Better or worse than last season?

What a strange first week we’ve had. In losing to Burnley, we’ve encountered a disaster but come out the other side with more points than this stage last season. We always start slowly, don’t we? A loss to a newly promoted team at this stage isn’t the worst thing that could happen, they seem to have a knack of hitting the ground running (before spluttering out later in the campaign). The performances have been worrying at times though.

Liverpool are also having a torrid time as they were convincingly out-played by Spurs last weekend and devoid of ideas against a plucky Villa on Monday just past. Their squad really does look paper thin. If you believe some rumours, they want Michael Carrick to replace the departed Xabi Alonso. Even if the rumours are true regarding Ferguson having a bust-up with the Gatesheadian (not a word) I can’t see us selling one of our best midfielders to help a bitter rival strengthen.

The Modric rumours are equally scary. It’s cry time if we swap Carrick and money for the decidedly uninspiring little Croat. He’s no Boban. What a player he was. The 1998 World Cup was really won by Croatia, in spirit if not in reality. I never could forgive Laurent Blanc for his actions in that game. Anyhoo…

Chelsea. Ominous. Arsenal. Surprising. Spurs. Solid.

Interesting season ahead. We need to up our game massively this weekend when Arsenal roll into Manchester (as do I for my first attendance of the season) if we don’t want to be mugged in our own backyard. A draw would do the Gunners very nicely whereas I think we need a win to restore a bit of confidence that we can compete this year.

My prediction: cider on the train, cider in the street, warm Bud in OT (do they ever actually have a chance to get chilled?) and cider afterwards in a nice little pub in Manchester. TV21 makes a good venue, I find.

Berty Mee said to Matt Busby...

Man Utd 1 - 0 Brum

We won the first match of the season. Crazy happenings.

It was great to see an officiating performance of such a high standard. They only missed a blatant red card on Carr early doors when he was all over Berbatov when the Bulgarian was clean through. Then they let Carr stand on Berbatov's foot in the box, no penalty given. To top things off, they ruled out a perfectly good Owen goal for offside. Ok, to the every day watcher it's offside but when the replay is shown you can see that the Birmingham defender has his leg extended beyond Owen's.

Oh well. Ferguson will get on the blower and fill the FA in. We should get those rewarded back to us against better teams.

Good points? Valencia being very direct. He'll be a star. Rooney looking sharp. Fletcher giving players hell in midfield, snapping into tackles and making himself known. Berbatov holding the ball up and bringing the midfield into play.

Bad points? Giggs and Scholes. Woeful, especially Giggs. Couldn't do a thing right.

Hopefully we'll get some defenders fit at some point this season.

Still... three points out of three. How strange.

Here at least, life can go back on hold.

...and I sort of wish it wasn't.

I woke up at 6.30am yesterday, I had a round of golf booked for the morning and I can never sleep when I'm looking forward to something like that. I took the time to cast my eye over my Fantasy league team, agonised over the inclusions and then decided to leave it well alone (much to my later chagrin as Drogba bagged a brace).

So I finished up at the 18th halfway through the Chelsea game and the first thing I did was run into the bar to see the score. 1-1 at that point. Gerrin. Next stop was the golf shop as my brother pondered new clubs. I was supposed to be moral support as he spent more money than he should on "shiny metal sticks" but I found myself dandering around the shop, eyes glued to the internet on my mobile and generally being a moving obstacle for all other patrons in said shop, checking all the scores. Bent for Sunderland? More points for me.

So we get home about 4.30pm, just in time to put on Soccer Saturday and see the full times rolling in. Then the Everton v Arsenal game comes on (Arshavin, Neville, Cahill. POINTS! Or not, as it turned out.) so I watch most of that.

I was tired last night, so I didn't watch Match of the Day in the end. So I got up this morning to watch it. Wasn't it funny seeing Tevez start on the bench and then City play fairly poorly? Ireland scored though. Didn't pick him this year. Amateurish mistake.

Now it's 9am and I've got a few hours before the game starts. Might go to the driving range in a bit to kill some time. I'll be thinking about the game the whole time though. Sigh.

I'm not going today. I've scudded them on the last two opening days to lacklustre draws so at least I'm out of the equation. My first game this season isn't until we play Arsenal. Didn't they look poor yesterday?

So yea. Football's back and it will dominate everything for another ten months. My mobile bill will surely rise as I can't not know scores when I'm out.

Why do we do this? Why do women put up with this? I don't know. I really hate it, I think. Probably not in all honesty. I wouldn't change it though, not for a second. I was at the Middlesbrough - Sheffield United game last Friday night. The home fans soon got stuck into a rendition of "One Bobby Robson". I must admit, I felt a tear in my eye. I met the big man at Newcastle train station a while back. He took a few minutes to stop and talk to us. Absolute gent of a man. He shared something with many of us. He loved football. Certain things transcend rivalries and bring everyone together. Football is one of them. For example, I hate Liverpool but I can't imagine a world without them and they'd surely admit the same.

