The Dawning of the New Big Four?

Manchester City:

The big spenders have, to my annoyance been praised in the last year for contending with the big four. I would’ve thought a squad as good as this with this much money spent should be challenging for 1st not 4th but that is why I am not a professional manager. Despite this rant, there is no doubt in my mind that we are seeing a permanent entry to the force, and I feel ultimately they will lose to Chelsea in the battle for 2nd due to their lack of experience fighting at this level. Prediction: 3rd

Liverpool:

After a lot of “umming and ahhing” I decided to award my final place to Liverpool. I have to admit last year I had already decided the end had arrived for Stevie G and the boys, but it was clear the players were still very much capable to achieving more and lacked desire and belief. Enter “King Kenny” who, with a couple of good signings and his aura fulfilled the reds beliefs in their abilities, seeing them manage a great end of season display. Now I expect him to push them a little bit more with his squad improvements and see Liverpool set themselves back as an Elite club. Prediction: 4th

Arsenal:

I almost couldn’t decide between Arsenal and Liverpool for 4th place. I have always admired Arsenal having grown with their fantastic unbeaten run and players such as Thierry Henry and Robert Pires gave me great respect for them. At first I was very much in favour of Wenger’s youth plan, but in my opinion he did it wrong. If the Frenchman has chose to bring in a load of youth players to play with the heavily experienced winners such as Henry, then the younger players would have grown up knowing success making it easier to achieve. However they only have weight on their backs and no experience at winning so only seem to fluff every great chance they get. With the exit of Nasri and Fabregas, I hope this will give younger players the chance to play as having those two around will only lower morale but I fear, for this season at least, top four is just out of reach. Prediction: 5th

Tottenham:

Which just leaves Tottenham Hotspur. Allthough undoubtedly a good team with great players and a manager I admire, I feel in order to break into the top four you need to use a specialised trait that you use to your advantage be it youth, experience, money, reputation etc, and I simply consider Tottenham to be the jack of all trades, good at everything, master at nothing, and that is what I consider is ultimately holding them back. If Redknapp wants to bring Champions League football back to White Hart Lane, he needs to find a specific area to strengthen and make them the best in England at that area whilst remaining strong in other areas. This is not an easy task but I believe Redknapp (hopefully future England manager in my opinion) has the capability to pull it off. For now though I predict disappointment. Prediciton: 6th

So there you have it. These are of course only my thoughts and so not the right answers, but please let me know if you agree/disagree and your own thoughts in the comments below, or feel free to debate with me on Twitter @tomster93.

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