Thursday 7 September 2017

Transfer window closed – it’s prediction time…


As always, I leave my season’s predictions until after the summer transfer window closes – I personally think it makes no sense whatsoever during an ever-changing period of time to try 'n' say, with any accuracy, who’s gonna finish where / do what when teams are ‘in flux’ of strengthening or being weakened by losing players.

First of all…


…how did I do this time last year?

1st        Chelsea
Predicted 3rd (just 2 places out)

2nd        Tottenham Hotspur
Predicted 4th (just 2 places out)

3rd        Manchester City
Predicted 1st (just 2 places out)

4th        Liverpool
Predicted 6th (just 2 places out)

5th        Arsenal
Predicted 7th (just 2 places out)

6th        Manyoo
Predicted 2nd (4 places out)

7th Everton
Predicted 8th (just 1 place out!)

Predicted 10th (just 2 places out)

Predicted 17th (8 places out)

Predicted 18th & relegated (8 places out)

Predicted 9th (just 2 places out)

Predicted 5th (7 places out)

Predicted 13th (SPOT ON!)

Predicted 11th (3 places out)

Predicted 14th (just 1 place out!)

16th Burnley
Predicted 19th & relegated (3 places out)

17th Watford
Predicted 15th (just 2 places out)

18th & relegated Hull City
Predicted 20th & relegated (just 2 places out)

19th & relegated Middlesbrough
Predicted 12th (7 places out)

20th & relegated Sunderland
Predicted 16th (4 places out)

All in all, if I could give myself some praise for a moment, I’d say that getting 12 from 20 teams somewhere between “spot on” and “just 2 places out” is pretty damn good when-trying to predict 20 teams’ finishing positions after just 3 games of the season played! Well-done me, hey? Okay…

Pre-season, City results prediction (percentage correct): 60.53%
Pre-match, City results prediction (percentage correct): 65.79%

City cup predictions:


Predicted: Final…and then who knows!
Achieved: Last 16 stage (3 rounds out)

Predicted: Final…and then who knows!
Achieved: Semi-final (just 1 round out!)

Predicted: Quarter finals
Achieved: Last 16 (just 1 round out!)

And, so, for this season…



1st        Manyoo (5 up on last season and champions)
2nd        Manchester City (1 up on last season and runners up)
3rd        Liverpool (1 up on last season and into an automatic C/L spot)
4th        Chelsea (3 down on last season but grab a C/L knock-out spot)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
5th        Spurs (3 down on last season and into an auto Europa spot)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
6th        Everton (1 up on last season)
7th        Arsenal (2 down on last season)
8th        Watford (9 up on last season and biggest climbers)
9th        Southampton (1 down on last season)
10th      Swansea City (5 up on last season)
11th      Leicester City (1 up on last season)
12th      West Bromwich Albion (2 down on last season)
13th      Huddersfield (promoted last season and survive)
14th      Stoke City (1 down on last season)
15th      Burnley (1 up on last season)
16th      AFC Bournemouth (7 down and joint-biggest fallers)
17th      Brighton & Hove Albion (promoted last season and survive)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
18th      West Ham United (7 down; joint-biggest fallers & relegated)
19th      Crystal Palace (5 down on last season and relegated)
20th      Newcastle United (promoted last season and relegated)

WHAT?!
I’ve agonised over this since the summer transfer window closed; there’s been a raging battle between my head & heart. This is just how I see it…and it would be remiss of me to type a blog with any bias feelings rather than being an honest footy fan.

I think, as much as it pains me to, that apart from perhaps the left-wing area; Manyoo have strengthened in all the right areas – particular with regards to their ‘fire power’. I just think they’ve got their ‘ship in order’ and are looking very strong for the season ahead.

I’ll move onto City in a bit…

Chelsea have strengthened a little but not nearly as much as they would have liked, I’m sure. I think also that they’ll suffer the ‘Champions hangover’ / 'season after syndrome' a little and now have a European calendar to contend with too, unlike last season.

Liverpool managed to fend off the mighty Barcelona’s efforts to sign Philippe Coutinho and have strengthened also – they have a VERY dangerous, attacking midfield with lots of goals in them…even if some of their defence is still very shaky.

I think Spurs, although they have added to their attack late on in the window, WILL suffer the much-talked-about ‘Wembley syndrome’. They’ll be a decent team who will have good runs that’ll give other clubs some cause for concerns at times but I think, equally, they’ll have bad patches too; where they’ll struggle to regain form, especially at home.

