Premier League preview 2010/11 part 1

With the international friendlies out of the way (probably not to be discussed again until the first qualifying matches take place) it’s now time to turn our attentions toward club football once again, so here is the Official CDB Pod English Premier League Preview 2010/11, part one. Part two coming tomorrow.

ARSENAL

Arsenal are a tough team to judge this season. At the end of the last campaign it was pretty obvious that Arsene Wenger needed to invest in at least one good centre-half, holding midfielder, centre-forward and goalkeeper – compare to what he’s actually done so far and you can only say for sure that one of those objectives has been achieved, namely Bordeaux striker Marouane Chamakh on a free. Chamakh is an excellent acquisition, especially for nothing, the type of strong forward player who should add a dimension to Arsenal’s attack that has been missing for several years. However the other problems still remain. Manuel Almunia is not a sufficiently good keeper for a club of Arsenal’s aspirations, and Wenger’s refusal to scrape together the surely-not-too-large amounts of cash to prize 37-year-old Mark Schwarzer away from Fulham is a little bizarre. Laurent Koscielny may have arrived from Lorient but both William Gallas and Mikael Silvestre have left at the end of their contracts, so further strength at centre-back is clearly needed. That said, the likes of Alex Song, Carlos Vela, and Samir Nasri look to be finally delivering on their promise and that may be enough to build on the good starts that Arsenal haven’t quite kept going for long enough in past seasons. Verdict:2nd

ASTON VILLA

The period of Aston Villa knocking on the door of the top five looks to be over. Owner Randy Lerner is clearly balking at the fact that the considerable amounts of money he’s already put into the club aren’t nearly enough to actually break into the Champions League reckoning, and inspirational manager Martin O’Neill finally lost his patience with Villa’s slide towards feeder-club status and resigned just a couple of days ago. Reports suggest O’Neill’s attitude towards the wage bill may have been a little cavalier, but it’s entirely understandable how frustrating it must be to do so well for consecutive seasons and, at the end of each, have your best player sold in an embarrassingly public drawn-out transfer saga, as happened to Gareth Barry and is currently happening to James Milner. With his as-yet unknown successor surely tasked with reducing the wage bill, I wouldn’t expect to see much in the way of reinforcement at Villa Park before the end of the transfer window, and coupled with question marks over the motivations of Ashley Young and possibly other players, it looks like they’ll be getting left behind by the teams surrounding them. Brad Friedel and Stephen Warnock remain key figures. Verdict: 10th

BIRMINGHAM CITY

There’s no doubt the Blues punched above their weight last time around and are unlikely to finish quite so strongly again, especially with Joe Hart having returned to Man City, but Alex McLeish’s men should have enough to avoid being caught in a relegation battle. Ben Foster is a clever piece of business to replace Hart, a man hungry to prove himself after stagnating slightly on the Man United bench and establish himself as Hart’s understudy for England. In Scott Dann and Roger Johnson they boast a sterling central defensive pairing, too. The problems come in squad depth further up the field – on a good day new beanpole striker Nikola Zigic is very good, but on a bad day he can be prize pants, and backups like Kevin Phillips, Cameron Jerome and Marcus Bent hardly inspire confidence. Lee Bowyer will struggle to have as good a season as last in the midfield and much may rely on the creative influence of James McFadden to get things done in front of goal. Verdict: 14th

BLACKBURN ROVERS

Well, nobody wanted it to happen, but it looks like Sam Allardyce is successfully reproducing his old Bolton side at Ewood Park, warts and all. Blackburn are perfecting the art of defending stoutly for eighty minutes, then shoving centre-back Chris Samba up front and lumping the ball up to him for somebody else to bundle it in when it bounces off the Congolese colossus. They’ll be perfectly fine again this season – Paul Robinson has remembered he’s half-decent, Samba and Ryan Nelsen have both experience and expertise at the back, and will be supplemented by emerging 18-year-old Phil Jones. In midfield, young Steven N’Zonzi is attracting the attentions of Arsenal and for good reason. Goals are the problem and they are looking like relying heavily on Nikola Kalinic, who has talent but is still settling into English football, and Morten Gamst Pedersen’s free-kicks. Will stay well clear of trouble but won’t bother the Europe-chasing pack. Verdict: 11th

