Do We Really Need the International Break?

Tonight, on ITV (in England), it’s England vs. Scotland. It’s a fiercely contested derby game between bitter footballing, and now seemingly political, rivals. And for these players, after tonight’s game, the whole English and most of the Scottish squad can return to their respective clubs without a fuss. But other times England might be playing Australia or Brazil away from the comfort of Wembley, and returning back to England can be a hassle to say the least. I am now going to look at what effects far-flung international friendlies can have on the players and their clubs, as well as the fans home and away, also taking into account their usefulness to the international squad’s manager, before making my own conclusion on the matter.

I heard, the other day, that the Spanish national team were travelling all the way to Columbia to play in an international friendly. Now, the amount of air miles racked up by the players in that squad will be beyond belief, considering that there is also jet-lag and acclimatisation to contend with. Then there is the flight back to Spain and the subsequent journey to places such as Barcelona, Manchester or any other city in Europe. And that’s not the only problem that domestic clubs have when players return.

Players have previously come back with injuries, keeping them out of domestic action for up to Christmas and New Year, and sometimes beyond. Another problem is if players return late from midweek international duty, it means that they aren’t ready for Saturday afternoon at 3pm when their season starts. And if it’s not injury or lateness, there’s fatigue or just generally not feeling up to playing on the following weekend.

From the country’s perspective, it’s a good thing to have a friendly before the start of the season. It whets the fans’ appetite for the new season and is also a good way of assessing where the national team stand. But the negatives for the players and squads seem to outweigh the positives on this front, because as good as international friendlies can sometimes be, they seem to be of little value for most teams.

In my opinion, friendlies in the international game just don’t get me jumping out of my seat. They are full of offside strikers, substitutions, and general "flim-flam" building up to, and in the aftermath of, the match. So please FIFA, make international breaks just for competitive matches!!!

Premier League Predictions - Part 2

So here's my predictions for the remainder of Premier League clubs:

Manchester United 

The legend might be gone but his squad still remains, which means that David Moyes should have no problem in bringing the squad together. But the £1mln signing of Uruguayan right-back Guillermo Varela is a strange one; United already have stength in depth in this position, with Rafael, Fabio, Phil Jones and Johnny Evans. And at left-back there’s Patrice Evra, Alex Büttner, Fabio and, as a last resort, Anderson. Anyway, besides this, with few changes to the squad, United look on target for European Qualification, so I predict a 2^nd place finish for the Red Devils with Robin van Persie getting the golden boot. I suspect that Mourinho's greater experience at the top will give Chelsea the edge over Moyes' United this season.

Newcastle United 

Alan Pardew’s French Revolution was taking shape in January: Moussa Sissoko’s one man show against Chelsea, Yoan Gouffran and Hatem Ben Arfa out wide. But since Joe Kinnear has come back in through the door, the spending has stopped and signs of discontent have emanated from St James'. Kinnear has not endeared himself to the Newcastle faithful; fumbles in an interview with talkSPORT have highlighted this, where he referred to “Yohan Kebab” and “Hatem Ben Affri”. With little transfer movement, the Newcastle tactics are unlikely to change. The performances of the team must improve though if they want to avoid a relegation scrap, which I think they will. The season is unlikely to be extraordinary for the Toon Army, but a solid 16^th place finish is possible, avoiding a relegation scrap.

Norwich City 

The Premier League’s East Anglian representative has had two good seasons of mid-table Premier League football. Despite this, there were some nervous times last season. Chris Hughton has spent his money on securing the services of Javier Garrido, Leroy Fer, Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Nathan Redmond (who worked with Hughton at Birmingham), and Martin Olsson. Though, he lost club captain Grant Holt toWigan. With question marks over the Premier league abilities of his new signings, I don't expect Norwich to perform as solidly as they did last year. I think that they’ll finish 18^th and lose their place in the Premier League.

Southampton 

Last season, the team had a shaky start under Nigel Adkins, but were given a new lease of life when Mauricio Pochettino came through the door, avoiding relegation safely come May. Saints fans will hope that the club's progress since January will carry on into the new season. Pochettino is now speaking English, is signing players to add to the squad he inherited, and has the support of the clubs fans and board. So Southampton with Dejan Lovren and Victor Wanayama look on course for 10^th place in my opinion.

Stoke City 

Mark Hughes arrives at Stoke with a mission to turn the team into a footballing side, who play more than just the long-ball. The hallmarks of the Pulis-era are likely to remain though: Ryan Shotton is a long-throw specialist; Peter Crouch is a target man; and January signing Jack Butland is now a full-time Stoke player. As with many clubs, Hughes's signings lack Premier League experience: Alex Grant (Portsmouth); Marc Muniesa (Barcelona); and Erik Pieters (PSV Eindhoven). Hughes himself will be looking to dispel his torrid time at QPR. With new players on board, the transition is underway. Though, I don't predict this transition will be swift; a slow start to the season is likely to leave them 14^th in May, though the City display in the second half of the season should leave them in good stead for 2014-15.

