by Joel Abraham 

The much-hyped Battle of Britain will pose an intruiging tactical challenge to both managers.

Much has been made of the Parkhead atmosphere, but this Arsenal side have been to louder stadiums and beaten better teams than Celtic. Tony Mowbray is a decent manager who gets his sides playing attractive football, which may just play into Arsenal's hands. 

I don't think Celtic will be as negative as to simply stop Arsenal playing. They will be patient without the ball, sitting back and guarding against Arsenal's counterattacking. I expect them to be looking to win set-pieces and pepper Arsenal with crosses, and will prove a sterner test than the languid Toffees.

After a 3-1 win at Aberdeen, two-goal hero McGeady will be the dangerman. Glenn Loovens is a doubt whilst Stephen McManus is definitely out. Shaun Maloney should be fit and Gary Caldwell is expected to return to the defence. However, Mowbray may be about to shuffle his hand. The striking duo of McDonald and Fortune may be abandoned in favour of Samaras as a lone striker, with McGeady providing support.

Arsenal should be unchanged from the side that destroyed Everton, with Eduardo an alternative up front. Fabregas, Denilson and Sagna face late fitness tests, with Diaby and Eboue ready to step in. Their central midfield trio worked perfectly against Everton, denying them time and space and moving the ball quickly, with Fabregas in particular turning in an outstanding performance. The attacking trident, however, did not seem to play to the strengths of anybody, so a slight change is to be expected, with Arshavin perhaps given a more central role.

Celtic XI: Boruc, Hinkel, Caldwell, Fox, O’Dea, N’Guemo, Donati, Brown, Maloney, McGeady, Samaras

Arsenal XI: Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy, Song, Fabregas, Denilson, Arshavin, Bendtner, van Persie

Prediction: Celtic 1 : 1 Arsenal

Tonight's other matches:

Sheriff Tiraspol v Olympiacos: I would expect the Greeks to outclass the Moldovan champions here.

Copenhagen v APOEL: The Danes should record a comfortable home win.

Timisoara v Stuttgart: A tough trip for Stuttgart, who will probably escape with a draw.

Sporting v Fiorentina: A finely-balanced tie, I fancy Sporting to take a lead to Italy.

By Michael Sinnerton

Let's not go overboard here, given that Liverpool lost 2-1 at Tottenham last year and Spurs should probably come 6^th given their investment, but Liverpool were shocking, which is strange because weren't they pretty good last year. What could be the difference? Must be that Spanish chap.

Without Alonso's slick passing and gentle forward urging, Liverpool do seem a player short. Mascherano and Lucas don't get the pulse racing as an attacking force, and that leaves Liverpool with arguably four players shouldering the attacking and creative burden at the moment. Arsenal had five against Everton, Manchester United always have five or six, as do Chelsea. Alberto Aquilani can't get fit soon enough, but really Benitez needs to invest. As I've side time and again this summer, Liverpool's strength in depth going forward is pretty poor and could be the reason for coming up short. Benitez should be using Sunday's footage in his plea to the board for more money.

A couple of points should be made though, firstly of course it was only the opening game of the season and Liverpool had a poor and interrupted pre-season. Mainly though was the fact that Torres had possibly his worst game in a Liverpool shirt (I'm worried he's already suffering burnout and am kind of regretting him as a fantasy football choice), and Gerrard wasn't much better.

With poor performances from Liverpool's big two and Ryan Babel continuing his impersonation of Bambi on ice, the Reds could hardly have played worse. The one bright spot was the introduction of Yossi Benayoun who should basically relegate Bambi to the bench. Babel always looks more promising as a striker (which is the position he was playing when he impressed in the U21s) but at the moment his first touch is so bad he'd be struggling to keep his place in your Sunday team.

With easier fixtures coming up, Liverpool could do worse than shifting Gerrard back to replace Lucas and go with an attacking quartet of Riera, Benayoun, Kuyt and Torres.

By Joe Walton

After the summer hiatus, football is back on our televisions. And it hasn't changed a bit. The first match of the new season, and Sky was at Stamford Bridge for Chelsea against some Northern team with a smarmy manager.

