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 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 Joel Abraham

I've written about this before so I don't want to labour the point. I'll just lay out the facts.

Five of these teams will go through to the Champions League group stage:

Olympiacos, Copenhagen, Levski Sofia, Maccabi Haifa, Zurich, Red Bull Salzburg, APOEL, Ventspils, Debrecen, Sheriff Tiraspol.

Five of these teams will not:

Arsenal, Lyon, Sporting, Panathinaikos, Stuttgart, Fiorentina, Atletico Madrid, Celtic, Anderlecht, Timisoara.

Bear in mind that the likes of Fiorentina, Atleti and Celtic are unseeded, so will probably end up facing Arsenal or Lyon. I'm sorry, but shouldn't that be a quarter final or something?

Looking at those teams, you think some big names must've fallen in the last round for this to happen. You have a look, and they certainly did - because they all had to play each other. On one side of the draw we had Sparta Prague v Panathinaikos and Sporting v Twente, and on the other we had Levadia v Debrecen and Aktobe v Maccabi Haifa. Excuse me?

So what's the big prize at stake here for these small clubs, who are given an easier shot at qualifying? If all goes to plan, if they get lucky, they win the chance to get absolutely hammered by the big boys in the group stage. Look at Slavia Prague - what a joyful occassion it was for them making it to the group stage. The everlasting memory? A 7-0 humiliation at the Emirates. These huge scorelines are becoming more and more common in the group stage, and as a result, people stop watching.

The story is simple. The small club squeak through qualifying, get obliterated in the group stages, cash their big fat cheque, then take their money home and buy up all the best players in their domestic league. And bang goes the competition. Nobody wins.

 By Michael Sinnerton

And so, as usual, Florentino Perez has got his man. Tonight's news that Liverpool have reached an agreement to sell Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid should bring an end to the most protracted transfer of the summer. Having spent over £200m on players, only time will tell if Alonso can be Madrid's conductor or if Manuel Pellegrini struggles to fit so many Stradivari into a workable orchestra.

For Liverpool, and their fans, the deal is a frustrating one. While £30m is fantastic money for Alonso, the increase of £12m in his value from last year is due almost solely to his wonderful performance last season and reflects the fact that he went from being one of Liverpool's better players to a vital cog. Whilst I would rather lose Alonso than Mascherano any day of the week, he certainly does need replacing.

The options mooted run from Alberto Aquilani to Christian Poulson. Aquilani is very much in the Alonso mould and is a player I really like. But he has had injuries and at 25 is arguably still developing, like any new signing but particularly as he is a creative player and would be expected to be a like-for-like replacement (big shoes to fill). Alternatively Christian Poulsen is more of a breaker than a maker. Having cost Juventus roughly £9m and been a relative flop, Poulsen would be cheap and could be a useful enforcer. If Benitez were to sign that sort of player I'd love to see De Rossi join the club but I think that's probably dreamland considering budget and his love for Roma.

Stephen Defour has also been linked with the club and given the success of his team-mate Fellaini you can see why clubs are tempted but I'd like Liverpool to sign the cheapest of the Valencia trio - Juan Manuel Mata. Given that David Villa is the impossible dream and David Silva seems relatively unapproachable too, Mata would be a great attacking option. He's still young and has represented Spain from U19 level to International Level. He can play on the left or as an attacking midfielder and wouldn't it be great to succeed with a player Real could have had.