Everton have improved their team a LOT but only improve on last season by 1 place, in my opinion, due to the strength of the other sides around them.

Arsenal are a club in utter turmoil and have a very unhappy dressing room, in my view.

And I’ll give mention to Watford - a team I think will do really well for themselves this season (hence being the ‘biggest climbers in my prediction league table).

West Ham, despite adding some attacking talent, look all over the place and well dodgy at the back.

Palace look in worse shape than The Hammers.

Newcastle barely strengthened, if at all, in the summer and look very vulnerable indeed.

Okay…now for us.


I find that my positive feeling about us-improving the goalkeeping situation; the vast improvement of our flanking defenders / wing-backs and adding further quality of Bernardo Silva to our enormous wealth of attacking, creative midfield / wing department – with the returning Ilkay Gundogan to add to that further – is tempered a lot by our weakening of, STILL FURTHER, our striking department; not to mention failing to address the much-needed improvement to our central defensive cover.

What the HELL were City doing all summer not to have sorted both of these key areas out?!

Regarding the defence, we’re left with an unwanted Eliaquim Mangala that we shipped out on loan last season and tried to sell this summer and, so, have red-card-ready Nicholas Otamendi, ‘still learning’, young John Stones who, let’s not forget, had a fair few injuries last season as well as being dropped a lot (including this season so far) and a Captain in Vincent Kompany who could break down at any moment. Good grief…

Huh…and as for the forward line; it’s more like a ‘forward piece of string’…albeit a very-high-quality piece.

I mean, okay, I’m including Enes Unal & Wilfried Bony here; but we’ve sold 3 strikers (including Kelechi Iheanacho) and brought in no-one up front! We’ve got a very young, very talented Gabriel Jesus who was out for several weeks in his first half-season with us and ‘our Serg’ who, let’s not forget, has spent MONTHS out injured in the last 2 campaigns. Will any EDS strikers please step forward (if we have any left after a summer of loaning out to 'sister clubs')…

I use the word again – what the HELL were City’s ‘key men’ behind the scenes doing in-putting all of their efforts into signing Alexis Sanchez from a stubborn Arsenal; who themselves left it late to try to find (and failed) to get a very last-minute replacement?! Why-oh-why did ‘our guys’ not see that they needed a flippin’-good ‘plan B’? Why not go for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang or A.N. Other when it was clear to all that there WERE serious doubts about getting Pep’s main target, despite some encouraging signs in the last few days of the transfer window?

That’s a lot of eggs in just one basket ready to be dropped at any moment; especially with a long, 4-competition season ahead…

As for the cups?


Champions League? Quarter finals at best
F.A. Cup? Final…and then “who knows?
League Cup? Quarter finals at least; possible the final and then “who knows?

Is 2nd place and a possible domestic cup improvement on last season? Of course it is. Will that be enough for Pep and the Manchester City owners? Not at all. Is it enough for most City fans, myself included? Frustratingly I’d have to say no, not really - it’ll feel like, to me at least, as a, ‘what could have been’ season.

Positives…and can we improve on my predictions?


We have added some exciting wing-backs to our armoury and I’d say that we have some of the best attacking / creative midfielders in the Premier League. We have ‘strength in depth’ in that department too.

We also have another opportunity, in January, of completing the task both in central defence and attack. Of course, typically, it’s not a great transfer window to do business in but I can see possible movement on the Sanchez situation as well as, perhaps, the Jonny Evans or whoever.

And, I must add, I am very, VERY impressed by the spirit & determination of this talented squad of players, as-has-been shown this season so far.

Apologies…


Sorry if my predictions have ‘irked’ some Blues and I hope, in the right way, and pray that I’m wrong. I’ll still remain positive and as-largely optimistic as I often am…as well as being a balanced, realist.

And I remind myself also that I got ‘top spot’ in my Premier League predictions wrong last season; when I thought we’d win the 2016/17 season.

I might, however, stick a sneaky £10-bet on Manyoo winning the league and hope, very much, to lose that tenner - I don’t ‘do betting’ in general and rarely do well whenever I do ‘have a flutter’…

As stated in my last 'blog annoucement', I was unsure if I would get this blog-posting out before the weekend. As I had prepared some of it in advance, I managed to finish it off this evening.

However, with ongoing family-health issues, I may not be able to get a pre-match posting out before this weekend's game. Once again, apologies if not...

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