Both the build up and the commentary consisted of men telling us that other men had said what a non-event this was going to be. When pantomime-baddy Stephen Hunt put Hull in front the commentator told us that he "couldn't believe" that the Humberside outfit had scored first. Despite the fact that Hull were one of only two teams playing (as is the norm in football matches) and that he'd just seen it happen.

We know that football commentators write a script before hand and try desperately to make the on-pitch events match their predictions. Thus, every poorly placed Lampard pass was an example 'good vision' and every poorly timed Hull tackle was evidence of their 'battling spirit'. We were told that Drogba's wonderful freekick was 'probably the best thing he's done in this match' yet curiously none of Sky's team noticed that Petr Cech appeared to be wearing an After Eight Mint.

ESPN's first foray into Premier League broadcasting saw them travel to Goodison park with some of Setanta's presenters and all of their lack of coyness. Rebecca Lowe took us on a tour of the tunnel and after getting Messrs Wenger and Moyes into a cupboard, she made suffer the ignominy of holdnig their own microphone. The coverage itself was fine, I like the way Setanta didn't mimic Sky's reverential treatment of the Premier League and I hope ESPN will continue in that vein. The punditry however, mainly consisted of Ian Wright shouting "Arsenal" and a ghostly-looking Peter Reid looking very much like he was missing the beaches of Thailand.

The first FORD SUPER SUNDAY was terrible. In the studio at 'the Lane' were Richard Keys (or 'Keysey') Glenn Hoddle and Jamie Redknapp's crotch. 'Keysey' kept telling us that Tottenham were going to break into the 'big four' while Reknapp became audibly annoyed and visibly aroused at the suggestion. The first match was at 'the home of the Champions' and was between 'Birmingham City and the Champions, United'. Would it have killed them to have said Manchester? The second match was at 'the Lane' and was between 'Spurs' and Liverpool, who, 'Keysey' erroneously told us "won more games than anybody else last season." Both games included very little quality, save a great goal from Assou-Ekotto and Martin Tyler, who is always a joy to listen to. 

It is somehow comforting to know that the coverage of football will forever be the same concoction of an over-financed graphics department and 'football people' talking nonsense. Although we know that if Sky Sports slept with ESPN the offspring would grow up to be Phil Brown, I think we're OK with that.

By Michael Sinnerton

And so another season in the Premier League begins in some style, with 5^th place favourites Arsenal hammering an out-of-sorts Everton at Goodison Park. The way the media reacted all Arsenal had to do was turn up with Joleon Lescott's transfer saga apparently worth a four goal lead. Arsenal really only won 2-1 yesterday and given how badly Everton played there's no need to praise them.

In all seriousness, I thought Everton were so poor defensively that Arsenal only had to be quite good to win. Tommy Vermaelen seems to read the game very well and could be the sort of no nonsense defender Arsenal have needed for two or three seasons. I'm not totally convinced by Wenger's new system with Bendtner on the right, although I was impressed with the big Dane's quick feet. Still, not a bad start.

Good away wins for Fulham, Sunderland and West Ham seems to have confirmed pre-season thinking they that will contest places 8-11, possibly with Aston Villa or Everton. The promoted teams unsurprisingly seem set to struggle (with Birmingham currently losing 1-0 to a Manchester United team with a reserve back-four) and Portsmouth needing a takeover now.

Chelsea, in playing badly, or finishing badly at least, and winning showed the sort of character that is so often associated with Champions, and Manchester City took their chances wonderfully without playing well. A classic away performance and one that will have filled their supporters with heart after only two away wins in the whole of last season.

A good home win for Stoke will be the recipe for another successful season in the bottom half and Wigan, who I initially thought would struggle again seem to be more than the sum of their parts under Roberto Martinez.

Stars of the round in terms of players were mainly attackers with no 0-0's so far. Hugo Rodallega, Didier Drodga and Emmanuel Adebayor will take most of the plaudits. And with Wayne Rooney notching already today, a Fernando Torres goal would mean that the Premier League's stars have already picked up Ronaldo's baton without too much fuss.