BLACKPOOL

Blackpool are going down as quickly as Ian Holloway can coin a metaphor. They look to have taken the ultimately quite sensible business decision on not frittering all their promotion money away on frantically trying to boost a squad several levels below Premier League ability and instead simply taking the Sky money and parachute payments for relegation to solidify their status as a Championship team. It may not be exciting as a neutral to see Blackpool with good odds of beating Derby’s wooden spoon record, but the achievement of even reaching the playoffs with this squad was miraculous enough. Their only player who you would say is of sufficient quality is playmaker Charlie Adam, who scored sixteen from midfield last season and was the main driving force behind their late push to Wembley glory, and I think it’s highly likely he will be snapped up on the cheap by a relegation rival in January when Blackpool’s fate should already be all but sealed. It’s a shame, because I love Holloway and I think it’s great to see Blackpool in the top tier, but their fans should look to the possibility of Premier League survival in three or four years’ time instead. Verdict: 20th

BOLTON WANDERERS

Owen Coyle is starting to have some success getting his Bolton side to play his desired attractive football, and Bolton should be comfortably clear of relegation questions. They boast a better-than-solid spine in Jussi Jaaskelainen (consistently one of the league’s best keepers for the past ten years), Gary Cahill, Fabrice Muamba and official dirtiest-ever Premier League player, captain Kevin Davies, and in Lee Chung-Yong and snazzy free transfer Martin Petrov there will be plenty of creativity in midfield. Weaknesses, though, will be scoring goals and top-class opposition wingers – up front, Davies, Ivan Klasnic and Johan Elmander are all the goal-shy kind and Gretar Steinsson and Jlloyd Samuel are far from inspiring full-backs. Verdict: 13th

CHELSEA

Chelsea mount the defence of their title in reasonably good shape and look favourites to win again this year, but they do look slightly weaker than they did twelve months ago. For one thing, all their key players – Lampard, Drogba, Cech, Terry, Ashley Cole – are all another year older and one has to wonder when the decline will become evident. For another thing, Ricardo Carvalho’s departure to Real Madrid does not look like it is going to be offset by the signing of a centre-back of equivalent quality. Reports are that at least one of Brazilians Neymar and Ramires are to arrive for in the region of £25 million each, possibly both, and given the slight scaling back in recent years of Roman Abramovich’s spending, that seems unlikely to be followed by a further big signing. That could be crucial, as while Alex stepped up last season to become a more consistent performer, Carvalho was a big part of John Terry’s success for the club, who made the captain look much better than he really is. This could, and probably should, turn out to be the season in which Terry gets dropped from the first team. Other news is good news, though, and Michael Essien’s return will be a big boost to manager Carlo Ancelotti (although at this rate you have to ask when he’ll be injured next). So, too, will the exchange deal bringing Yossi Benayoun to Stamford Bridge in Joe Cole’s place. Benayoun should fit in well as an impact substitute, part of the deepest squad in the league. Between them, Drogba, Anelka and Lampard should score the goals required to fire Chelsea back to the top. Verdict: 1st

EVERTON

David Moyes has done well to tie down key man Mikel Arteta to a new contract, with Steven Pienaar expected to follow suit in the best piece of transfer business to come out of Goodison Park this summer. Everton’s midfield is right up there with the best in the league, with Arteta and Pienaar supported by Marouane Fellaini, Jack Rodwell, Tim Cahill, Diniyar Bilyaletdinov and Leon Osman. Tim Howard is reliably excellent in goal and if Louis Saha can stay fit he should be able to blend well with pacy new second striker Magaye Gueye. Jermaine Beckford is probably a gamble unlikely to pay off at this level, though. Verdict: 6th