So. Where to from here? Ranting, elation, despair, ridiculous outflow of money and then a two month break (World Cup season though!) before we do it all again.

One game at a time though, eh?

This season's contenders: Same three again?

Someone replied to my last entry asking me about how I thought the season was going to pan out and I gave a very coy answer.

I’ll say from the off, I don’t think City or Arsenal are in it this year.

City have some great names but not so many as they’d like to think and it takes time to get that many new players to gel. I do think they could play a major part in where the league ends up as they should give any team a run on their day, including the traditional big guns. Add in how utterly woeful they’ve been in preseason and I just can’t see it happening soon enough for any kind of challenge. Could Hughes be unemployed before Christmas?

Arsenal just lack the strength in depth that I think is needed to attack on all fronts. Too many of their best players have a knack of picking up injuries and Wenger’s inability to replace players and supplement his squad will show once again that he isn’t quite in the top bracket of managers he once was.

So I think it’ll be between the same three as last year.

On paper, Liverpool and ourselves have both weakened. Madrid have poached arguably our two best players in Ronaldo and Alonso and the way in which both teams replace those players will be key to the season coming up.

I’ve championed the signing of Valencia from the moment the rumour first appeared midday through last season, I think he is an excellent player who could well flourish under the added pressure that comes with playing for the Champions of England and the great history of Manchester United. I also feel that Michael Owen could well turn out to be a little diamond, pinching vital goals for us as the season goes along but I don’t expect him to return to his very best.

Other signings are much more low key and may not play a pivotal role this season; Obertan and Pogba already present in the squad with Ljajic and Diouf set to join up later in the season. Personally I’ve got a lot of hope for Tosic after he stepped it up in preseason. He reminds me of a left-sided Kanchelskis and we all know that the KanKan Man was the best player to grace the club.

A massive bonus for us this season would be to keep certain key players off the physio table; Carrick, Ferdinand and N E RightBack would be a good start.

The single most important factor we may struggle with is goals. No matter how much the most head-burying fan wants to pretend they aren’t bothered by Ronaldo’s departure, even they must accept that it’s a huge loss in terms of the goals he scored and also the amount teams had to sacrifice by marking him constantly. In a dream world, Berbatov will hit the ground running after his first preseason with the club, Rooney will finally get that central role he craves and will start scoring the goals we’ve always thought he had in him and the likes of Owen and Macheda will chip in consistently. Not asking for much, really.

Liverpool also suffered a huge loss this summer as long term want-away Xabi Alonso finally secured his move to Real Madrid. Liverpool have moved quickly to replace the Spaniard with Aquilani, a good player in his own right but it’s hard to imagine him doing quite what Alonso did last season. He is also injury prone. This could see Liverpool struggle to maintain their form from the end of last season. Moving Gerrard back would be excellent from everyone else’s point of view, he simply can’t perform in that role to anywhere near the standard people expect. Even better would be for the offensively ineffective Mascherano to be asked to perform a playmaker’s role. That would bring great mirth.

Their back line will continue to be fairly solid, such is Benitez’s way. It will be interesting to see if Aquilani serves as a direct replacement for Alonso and he retains his two holding midfield system that brings solidity at the expense of flair. I’ve long said Liverpool need to be more attacking to have a chance of winning the league and they’ve yet to secure players this summer that would suggest they’re going to do that. Torres will bang them in as always, Gerrard will get his fair share from his slot behind the front man (if kept there) and the main sticking point is where will the rest of the goals come from. Benayoun was in great form at the end of last season, as was Dirk Kuyt, but the likes of Riera, Babel (Liverpool’s Nani) and Lucas (Liverpool’s Anderson) will need to up their attacking input substantially to supplement the front two.

So we move onto my tip this season; Chelsea.

If Drogba, Joe Cole and Essien had been fit all last season, I doubt Liverpool would have been our closest rivals and I can’t even say I’d be sure we’d be champions right now. I know all teams can use that as an excuse but losing Essien, Cole and Drogba is akin to us without Ronaldo, Rooney and Carrick or Liverpool going for large periods without Torres, Gerrard and Alonso last season. Could you imagine those teams doing so well? I think not.

Ancelloti is considered by many to be a CL manager but we shouldn’t overlook the controversies around Italian football of late and the overall decline of that league. He cannot polish the proverbial turd. I think he’ll have enough nous about him to stage a real challenge and they’ve strengthened well in a player like Zhirkov though at the other end of the scale I don’t share the views that Sturridge is worthy of Stamford Bridge. Overall, Chelsea have the most players that I’d love at Man Utd. Cech, Carvalho, Zhirkov, Joe Cole, Essien (the best midfielder in the league)…

If Drogba can find renewed enthusiasm for the game, Anelka is utilised correctly for once and Essien and Lampard stay fit, they will boss teams out of most games without breaking a sweat. Keeping Terry is also a major plus, for his leadership if nothing else.

If Chelsea (Roman Abramovich) can resist the temptation of ignoring the league in search of elusive European success, they are going to be a real force this season and as such are the team I think the rest will be chasing this season.