2009/10 predictions

Yank: The Premier League is just about to start. Now is the time for you to lay out your predictions for the year. Since you’re an Englishman, I’m expecting you to be right in most of your predictions.

Limey: Such faith in my abilities is so endearing. Sadly, I predict things won’t be that much different this year at the top of the Premiership to how they’ve been the past ten zillion years. There’s an air of inevitability these days about it which gets kind of dull, frankly. As usual, the battle at the bottom of the division about who might or might not get relegated will probably be the more entertaining factor, as survival in the Premiership seems to warrant far more importance than actually winning the damn thing.

Once again, I expect Man Utd, even without Ronaldo, to be talented enough and managed brilliantly to win yet another title. However, rather than Liverpool, I expect Chelsea to be their main competitors this year. Liverpool will still be top four along with Arsenal, and I believe Man City will start to assert themselves and be a top five team, but it will probably still be another year or two before they really break through. The way they’re spending should see them breaking into that top four soon enough.

As for Villa, I’m not sure if they’ll have as great a start to the season as they did last year, but if they’re more consistent and don’t choke once they’re flying high, that would be nice. I’m guessing Everton and Spurs will continue to challenge them to round off the top eight.

As for the teams at the bottom? That’s always harder to predict — look at Newcastle last year. The teams that came up like Birmingham and Burnley will probably have trouble staying up, but Wolves might be good enough to compete well, though I’m judging that solely on how competent they were in the Championship last season.

Having said all this, I would really, really love to be COMPLETELY wrong about this and would enjoy returning to this post in June 2010 and laughing at my inadequacy.

So what about you? What do you predict? Or are you too busy drooling over the return of American Football so you can drink Budweiser and eat nachos on the sofa in front of your 60″ television set?

Yank: I went to RANDOM.ORG and entered all the teams.  Here’s what I got…

1. Burnley
2. Everton
3. Portsmouth
4. Sunderland
5. Fulham
6. Aston Villa
7. Tottenham
8. Man City
9. Hull City
10. Wigan Athletic
11. Man Utd
12. Wolves
13. West Ham Utd
14. Bolton
15. Stoke City
16. Arsenal
17. Chelsea
18. Liverpool
19. Blackburn
20. Birmingham

Limey: That’s fantastic! Burnley winning the Premiership in their first year up. You called it. I see Aston Villa in the random standings would finish sixth. That’s a pretty good prediction. Can’t wait to see Man Utd mired in mid-table mediocrity and Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool fighting for survival with Birmingham and Blackburn.