Time to write my Premier League predictions. Here goes:
1) Man Utd - I think this will be a very tough race with the top three all challenging. Ultimately I think Utd will win out.
2) Man City- I only want to see some more playmaking ability in the central midfield, then I'm convinced.

With the Premier League start beginning, it's time for previews. Take it away, Amy Lawrence:
Gervinho might prove to be another classic Arsène Wenger bargain, an athletic and pacy ball player raring to step up a level, spirited over from France for a fee that doesn't make a certain manager with a well-documented devotion to cautious housekeeping choke as if he was asked to fix the Greek economy before breakfast.

A giant question mark is lodged deeply over the head of Brad Friedal.
This pertains to the new Tottenham signing's performance last season. More explicitly, his performance fell of a cliff. Oh, and Tottenham just signed him and seem prepared to start him ahead of the error-prone but better Heuerelho Gomes.

Wesley Sneijder is the name on the lips of many a Man Utd fan. Rumours about an upcoming Red Devil bid for the Dutch maestro have been swirling all summer, reaching a peak this week when Sniejder refused to rule out a transfer to the rainy north-west.
One stumbling block to a move appears to be salary, with the Dutchman currently on £250,000 per week, which does not fit into Man Utd's non-Rooney wage structure.

Wesley Sneijder is the name on the lips of many a Man Utd fan. Rumours about an upcoming Red Devil bid for the Dutch maestro have been swirling all summer, reaching a peak this week when Sniejder refused to rule out a transfer to the rainy north-west.
One stumbling block to a move appears to be salary, with the Dutchman currently on £250,000 per week, which does not fit into Man Utd's non-Rooney wage structure.

Luka Modric really, really wants to leave Tottenham. Spurs Number 2 Kevin Bond now publicly acknowledges that the unhappy player may leave if a bid matches the club's valuation of the player.
The scenario floating around the newspapers is a straight cash deal for Modric. Modric in exchange for money, giving Spurs cash to pursue other players in the transfer market.

Luka Modric is rumoured to have submitted a second written transfer request to Tottenham.
My feeling on the situation is that the player signed a contract for Tottenham and thus agreed to fulfull his end of that contract, which obliges him to play for Tottenham for the duration of that contract.

Spain and Barcelona midfielder Xavi has given a series of interviews ahead of Barcelona's Champions League match-up with Arsenal.
Xavi is the best midfielder in the world. I'd rather have him on my team than any other player in the world excluding Messi an Ronalo. What is remarkable about Xavi is that his skill lies not in goalscoring but in his extraordinary passing ability.

Just a quick post to recommend an article.
Brian Phillips at Slate looks at the challenge of advanced soccer statistics.

My last post on Wayne Rooney got me thinking about shooting efficiency.
As supporters we want our club to have players that maximize use of chances, in effect, score goals. Goals are delicious not in the same way that aged cheese is delicious but in the way in that they lead to wins and make us happy.

Wayne Rooney's goalscoring failures have boggled everyone this season.
He scored 26 goals last season. So far this season, just 2. This has led many of ask to ask: Will this change be permanent? Is Man Utd's rich forward now a non-scorer?
Well a player's history is usually a good indicator of future progress, so let's do the intelligent thing and actually examine Rooney's goalscoring history, which will allow us to make a prediction on his goalscoring future.

Sunderland goalkeeper Craig Gordon is winning praise from his teammates after consistent excellent performances against the Premier League's top strikers.
Gordon just recently was his team's star performer in a win at Blackpool, denying Luke Varney on a on-on-one and twice acrobatically tipping over efforts from the much wanted Charlie Adam.

Premier League Goalkeeper Rankings
January 26, 2011

The Premier League overhaul of youth development is a needed response to the UEFA Financial Fair Play imposition and new EPL rule that all clubs must have a minimum of eight home grown squad members and has the full backing of me and all of my power over English football.
These new rules, which come into effect in the next couple of years, force clubs to invest heavily in developing youth talent.

As everybody knows, Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy Josiah Bounderby is trying to move the club from it's current location in Tottenham to a brand new state-of-the-art stadium in Stratford, near West Ham in horrible east London.
This proposal actually makes a flabbergasting, finger-tingling amount of financial sense for the club going forward - to summarize in a way for the foggiest of minds out there, bigger stadium = more tickets sold = more revenue = increased ability to buy the best players = increased ability to compete for trophies = increased chance of winning trophies, and oh, they are delicious, almost as delicious as finely aged cheddar - and yet we've all seen on the television Tottenham fans protesting vigorously against the move.