Christ! Anyone seen Southampton's opening 6 fixtures? Man City (A) - No hope! Wigan (H) - If they continue their brilliant run and keep Martinez... Man Utd (H) - Formality...lets be honest! Arsenal (A) - RVP...with Podolski, Oxlade-Chamberlain,Wilshere, Arteta and Walcott (inevitable loss) Villa (H) - Lambert will have brought some better players and motivated his team Everton (A) - Jelavic, Cahill, Rodwell, Fellaini, Osman (those 5 pack some great attacking threat!) If they pick up a single point from those 6, I will be impressed!
Hi bors (and gal), not impressed with the fixture compiler's decision to send us far north to Everton away (Saturday) and then for us to travel all the way to the south coast (Southampton, Tuesday). Commonsense would have dictated to play Everton at home and reverse the corresponding fixture. But then we could always travel by plane and send the bill to the Premier League. LOL.
I just looked at the fixtures and suddenly had a real bad feeling of impending doom!! Either were gonna have a bad season, or im gonna get run over on the way home!!
We really need to get something from the two openers to get the momentum going. A poor start and the tough ones get tougher.
My Prediction for 12/13, Champions will be either one of these 3: Arsenal (RVP, Podolski, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wilshere, Arteta, Walcott, Vermaelen, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Sagna, Szczęsny) ...2 good subs (Ramsey & Song) Chelsea (Torres, Marin, Hazard, Mata, Ramires, Lampard, Cole, Luiz, Cahill, Ivanovic, Cech) Man City (Aguero, Balotelli, Nasri, Y.Toure, Silva, De Jong, Barry, Clichy, Kompany, Lescott, Zabaleta, Hart) --- IMO Giggs and Scholes last season perhaps? Take them out and their midfield isn't nearly as strong as the other 3: Young, Cleverley, Carrick, Nani. Exciting to see the youngsters coming through and getting international games (Welbeck, Jones, Smalling). Still in the Top 4, but just not the winners, I fear.
Yep, some tough ones after Fulham and Qpr. We arguably had an easier start last year so could get some points on the board. I'm sure they looked more daunting this time last year!
You must be truly ignorant to post such a comment... Last season: 1) Wilshere was out for the entire season (he is arguably their 2nd best player) 2) Oxlade-Chamberlain has matured into a brilliant, exciting attacking-midfielder and can expect to play a huge part this season 3) Podolski completes the final piece of the puzzle (replacing the incompetent Gervinho), with respects to Arsenal's attacking line-up (he is pure class - scored 18 goals in the Bundesliga last season!) 4) Mertesacker will be back from injury, after being ruled out for the remainder of the season, in February (Arsenal suffered loads due to their injured defence, and with Sagna, Vermaelen, Mertesacker and Koscielny, that is still a formidable defence by PL standards)
I agree Arsenal will be better than last season but lots of the big clubs are strengthening and I don't think they are quite good enough yet, although like most teams it very much depends who they bring in and if they keep RVP. Their defence is not good enough though and could do with another CM, can't see them finishing higher than 3rd but who knows. Anyway not a bad start for city, hopefully we can get off to a good start, but predicting at this time is almost impossible as none of us know how CH will change things, tactics/new players etc
The thing is, for such a long time now, Arsenal have flattered to deceive! They never play to the standard that they ought to!
Disagree. Oxlade-Chamberlain still needs a few years to mature, will Podolski cope in the Premier League? It is a much better standard than the Bundesliga and Mertesacker wasn't great last season either.. But I agree Wilshere is a fantastic player. The team, for the moment, is not hugely different to last season so I feel they will continue in the same way and only just get a Champions League spot. Van Persie was one of the best players in the Premier League last season, they would have been worse than Liverpool without him last season.
My reply was based on the fact that is was ridiculous to dismiss Arsenal in that manner. With that attacking array, there is no reason why they can't realistically challenge for the title.
far be it from me to totally tear a post to shreds but i shall do so regardless 1) wilshere is still injured. good player, potentially great and already a big miss. agree he will make them stronger if and when he gets fit again. 2) the ox is nowhere near being a key player for arsenal. he is not 'brilliant' yet. he has started 5 games. 3) podolski? pure class? final piece of the puzzle? are you kidding me??? 4) mertesacker is way too slow and is in no way good enough to be regarded a top defender. in fact, arsenal seemed to improve when he got injured! if you think arsenal have a 'formidable' defence then you are totally off your rocker! you seem to have missed completely the fact that van persie may leave - indeed, many connected to arsenal seem sure he will leave. arsenal's key player last season was arteta - without him they struggled - he has a niggly injury which is one which has a tendency to keep recurring. sorry, but arsenal are absolutely miles off the pace when you put them next to man city. chelsea and united should both comfortably finish above the gooners once again next season. they were incredibly fortunate to finish 3rd last season and 3rd will be viewed as success for them once again.
just to add, goldeneye must be a closet gooner. only arsenal fans share views as blinkered as that! and arsenal aren't even that good to watch anymore. they aren't capable of playing beautiful football anymore. you won't like that either
It's going to be a tough league again next year with anyone capable of beating anyone. It's not a bad opening set of games - tough, yes, but all games will be tough - the teams coming up seem stronger than those who have gone down and any point will be a point well earned. I'd be very happy sitting on 8 points at the end of September.
i think our toughest spell is around christmas/new year. so many games and all of them very difficult, that will be a really testing period for the squad and manager. other than that, and the fact we face the champions final day, its pretty evenly balanced.
Couple of tough runs in that lot, but not too bad. I wonder if we'll get to see Lambert back at Carrow Road?