Sunderland 

Last season Sunderland's performance got progressively worse, leading to the sacking of Martin O’Neil and his subsequent replacement by Paolo Di Canio. Di Canio has bought in bulk, bringing in nine new players: Emmanuale Giaccherini, Vito Mannone, Jozy Altidore, El Hadji Ba, Cabral, David Moberg Karlsson, Modibo Diakite, Valentin Roberge and Duncan Whatmore. Though only two are from English clubs and one (Mannone) from the Premier League. Nevertheless, the squad and new signings have quality, which should see Sunderland finish 11^th in the table. Perhaps if Di Canio proves himself managerially, he may become a contender for future vacancies at the 'big' clubs.

Swansea City 

Michael Laudrup came into English football and set out his stall very early. He signed Michu on the cheap, then beat QPR 5-0 and West Ham 3-0. Swansea were the surprise side of the last season: winning the Capital One Cup, beating Arsenal at the Emirates, and giving Liverpool a lesson in Tipi-Taka football at Anfield. This year they have brought in Jordi Amat, Wilfried Bony, Jose Canas, Jonathan De Guzman (Loan),Alejandro Pozuelo, Jonjo Shelvey and Jernade Meade. The Europa League is an obvious distraction for Swansea; many clubs have tried to compete in both Premier and Europa leagues in the past and failed. Despite that, I think Laudrup can weave his managerial-magic again, as long as he keeps key players fit for the whole season. If he does this, the Swans will finish 8^th, with Michu and Wilfried Bony fighting it out a top club goalscorers.

Tottenham Hotspur 

“Gareth Bale FC” risk losing their strongest asset as the new season begins. To add to this, Spurs have struggled to bring players in, with the £17mln Paulinho, Chadli and Soldado being the only notable new players at the club. Spurs have failed to attract their other targets though: Christian Benteke has agreed a stay at Villa Park and Udinese forward Matej Vydra has not made the switch. Bale's future is integral to Tottenham's season. If he stays, the club will be able to challenge the top-four; if not, they may struggle to keep the pace. Either way,a 5^th place finish is well within their grasp.

West Bromwich Albion 

The loan capture of Romelu Lukaku defined WBA's 2012-13 season; he scored countless goals for the Baggies and was their star player. With Lukaku back at Chelsea, Steve Clarke has brought in Goran Popov (Loan) and Nicolas Anelka. Whether Anelka can reproduce his past goalscoring magic is an open question. I think not and believe that he'll be overshadowd by Shane Long in the goalscoring stakes. With a strong back-bone in thesquad, the Baggies look set for mid-table safety - 12^th place.

West Ham United

The Hammers met most people’s expectations last season: a safe mid-table finish. “Big Sam” Allardyce has looked to improve on this, spending money on Goalkeeper Adrian, Defender Razvan Rat, Midfielder Danny Whitehead and Striker Andy Carroll. Carroll showed in 2012-13 that he fits into the Allardyce style of play perfectly. With Carroll leading the attack, West Ham look set for 13^th in the table. However, the improvement Hammers fans crave is unlikely.

To summarise, here's my predicted Premier League table:

POSITION	CLUB
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	Chelsea Man Utd Man City Arsenal Tottenham Everton Liverpool Swansea Fulham Southampton Sunderland West Brom West Ham Stoke Aston Villa Newcastle Cardiff Norwich Crystal Palace Hull

Premier League Predictions - Part 1

So pre-season is coming to its end, clubs come back to England (or Wales), players gel, tactics get finalised, and Newcastle fans get worried that Joe Kinnear hasn’t spent any money. I am now going to look at each team in the coming Premier League season, analyse their tactics, signings, squads and assess where they might finish next May.

Arsenal 

Arsene Wenger has his recognised way of playing football and I doubt that that this will change. As for the transfer window, Yaya Sanogo came in for nothing from France, while Arsenal missed out on the Napoli-bound Gonzalo Higuain. The Luis Suarez saga is ongoing, but Liverpool resolutely believe that he will not be sold. Gaps still exist in the Arsenal squad: Squillaci gone, Djourou on loan in Germany and Vermaelen’s form in a trough, a new centre-back wouldn't go amiss - maybe a 'Jagielka-type' would do them best. As for next season, with the squad the way it is, I could only see Arsenal scraping 3^rd place, but they can always contend in a domestic cup.

