti, you have to remember that this is a guy that won Serie 'A' once in eight years, with arguably one of the most talented first XI's in European history. Add to this Ancelotti has a squad with an average age of 36 (No more than he's used to.), and you see that Chelsea are really going to have work some magic if they are to get anywhere near the title this season.

On the transfer front, Tevez has rejected their offer to move to Man City, and numerous other players such as Pato, Maicon and Pirlo have all turned their nose up to a club with as much glamour as their London counterparts Millwall. Ancelotti may have had a talented team at his disposal at Milan, but Roman has been hit hard by the global recession, and he currently does not have enough money to make this Chelsea squad anywhere near as good as what he was used to failing with in Italy.

Liverpool, a club with so much hope, ambition, history, history of having hope and ambition and now more recently, failure. When you next look in a dictionary, go somewhere near the front and find the word 'Bottlers'. You shall then see this defined as 'Liverpool football club'. Once again, the moment Liverpool got close to a title they bottled it. Over the last 10 years, everytime Liverpool finish 2nd they then slowly progress back down the table, recording such finishes as 4th and 5th. With the current financial situation, star players like Mascherano, Torres and Alonso have very uncertain futures, and seemingly welcome the speculation with bigger clubs like Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Over the years Rafa has proven himself as a top 'cup specialist' manager, I have no doubts that Liverpool will succeed in at least one cup this season, but when it comes to the Premier League, Rafa has demonstrated that he is quite frankly clueless. Squad rotation, poor balance, terrible signings, and little knowledge of what it takes to win the Premier League. His entire 18 million pound budget has just been spent on replacing his current RB with someone who can't defend, so Liverpool will be left with an ineffective Gerrard and a team lacking in creativity and width.

Arsenal undoubtedly have the best chance of any team in the top four of upsetting the odds, 4 years without success is an awful long time and something Wenger will look to rectify come the end of this coming season. At the moment the squad is deep, deep with poor players admittedly, but deep none the less. They have a first XI with enough talent to match anybody in the Premiership, but they lack true grit and the mentality that has seen teams like United succeed over the last few years.

Teams do not fear coming to Arsenal, the moment the opposition players get past Wenger they know they are safe from any molestation, and the moment they see that Pizza isn't on the menu they know Fabregas will be lacking ammunition for a fight in the tunnel, all they then have to worry about is Cesc's hideous haircut putting them off when trying to kick the ball. The entire side is injury prone, and this could endanger their chances of success, as once a few first team members are out injured Wenger has to start dipping into his deep pool of extremely lacking, young players. If Arsenal get lucky with injuries, an Arshavin/Eduardo inspired Arsenal can put up a great fight for the title, but unfortunately I think they'll lack what it takes to cross that finish line in first, the poor mentality, lack of a leader and injuries will hamper the side in the latter stages and Arsenal could well end up repeating their glorious fall from grace of the 07/08 season.

So this bodes the question, are any of the top four going to push for the title this season? Answer is, yes, they'll all be pushing, all they'll all incredibly lose out as this one team puts on a masterclass showing, their name -

Manchester City

In my eyes, Man City are now title favourites. A side that looks increasingly stronger by the week, attracting new names and increasing the talent as their disposal with every bit of that Dubai wealth spent. With world class players such as Maicon, Eto'o, Tevez all attracted the to club in recent weeks, and looking likely to sign the aforementioned players, Man City will be red hot come the season opener against Blackburn. Once a new CB is brought in, they will have a solid back four, with the likes of Kompany, Maicon and possibly someone along the lines of Bruno Alves to come in, the defensive unit will become stronger than anything seen by City fans over the years, and will have every Mancunian licking their lips at the prospect of conceding as few goals as possible. The midfield is as strong as ever, gritty players like De Jong, the creative, box to box Stephen Ireland, and a no nonsense, typical leader like Barry, you have three players who tick all the boxes required in a title winning Premier League club. Looking at the potential attacking quartet, Eto'o, Robinho, Tevez and Santa Cruz, you have there the second best attack in world football, second only to Barcelona. Again, differening players who tick all the boxes, world class stars, hard workers, creativity, trickery, stregth and lethal finishing.

Man City's home record last season with an average side was something remarkable, they were 3rd to scorers in the league, and it was only the poor away form and poor management which stopped them pushing for a top four place. This season, Man City are prepared. Hughes has had an idea of what he wants to happen from day one, and now it is all materialising. This team meets the criteria for title challengers, and with the current weaknesses in the current top four, something tells me we will be looking at the prospect of having a different side in the Champions League 2010/11 season.

Manchester City, title favourites season 2009/10. Mark my words.
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gorbachev
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Andriy Voronin
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:bait:
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CockneyMackem'
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KING DEV
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Is this serious?!?

:hysterics:

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"I didnt bring the magic back, its always been here... I just came back to find it" - Bob Stokoe
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paddypower
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Write that yourself?
John W Henry
 
Success is winning championships. It is nothing less than that. And when you win a championship - and we will - success isn't measured or accomplished by winning once.



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AntMcfc
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Haha yes I did Paddypower, can you not tell?! Got my brother to post it on Efi's forum for me. Check the IP's over there if you don't believe :lol:
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paddypower
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Top effort, you studying journalism or anything like that?
John W Henry
 
Success is winning championships. It is nothing less than that. And when you win a championship - and we will - success isn't measured or accomplished by winning once.



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AntMcfc
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Nope, I did English at 6th form but always been good at writing, nothing more. Just know how to write about football and put a few spanners in the works... :lol:
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GunnerBoy
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Prediction & Scorers Double 13/14
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when man city are down as title favourties anty, im not going to bother reading it. :D
"3-0, easy win. I'll quit the forum if we lose, we're not Arsenal mate we sort our business." Ant on the FA Cup final 15/4/2013
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gorbachev
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Andriy Voronin
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its a good fictional read though
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AntMcfc
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It's a fcuking great read no matter who you support :lol:
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I BOW TO RAIDZ
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living la vida loca
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nice work ant
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Homer
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I am the King
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BRILLIANT POST ANT :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

Ant takes inspiration from my big speeches and he delivered a coker there :thumbsup:

Man City wont be favourites they will be massive under-dogs but they will be up there no question about it and I like his humour in the post......Chelsea are as glamorous as Millwall :hysterics: :hysterics:
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DaG
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Top Button Wanker
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C-O-R-K-E-R :thumbsup:
https://twitter.com/mediocentroEN
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Homer
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I am the King
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Must have been thinking about Reo Coker
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Scholes
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Nothing's as it seems
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Wow that was fantastic, I didn't think you were capable of that lol.
Scholes
 

Seriously, Frank Lampard is an absolute legend of the game. He needs to be recognised in some way eg. Frank Lampard OBE, Sir Frank Lampard or some kind of lifetime achievement award.

AntMcfc
 
Greatest ownage machine: Scholes. Absolute animal when he was a regular poster, I always knew I was in the right when he was backing me up, and I couldn't wait to read a topic that he was posting in because I knew he'd be tearing someone apart
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