Last season I was very pleased with my August predictions for the 2008-09 English Premier League. OK, I admit that I was a couple of points out with Liverpool’s lead at Xmas. But still, extremely satisfying.
To give myself more chance of being right this time, I procrastinated long enough for almost half a season to pass by before gazing once more into the stars and discerning what the future holds for clubs both big and small.
Of course, living in London with all its big city lights, I can’t actually see any stars in the night sky. So please forgive me if this season’s predictions don’t turn out to be wholly accurate. So, instead of gazing into the stars I’m going to beta-test looking through my beer goggles (courtesy – appropriately enough, as it turns out – of Stella Artois and Carlsberg Export).
Now, what can I see…. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a reflection in my window?
No. I think it is a red dwarf. No. I see it now. It is a small man with a red face. No, it’s not Sammy Lee! He’s not that small. He’s scribbling furiously in a notebook. It looks like a list, a Xmas list perhaps?
‘Allo, ‘Allo! Who’s this?
Rene notes down the order - Champions League and FA Cup for starters, four years of nothing for the main course, finished off with a second helping of nothing and a Europa League place, please.
Wait. No. It’s not the fat French waiter Rene, it’s his Spanish cousin Rafa:
Just a perfect day; drink sangria in the park... Just a perfect day; Problems all left alone. Weekenders on our own .....it's such fun.... Just a perfect day; you make me forget myself. I thought I was someone else .....someone good.
I see that you are troubled, Rafa. You were loved in Liverpool and now you are loved in Manchester. I believe that the Bolton Wanderers job maybe available to you soon (it’s in Greater Manchester), although Mark Hughes is more likely to get that job. Gary “Mystic” Megson predicted that his own team would be relegated in 2009-10 (sorry, I can’t find the link to prove this, although I’m absolutely 100% sure he came out and said this publicly before the start of the season), so I don’t see how his Chairman can stick with him any longer now that there is a quality manager available. And you, too, Rafa. You, too.
And Alan Shearer will become the new Liverpool manager under the guidance of Kenny Dalglish.
Hmmm… everything is getting a bit foggy. Smokey, even. Smokie! “Head Over Heels in Love“:
You make me a stranger
that’s what time can do
baby you mean ev’rything to me
darling there’s no danger
for all that we’ve been through
that anyone could love you more than me.
KK. How romantic! Kevin Keegan will make (another) sensational return to English football management as… Magpies’ boss aka Notts County’s Big Club Chief Team Selection And Coaching Press Conference Officer. Terry McDermott (who else?) will be appointed as his Assistant alongside Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle, Graham Taylor, David Platt, Ian Wright, Gazza, Sol Campbell (Gazza’s straight man), Gareth Southgate, Peter Beardsley, Chris Waddle, Terry Butcher, Paul Ince, Winston Churchill, Maggie Thatcher and Carlton Palmer. You have to think (and look) outside the chocolate box for stuff like this.
Seriously, though, it is all getting a bit hazy here. I see a smoking man. No, I’m wrong again. It’s so cold here that my woolly hat has fallen down over my eyes. It’s Benny from Crossroads!
The cold conditions were not good. He couldn't even start a small fire to keep himself warm.
No, of course, it’s not. It’s Carlo Ancelotti, silly!
If you think this is cold...
Will Carlo go the same way as Big “Phil” Scolari? Let’s hope he doesn’t go the same way as Carlo Cudicini. Xmas and New Year, the half way mark in the English League season is a bit of a crossroads for most teams. Plenty do well in the first half of the season only to fade in the second and vice versa. Some continue to be crap all year long, while occasionally others stay true to form for the duration. Chelski are the only team that can truly stay true to form and win (seeing as they are and most likely will be top come the New Year).
Back to the star gazing. It seems inevitable to me that Ancelotti will be sacked as Chelsea manager in January or February 2010 after a run of bad results, injuries and loss of form, possibly affected by the African Nations Cup. He will be replaced, on a temporary basis, by… Avram Grant, who – after a highly successful if short spell at Portsmouth – will guide the Rent Boys all the way to second place in the Premier League and the Champions League Final, before being replaced by World Cup quarter-finalist Fabio Capello.
With sufficient use of smoke and mirrors (and beer) Avram Grant could be mistaken for cold-blooded-killer-with-a-heart, Léon:
The haunted look necessary for any unsuccessful football manager
But not really.
Avram Grant makes a great effort to wear the hangdog expression of someone who knows he is truly beaten, yet he always maintains that irritating little smirk of someone who just can't believe he is in the job he is in
Still lots of smoke. It is The Smoking Man!
Ancelotti, fired for too many draws
But I’ve already foreseen his future… look… it’s…
I didn't see it. If the referee says he was smoking then he was smoking. But I didn't see him smoking so therefore he wasn't smoking in my view.
…Arsène Wenger!
Life... is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. You're stuck with this undefinable whipped-mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while, there's a peanut butter cup, or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast, the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits, filled with hardened jelly and teeth-crunching nuts, and if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left... is an empty box... filled with useless, brown paper wrappers.
After another season of failure (if you call third in the League, FA Cup Semi-Final and Champions League Quarter Final failure), everyone’s favourite southern, French whinger will say “Au revoir” to Arsenal… to take up the reigns of the England football team.
Who will replace Wenger at Arsenal, I hear you (or a voice, somewhere) ask? Easy! What is the one name missing from the list of people joining Sven Goran-Eriksson’s project? Apart from John Barnes. Or Tony Adams. Yes! Lucky Guus “Gooner” Hiddink!
My final prediction for today: On Saturday, 6 March 2010, Wolverhampton Wanderers are scheduled to host Champions Manchester United at Molineux, the weekend before United play the second leg of their Champions League tie with AC Milan. The previous weekend Wolves are away at Bolton and then away again at Burnley the following week. I don’t need to gaze into the stars to be able to confidently predict that “Irish” Mick McCarthy will select a team of ball boys and tea ladies for this game (which they had no chance of winning anyway) while Sir Alex Ferguson in a manner that is leading some increasingly to question his sanity will pick an eleven comprised entirely of Old Trafford match-day stewards (who, of course, would otherwise have the day off), bar Wayne Rooney. Admittedly, Lord Ferg’s injury list will have got longer by March. Not only will he be without eight of his first and second choice defenders he will also be without three goalkeepers, fourteen midfielders and six forwards. Rooney is the only surviving recognised first-team player available for selection and, naturally enough, Fergie plays him in goal (he still scores a hat-trick, saves a penalty, gets sent off and fractures all his metatarsals kicking one of the Wolves’ tea ladies’ trolleys on his way to the tunnel. He later apologises, but is immediately blamed by the press for England failing to win the World Cup. Little Mickey Owen sneaks on to the plane instead.).*
* Giles Smith wrote a mildly amusing article for The Times along similar lines. This final paragraph of mine is not intended to copy or in any way infringe on Mr Smith’s copyright or authorship of his own article. I had the idea first, or at least round about the same time and certainly before I had read or Mr Smith had published his piece, I swear, but I didn’t have a deadline or a financial incentive to write it. And, really, he hasn’t thought his through properly. He has a car park attendant and the box-office manager playing for Wolves, when we all know that in reality they would have to work in their normal jobs that day to deal with the crowd. You could say the same about the ball-boys, of course, but they are practically on the pitch anyway and they can still fetch the ball when it goes out of play.
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Sideshow Bob
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dean