	Joel Abraham	Stuart "Dizzy" Gillespie	Joe Walton	Mike "Sinno" Sinnerton
Champions	Man United	Liverpool	Chelsea	Chelsea
Relegation	Stoke, Hull, Wolves	Portsmouth, Hull, Burnley	Portsmouth, Hull, Wolves	Portsmouth, Hull, Burnley
Promotion	Middlesbrough, West Brom, Sheffield Utd	Middlesbrough, West Brom, Cardiff	Newcastle, West Brom, Derby	Newcastle, West Brom, Reading
Golden Boot	Rooney	Torres	Adebayor	Torres
FA Cup	Arsenal	Man City	Liverpool	Man United
League Cup	Everton	Man United	Man United	Arsenal
Champions League	Real Madrid	Chelsea	Real Madrid	Barcelona
Europa League	Werder Bremen	Arsenal (twat)	Villarreal	Everton
Ones to watch	Diego Perotti (Sevilla), Mesut Ozil (Bremen), Marcus Berg (Hamburg)	Stephen Dobbie (Swansea), Paul Slane (Motherwell), Kevin Moon (St Johnstone)	Hugo Rodellega (Wigan), Daniel Sturridge (Chelsea), Frank Nouble (West Ham)	Aly Cissokho (Lyon), Jozy Altidore (Hull), Diego Godin (Villarreal)

And some of the unofficial categories worth pondering:

First player to go nuts, Tyrone Mears style
First Man City player to moan about not playing regularly
First manager to commit Europa League hara-kiri in attempt to consolidate 6th place in the Prem
First manager to surrender in relegation dogfight with "well, we tried our best" post-match interview
First member of the England squad to be questioned in connection to sexual assault investigation
First major international team to completely fuck up their World Cup qualifying campaign
First new Real Madrid signing to be sold in January
First chairman to panic and sack their manager in September
First man Phil Brown picks a fight with
First player/club to be sued by Sheffield United
First Arsenal player to be ruled out for the season
First Barca teammate to fall out with Zlatan
First promoted team to resort to launch football
First player to get injured at Turf Moor
First manager to complain about the Wembley pitch after ballsing up a final
Month of first inexplicable Benitez outburst
Number of minutes of first-team football accumulated by Michael Owen, Tomas Rosicky and Ledley King

by Joel Abraham

http://www.goal.com/en/news/468/internationals/2009/08/12/1436811/south-africa-03-serbia-serbia-overpower-south-africa-with

Do you get the feeling with this report that they didn't actually watch the game? Apparently, that's what passes as a match report. No description of the goals, or of who was playing. It's just the Serbians and the Bafana. Wonderful.

***

I don't bother reading anything related to the England team these days. Too many superstars, don't play as a team, no solution on the left, Gerrard and Lampard can't play together, too many foreigners in the league, no world-class goalkeeper, no-one to partner Rooney up front, no world-class holding midfielder, all the bullshit people say on 606, and you can see it coming before a ball has even been kicked. 'All individuals but don't play as a team' surely has to be the second biggest myth in English football, behind 'Steven Gerrard is the complete midfielder'. It's not that they're all individuals that can't play as a team. It's just that everyone massively overrates all the players individually. So when they get together, people have astronomically high expectations. But instead of saying: 'Perhaps these players aren't as good as we thought', people just say: 'Well individually they're all incredible. But they can't play as a team!'

On the topic, what is a complete midfielder? Does that mean you can play them on their own in midfield and they'll be great?

***

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1205422/Jamie-Redknapps-10-watch-The-players-light-Premier-League-season.html

Good shout from Jamie. I'll have to check out this Drogba kid someday.

Pre-season predictions from the SOTG team will be up later tonight.

by Joel Abraham 

It's a legitimate question. Aston Villa have signed a third choice goalkeeper, Andy Marshall, on a free transfer from Coventry. Fans are now complaining that he isn't "top four quality", and that Villa should be spending money on the likes of van der Vaart and Sneijder. What's wrong with these people?

I am pointing the finger at Football Manager. It has distorted people's perception of the game, and raised expectations on managers to a ridiculous level.