Aston Villa 

Last season, Paul Lambert’s Villa side was young and energetic, but became too reliant on Weimann, Agbonlahor, and Benteke. With the signings made - Leandro Bacuna, Niklas Helenius, Jores Okore, Antonio Luna, Aleksandar Tonev and Jed Steer - Lambert will hope that the new boys will help Villa steer clear of a relegation scrap, despite being unproven in the Premier League. This young team promises a lot, but will it deliver? We’ll wait and see, but they have the potential to stay up safely. I predict a 15^th finish, with Benteke as top scorer.

Cardiff City 

Dominant in the Championship last season under the talisman-ship of Craig Bellamy, Cardiff City will be looking to stay in the top flight for longer than 12 months. Malky Makay is an ex-Premier League centre-back who likes to vary the way his teams play - the long-ball game is likely to be prominent in the last 15 minutes of their matches. Like Aston Villa, their new signings have little or no Premier League experience: striker Andreas Cornelius cost them £7.5mln. Their squad has a back-bone of players who have plied their trade in the Championship. Nevertheless, they have shown qualities in recent domestic cup competitions. Drawing on these experiences will help them reach 17^th place, but it may be tight. Final day drama anyone?

Chelsea 

Jose Mourinho isn’t known to manage teams with a 'beautiful' style of play, but he’s a winner. He's added to the squad: the £18million purchase of Andre Schürrle has been the highlight. Although Jose's spending in his first spell didn't always live up to the price tag: players like Mateja Kezman never lived up to their potential in West London. I worry that the ageing squad that played an integral role in Mourinho's first spell at the club will find it difficult to compete consistently across the season. Many of Chelsea's younger players have been loaned out, making it difficult for Jose to rotate his squad. Back-room friction between Mourinho and his seniors cannot be ruled out either - remember what happened last time! Nevertheless, Mourinho is shrewd and knows how his club works, unlike either of the new managers at City or United. For this reason, Chelsea are my favourites for the league title.

Crystal Palace 

Ian Hollaway will certainly amuse us all over the coming months with his media interactions. He pocketed £60million of play-off winnings for the club last season, a vast change in fortunes for a team that were about to drop into League 1 two summers ago. With these funds, Holloway has brought in new faces: Stephen Dobbie and Kevin Phillips are now permanent fixtures at Selhurst Park, both knowing Holloway well, having worked with each other at Blackpool and on loan at Palace last season; Jose Campaña might be unproven, but Jerome Thomas is an experienced player who would be a key link should Palace stay up; Dwight Gayle, from Peterborough, was definitely one for the future. However I don’t think they’ll stay up this season. Last season Wilfried Zaha and Glenn Murray were integral to Palace's promotion effort, but with Zaha gone and Murray likely to miss most of the season with a knee injury, Palace are likely to be missing fire power at the front. I think this Palace side will finish 19^th and hence, be relegated.

Everton 

Roberto Martinez might have been relegated with Wigan last season, but he won the F.A. Cup! And three of the players signed - Joel Robles,Arouna Koné and Antolin Alcaraz - all played in the Wembley final. Loan youngster Gerard Deulofeu is a talent that has come to England to improve. The advantage Martinez has here is that with Jagielka, Distin and Heitinga, he has ‘Premier League’ defenders. By bringing in Joel, Tim Howard will have to perform and a look to avoid some of his more tentative displays from last season. The squad as a whole, however, is still a small one. But the young players who got a chance towards the end of last season, Ross Barkley and Bryan Oviedo, are likely to get more of a chance this year. I predict a 6^th place finish for the Blues, just missing out on Europe.

Fulham 

Fulham last season had a relatively torrid time, had it not been for Berbatov staying fit they would’ve been relegated. This summer, defenders Fernando Amorebieta and Sasha Riether, goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg and midfielder Derek Boateng, have all added depth. Up front, Berbatov is likely to be vital to Fulham's efforts, aided by the younger and more mobile Rodallega and Ruiz. This Fulham side will probably finish around 9^th this season. This is a key season for Matin Jol; with new owners at Craven Cottage, a poor run of performances may end the Dutchman's reign at the club.

Hull City 

Steve Bruce’s Tigers were promoted on the last day of the Championship season, at the expense of Watford. This summer, the Egyptian money invested in the club has brought in Curtis Davies, George Boyd, Manor Figueroa, Allan McGregor, Steve Harper, Ahmed Elmohamady, Danny Graham (loan) and Yannick Sagbo. Having seen the club in last seasons F.A. Cup against League One Leyton Orient, I am concerned for the prospects of the newly christened "Hull City Tigers". Fielding a nearly full strength team, Hull only scraped a 2-1 win after extra time. Can they up their game and compete in the Premier League this season? I'm not so sure. I foresee the Premier League taming the tigers to mere kittens and predict a 20th place finish for the club. Nevertheless, Steve Bruce does have experience in the Premier League and some savvy management may prove me wrong!