FULHAM

It’s important that Mark Hughes fends off Arsenal’s approaches for evergreen Mark Schwarzer, because without him Fulham would be at risk of being given a slight reality check after the dizzy heights of last season’s Europa League adventure. The motivational powers of Roy Hodgson cannot be underestimated and I don’t really see Hughes as having similar managerial talent – he’s yet to really prove much of anything at club level. Fulham will be solid in defence (new signing Philippe Senderos notwithstanding) and full of effort in attack and will need Bobby Zamora to repeat his exceptional form of last season. If Hughes has time to spend the money that Mohammed Al Fayed says is available to him, then a forward or winger with pace should be on the agenda to freshen up the front line of journeymen. Progress from last year’s finish would be a good achievement. Verdict: 12th

LIVERPOOL

I’ve talked already about Liverpool and not much has changed since then. It’s surprising that Javier Mascherano hasn’t moved on yet but the offer from Inter hasn’t materialised and Barcelona aren’t as interested in the deal as Mascherano himself is. He is surely on his way out, though, now that Christian Poulsen has signed from Juventus. Poulsen’s a decent player but not in the same league as Mascherano – clearly a replacement signing for a player whose transfer fee is not expected to be reinvested in the market. With the takeover saga advancing at the pace of continental drift, it looks set to be another disappointing season at Anfield. Verdict: 7th

Capello’s half-hearted revamp betrays confusion in England setup

Forty-four days since their humbling exit from the World Cup, England begin their preparations for Euro 2012 qualifying tomorrow with a friendly against Hungary hoping for a bright new start, but as Fabio Capello admits he doesn’t know what to do to get the members of that ill-fated jaunt to South Africa to perform for him, there are worrying signs that this is not going to be the complete overhaul of the squad that is required.

Apart from the huge amounts of money they would have had to spend to sack him, the FA must have insisted to Capello that a condition of his retention as England manager would be to drop the ageing players who have let the national team down for many years and bring in a new generation of young players to mould together in anticipation of Poland and Ukraine in two years’ time and ultimately Brazil in four. That, however, does not seem to have really happened. Although pint-sized Arsenal prodigy Jack Wilshere has been fast-tracked into the squad alongside his club team-mate Kieran Gibbs, the bulk of the squad is still made up of the same old players, and the expected starting eleven for tomorrow’s game makes for depressing reading.

The luckiest man to still have a place is John Terry. Never a truly world-class defender, Terry’s brave attitude has complemented well the likes of Ricardo Carvalho and William Gallas at Chelsea over the years, but he is now cripplingly short of pace, a huge deficiency for an international centre-back, and after his rather pathetic attempted mutiny at the World Cup it is very surprising that a man of Capello’s supposed ruthlessness has stuck with him. In two years’ time Terry will be 31. If you think he’s slow now, just imagine how much of a liability he’ll be then. It’s not as if he’s even been one of the most outstanding English centre-backs at club level over the past two seasons or so. Having fully earned their call-ups to the squad, Everton’s Phil Jagielka and Tottenham’s Michael Dawson should be the two to start in that position for the opening qualifier against Bulgaria.

It’s not just Terry who should have been jettisoned, too. While they still have the ability to contribute towards the 2012 campaign, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry all need a wake-up call. They should have been told to go back to their clubs and put in performances to win back their places and prove that they should be trusted again. It’s not as if this is the first opportunity that these players have had to bounce back from a poor summer tournament. A new, harsher approach is required to seriously tackle the complacency that has become rampant in the minds of these players, who have long since succumbed to believing their own hype.

In keeping faith with them for this first new squad, Capello has betrayed his lack of confidence in the younger generation who have been knocking on the door. If he really thought that they were good enough to be brought through into the first team then he should have followed the example of Laurent Blanc. The new France coach, surfing an Obama-like wave of optimism from the fans for simply not being his predecessor, took the clever step of ‘suspending’ every member of his country’s World Cup squad for their friendly against Norway, calling up thirteen uncapped players and all but one under thirty years old. They have been given the initiative in the build-up for their qualification campaign and the disappointments from South Africa have to do the work of winning back their places if they are worth it. That Gerrard, Lampard, Barry and Terry are all set to start against Hungary shows that in reality the call-ups of Wilshere, Gibbs, and the like are little more than a token effort to appease those calling for a more radical overhaul.