As a result, nobody is ever satisfied with transfer dealings. Man United fans wanted Ribery, not Valencia. Arsenal fans want Puyol, not Vermaelen. Everybody thinks they know the perfect player their club needs to sign, and it's always someone they've signed on FM. Everyone thinks buying players is as easy as putting in a bid and assuming they've got enough money. You can sign Huntelaar for Spurs in FM, so you can do it in real life, right? I'm sick of people complaining that their team hasn't signed Player X or Player Y. Why weren't we in for Player X who joined Team Y? Why aren't we trying to buy De Rossi? A question for Arsenal fans: how many central midfielders are out there, who want to join Arsenal, who Arsenal can afford, who is so much better than what they've got? You ask, and people mention FM players who they've never seen. "What about Toulalan from France??? How about Veloso from Sporting! Or Moutinho!!!"

It's also noticeable how people posting on forums and such refer to positions in FM style. They post things like this:

               Eduardo
                        RvP
Arshavin    
           Fabregas                   Walcott
             Song Denilson
Clichy                                 Sagna
            Vermaelen Gallas
                  Almunia

and put players in appropriately insane positions, just like you do in FM. Do people actually think that Alex Ferguson draws out the formation on the chalkboard, then rubs out Giggs because he wrote his name two inches too far to the left? Do you think Ancelotti tells Anelka: "Right, I want you to play three feet in front of Drogba at all times. And slightly to his right." Liverpool fans are particularly guilty of this, coming up with things like:

  Riera                         Benayoun
          Aquilani
              Mascherano

What's happened to 4-4-2? It's a flat four in midfield! Why do people put Mascherano slightly behind? Teams either play 4-4-2, 4-3-3, or 4-5-1. If Berbatov plays slightly deeper than Rooney, it's not because the formation has been set out as

      Rooney
                   
         Berbatov

It's just because that's how he plays. Also guilty of this is Andy Gray, who farts around with the formations in his pre-match Sky Sports computer toy. If you actually watch the players when they line up for the kick off, they don't all stand in mad positions. The midfielders stand in the middle. The strikers stand at the front.

Another bugbear is how fans ludicrously overrate their own players. You get it mostly from people who only watch their own team, and nobody else. Liverpool fans. Because they don't pay attention to anyone else, they have no point of reference. Consequently, N'Gog becomes world class potential. Lucas is the complete box-to-box midfielder. Riera has the best left foot in football. Glen Johnson is the best right-back in the world. Pepe Reina is the best keeper in the league. If a player does something good 5% or the time, it means he can probably do it ALL the time!

The constant use of the term 'world class' is particularly upsetting. Everyone's world class. Everyone needs to sign world class players. "Aquilani's good, but is he world class?" "We need a world class centre back!" "Spearing has the potential to be world class." It's become a meaningless term. How many world class players are on the market? What does it mean? Someone who'd get in a World XI? Players who don't play any international football cannot be world class. They aren't even international class. Fans aren't happy unless every player in the team is world class. It's a categorisation of talent in FM. That's where it's come from. People think scouting is as easy as going on FM Scout and checking a player's Current Ability and Potential Ability. Their team should sign some players who's CA is over 180. World class!

It also seems that every team needs a "20-goal-a-season striker". "Bendtner's good, but is he the 20 goal a season striker we need???" In the last five years, no team who's won the league has had a striker who's scored more than 20 goals. Yet apparently, that's what you need to succeed. Last season, in the whole top four, which strikers got 20 goals? Anelka, the top scorer, got 19. Torres got 14. Rooney got 12.

Message to all football fans: stop playing FM, and just trust your manager. He knows alot more than you do.

by Joel Abraham

- Get Arshavin
Whose idea was it to put the little Jesus of football as a mere midfielder? He costs £11m, a fraction of his true worth as both a player and a man. The Christ-like Russian will set all his enemies ablaze with his wonderful skills, leaving behind a trail of blood-spattered corpses, charred ruins that once were mighty stadia, and plenty of assists and goals. Make him your captain, or I’ll find you, and I will cut you.