Liverpool 

Brendan Rodgers has taken a big risk selling Andy Carroll, Jonjo Shelvey and loaning out Suso. Nevetheless, Rogers has brought in some very good players: Simon Mignolet is a top Premier League ‘keeper; Kolo Toure is one of Arsenal’s Invincables; while Luis Alberto and Iago Aspas have played in Spain, sharing the Tiki-Taka footballing ideal of Rogers. With Luis Suarez unable to pledge his allegiance to the Reds, Daniel Sturridge will have an important goalscoring role alongside Fabio Borini, who will aim to avoid the injuries that plagued his 2012-13 season. I think that the Reds will finish 7^th in the league, just behind Everton.

Manchester City 

Despite losing Carlos Tevez for £12million to Juventus, the unbelievably rich owners at City have splashed out nearly £100million on Fernandinho, Jesus Navas, Alvaro Negredo and Stevan Jovetić. These are all very attacking signings, but does Pellegrini think that he can buy forwards without strengthening his defence? At times last season, the City defence was abysmal - an injury to Kompany highlighted the City weakness. Under new leadership, the City squad may struggle to gel. Unless, Pellegrini strengthens his back-four, cracks may show again at the Etihad - cracks that were evident the 3-1 defeat of City by Arsenal last Saturday in Helsinki. For these reasons, I predict that City will finish 3^rd, failing to strongly contend for the title, though safely qualifying for Europe.

Check back soon for my predictions for the remaining Premier League clubs.

Gunners Finish with Win

Arsenal finished their pre-season tour of Asia with a 2-1 win over Urawa Red Diamonds in Japan on Friday 26th July.

The first chance of the game fell to the hosts, when Tsukasa Umesaki evaded Jack Wilshere’s challenge before seeing his shot fizz wide of Fabianski’s post. Arsenal then got a foothold in the game when Theo Walcott went on a mazy run from the right which has become a trademark in his career, before his shot hit the post and bounced clear.

The next moment of note in the first half was a nervous moment for Arsenal’s Polish goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski. He spilt a cross under pressure from Brazilian midfielder Richardes, but recovered brilliantly to deny the Brazilian a shot at goal.

Arsenal then had a ten minute siege on the Diamonds’ goal, Olivier Giroud’s free kick deflected of the wall for a corner, which led to a 30 yard strike from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain that rocketed off the crossbar. Theo Walcott then tried his luck from slightly closer range, but a deflection took the sting out of the shot and made it an easy catch for goalkeeper Yamagishi.

Another free kick, this time from Walcott, was put behind and from the resulting corner, the hosts cleared under some pressure from Laurent Koscielny. Afterwards Bacary Sagna, who has played better in his Arsenal career, managed to over hit a pass to Giroud so badly that it went out for a goal kick.

Fabianski then made a wonderful save to keep out Ugajin, who cut inside left-back Ignasi Miquel before aiming his shot into the top corner. The Arsenal stopper showing alertness after having nothing to do for a good 20 minutes. 0-0 at Half Time.

Arsenal made five Half-Time substitutions, Mertersacker replaced by Carl Jenkinson, Arteta and Wilshere off for Rosicky and Ramsey and Gnabry and Giroud off for Ryo and Podolski.

And it was striker Podolski that set Arsenal moving, Ramsey’s ball into the box finding Walcott, who squared it back to the German, who was playing in the central striker’s role, to volley home emphatically after having only been on the pitch for three minutes.

The Diamonds then went up the other end and Ugajin’s cross was tipped over by Fabianski, and the resulting corner only went out for a goal kick.

It was then Walcott’s chance to score, but in trying to round the keeper, only passed it straight to Yamagishi.

French defender Koscielny then showed that he could challenge injured club captain Thomas Vermaelen when the Belgian returns by sliding and blocking Koroki who was advancing on the Arsenal goal.

After a Diamonds’ free kick was turned behind for a corner, the Gunners failed to clear convincingly and former Leicester City defender Yuki Abe thrashed his shot past a helpless Fabianski.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott were replaced by promising youngsters Gedion Zelalem and Chuba Akpom.

Another ball forward from the right-back area, again from Ramsey, caused havoc amongst the Diamonds’ Defence that gave Akpom a chance he couldn’t miss.

Aaron Ramsey then went close before Ryo Miyaichi had a shot deflected that went straight into the keeper’s arms.

Arsenal have since returned to England, participating in a disappointing Emirates Cup in which they drew to Napoli and lost a half-time lead to Galatasaray. That said, they did power to a 3-1 victory over Manchester City on Saturday. Now for the big kick-off, next Saturday, August 17^th.

Man of the Match: Laurent Koscielny, he showed more than enough that he will be a crucial part of Arsenal’s defence if they want to improve on 4^th place in the fast approaching Barclays Premier League season.

One to Watch: Chuba Akpom, played for Arsenal’s under 18 team at 15 years old and looked like one for the future, it would be an idea to loan him out to a Championship or League 1 team.