There are also questions being asked of Capello’s man-management. This is most apparent in the case of Robert Green. Dropped from the original squad while Terry et al remained, the West Ham keeper was overlooked when first Paul Robinson petulantly retired from international duty because he didn’t want to be a backup, and then when Ben Foster had to pull out through injury. Scott Loach’s emergency promotion from the Under-21 side makes sense, as he is first choice there and at Watford in the Championship, and although he is far from the finished article, he can reasonably be expected to push for a regular place in the squad in a couple of years’ time. That he has been joined by 22-year-old Frankie Fielding, Blackburn’s fourth choice whose last competitive game was against Barnet on loan with Rochdale in League 2, is a pretty severe kick in the teeth for Green. That Green has been so obviously scapegoated for one mistake that arguably was less embarrassing than John Terry’s positioning against Germany and such like seems more than a little off on Capello’s part, as if he thinks that the rest of the squad have chosen to blame Green rather than seriously face up to their own deficiencies, and that he is desperately trying to indulge that childish belief to try and get them to perform by any means. Fielding may have promise but nobody can pretend that he is anywhere near Green’s level. This inconsistency in punishment for the South African failure reflects very badly on Capello in my view.

There are plenty of players in the squad who deserve to be there, forming the core of the upcoming qualifying campaign. Jagielka, Dawson, Joe Hart, Gary Cahill, James Milner, Ashley Young, Adam Johnson, and Bobby Zamora have all earned the right to be where they now are. But there are still glaring omissions (Jack Rodwell and Lee Cattermole are two who stand out) and those who have been called up may feel undermined by not being given the chance to start at Wembley tomorrow. This is not the bright new dawn that England fans have been hoping for, and it seems increasingly clear that Capello may not be capable of ushering it in after all.

Lambert for England – the campaign starts here

It’s generally accepted that aside from Wayne Rooney, England do not have an embarrassment of riches up front. The choices available to Capello are mostly uninspiring – Emile Heskey, Peter Crouch, Jermaine Defoe, Carlton Cole, Darren Bent, Bobby Zamora, Michael Owen… none of these names are going to strike fear into the hearts of the opposition at the World Cup. Everyone will know about these players. So why not bring someone who could not only work well together with Rooney, but about whom the international community will have no intelligence whatsoever?

I am talking, in a hilariously partisan way, about Southampton’s Rickie Lambert.

No! Wait! Don’t go! Hear me out. Lambert is the top scorer in League One this year with a ludicrous 29 league goals and 37 in all competitions. He has also provided countless more with his highly intelligent hold-up target man play, as Southampton finished with 85 league goals, just four behind leaders and champions Norwich. Every time I’ve seen him this season, be it live or on television, he has been the best player on the pitch by a distance. His reading of the game is incredible and he could clearly play at a much higher level.

There are three players vying for a seat on the plane as a target man – Heskey, who can hold the ball up and bring players in but can’t score for toffee, Crouch, who can put a few away but is less skilled at leading the line, and Cole, who doesn’t really do either to a high enough standard. Lambert we know can do both.

Am I saying this just because I’m a Southampton fan? Probably – if I weren’t I certainly wouldn’t have seen enough of Lambert to pass judgement. But I’m firmly of the belief that it’s worth taking one player to a major tournament about whom nobody else knows anything. And I think Rickie Lambert should be that man. A strikeforce of Rooney, Lambert, Heskey, Defoe, and one of Crouch and Bent (probably Crouch) would give all kinds of options, especially if another Southampton favourite Theo Walcott is on the plane as well for the right-wing berth. C’mon, Fabio, it’s only the World Cup – what have you got to lose?