- Don’t pick any Spurs defenders
It’s always tempting because they’re cheap, and you see a name like King or Woodgate and you think ‘yeah, he’s alright’. WRONG. Spurs defenders are cheap for a good reason. They’re shit. The club seem to operate with a preseason optimism : early season disaster ratio, which means that the more they trumpet about gloriously storming the top four and usurping Arsenal as the kings of North London, the more likely they are to end up floundering in the relegation zone throughout the autumn. Be sensible and go with someone from Fulham.

- No new foreign signings
You might think they’re going to take the league by storm, but you can never tell with these ruddy foreigners. It doesn’t matter how many goals they scored in Albania or whatever god-forsaken hole they crawled out of.  Everybody knows the Premier League is the toughest, hardest, most passionate, shoutiest, sweatiest league in the world, and as such, not everybody adapts. (The notable exception being Arshavin, because he is at least 30% god, or maybe some kind of X-Men style supermutant, I’d call him The Owl). Wait until Christmas. By then, the player in question will either have proved himself as a decent PL addition, or alternatively will have been sold/sacked/sent to the reserves/killed.

- All promoted players are shit until proven otherwise
Similar to the above point, men who were far superior to their Championship opponents are no guarantee to be anything other than relegation fodder in the top flight. Players who excel in the division formerly known as Division One should be treated with suspicion and contempt. They’ll usually turn out to be like Kevin Phillips, Rob Earnshaw, or any other name on the endless list of British players who are enticingly cheap and have a good scoring record but ultimately run out of ideas when confronted by a defence that doesn’t belong to Watford or Plymouth Argyle.

- Stay away from Man City strikers
I’m tempted to extend this to say stay away from all Man City outfield players. Christ knows how this travelling circus of a team is going to perform. The only quasi-safe bet seems to be Shay Given, but with a half-built defence is front of him marshalled by the malaria-ridden Kolo Toure, don’t expect many clean sheets, especially away from home. Stephen Ireland was a revelation last season, but at £9m this time around should be avoided. If you’re thinking of picking any striker who isn’t Tevez, forget it. Actually, don’t pick Tevez either. He’s ugly.

- Pack your subs bench with nobodies
This is probably unwise, but it fits in with my all-or-nothing, kamikaze style of FF management. Your four substitutes should be the cheapest possible, preferably ones who start for whichever backwater northern abortion of a side they play for. Then, and only then, can you start assembling your starting XI of greatness.

- Careful of one-season wonders
I’m levelling this accusation squarely at Aston Villa and Fulham here. They may prove me wrong and continue to impress, but in my humble opinion, both teams were overachieving last season. The likes of Schwarzer, Hangeland, Ashley Young, Danny Murphy and Agbonlahor will probably all flop this season despite their high tallies last season.

- Build your team around superstars
Pick your best players first, and then fill the gaps in your side with jobbers. Let’s face it, a midfielder who costs £6/7m is never going to win you any points, so just ditch them and pick players on both sides of the price spectrum. Real Madrid did something similar with “Zidanes and Pavons” and that seemed to work out okay. Cech, Vidic, Gerrard etc. – you know they’ll do the business, so structure your side accordingly.

- Expect the expected
Nothing you pick first time round will work out. You know it’ll all end in disaster. Your initial selection places a powerful voodoo curse on the 11 players in question, causing them each to die in turn, a bit like a Final Destination film. All your players are going to get injured, fall out with the manager, or inexplicably turn shit overnight just to spite you, so make sure you have that wild card handy. I expect to be using mine at around week 3.

- Make your weekly transfer on Friday night
You always get a flash of inspiration on which new player to put in as you’re watching MOTD2 on Sunday night, but as with the aforementioned point, if you make your transfer too early in the week, the player you have selected and two other members of your team will die. This is particularly true of international breaks, so be patient and wait until the last minute to see who’s still alive.

Joel’s team:
Shay Given (Man City)
William Gallas (Arsenal)
Patrice Evra (Man United)
Carlos Cuellar (Aston Villa)
Aaron Hughes (Fulham)
© Andrey Arshavin (Arsenal)
Jack Rodwell (Everton)
James Milner (Aston Villa)
Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
Peter Crouch (Spurs)
Fernando Torres (Liverpool)

Thomas Sorensen (Stoke)
Andy Keogh (Wolves)
Fabrice Muamba (Bolton)
Kamil Zayatte (Hull)

For anybody wishing to join the SOTG league, sign up here: http://fantasy.premierleague.com/, and the league code is 2868-241386

By Michael Sinnerton

Give me a fit and in-form Xabi Alonso back and I make Liverpool favourites for the League. Without him, the Reds and the rest of the top four seem to be going backwards. Except that is for Chelsea.

Manchester United have replaced Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez with Antonio Valencia and Michael Owen. As much as I admire all four players, United are substantially weaker than last season and will need their defence on top-form if they are to lift another title. Liverpool have lost one of their key cogs despite Rafa Benitez's insistence that the spine of the team would stay in place. With Gerrard and Torres fit the whole season the sale could pale into insignificance but I worry that Gerrard will curb his natural attacking game to cover Alonso's absence. Arsenal are almost nobody's idea of Champions and having swapped Vermaelen for Toure and Adebayor for no one you can see why. With the magic of Van Persie, Arshavin and Fabregas they do have a chance but a top 2 finish would still be seen as a surprise.

Chelsea have barely strengthened but crucially they have kept together their spine. They have lost no-one of any influence and have welcomed back Michael Essien to fitness, as well as the potentially excellent Yuri Zhirkov. Daniel Sturridge adds good depth to an already dangerous strike-force and it must be remembered that Chelsea won 34 points from 39 games at the back end of last year. Liverpool's form was hailed as being brilliant, and is one of the reasons they are so hotly tipped this year but Chelsea's was nothing short of phenomenal.

Sceptics will point to the work of Guus Hiddink and whilst there is no doubting the virtues of the enigmatic Dutchman, it does seem at Chelsea that if players want to play, they will play. Under Scolari initially they were brilliant, until it was decided his methods were wrong or different and results dipped. Scolari left and all was well with the world again. Player power is probably not stronger at any other club.

Liverpool still have arguably the best two attacking players in the league but I worry that Torres may be worn out after so much football (the Confederations Cup taking the brunt of the blame). With Benitez seemingly unable to rest his talisman due to the Reds lack of strength in depth going forward, Chelsea may just have the edge.

 By Michael Sinnerton

Yesterday's Community Shield saw an opening game full of entertainment and controversy. As a curtain raiser it promises much for the season as perhaps the two chief protagonists for the title have already come to blows. Michael Ballack's shoulder barge on Patrice Evra rewarded by a sliding tackle from the Frenchman which took more man than ball.

Ballack's challenge was clearly a foul and hopefully the season won't be littered with incompetent refereeing decisions (although these tend to be forgotten sooner than we think). I don't think Ballack deserves any criticism from the media for the challenge or admitting it was a foul, it's nice to have some honesty from players rather than just the same old clichés that make post-match interviews such a turn-off.

United fans should also remember that Michael Carrick gave the ball away for the goal and Chelsea have no reason to stop the game unless Evra appeared genuinely injured rather than just momentarily hurt. Nonetheless Ferguson's criticism of both Ballack and Chris Foy (the ref) seems relatively fair. Perhaps with the exclusion of his comments about Ballack's play-acting which is no worse than several of his own team.

                                                       - - - - - - - - -  

In European News, German champions Wolfsburg began their title defence with a 2-0 win at Stuttgart while Bayern were held by Hoffenheim but were hailed as being "on a different level tactically" under Van Gaal than Klinsmann. Shalke and Dortmund also recorded fine wins.

In Holland AZ bounced back from their opening day defeat in a 2-0 victory whilst Ajax secured a second straight win. Meanwhile PSV and Feyenoord were both held to away draws after opening day victories.

Ligue 1's opening day saw victories for reigning champions Bordeaux (4-1) and runners-up Marseille (2-0) while European light-heavyweights Lyon were held to a disappointing 2-2 draw at Le Mans (they did score a 90^th minute equaliser through Lisandro Lopez and come from behind twice though).

Stay tuned this week for Students of the Games laughable predictions of the season and add your own.