Official Premier League 2009/10 thread

[Adam]

The Predictor for me pretty much sticks with my expectations at this stage, Hull relegated with a game to spare, Liverpool and Villa fade out of the top four race to allow Man City & Spurs to battle it out, and the title going down to the wire between the top three. Interestingly, if it did pan out like I've put in here, Spurs & Man City would fight for the Top 4 spot on the last day against the two teams fighting for survival, West Ham and Burnley.

Anyway, I messed up actually putting the image in, but it had Man Utd winning the title on 85, Arsenal second on 84, Chelsea third on 83. Man City on 71 just beat Spurs on 70, Villa in 6th on 68 ahead of Liverpool & Everton both on 64. At the bottom Hull go down on 28, Burnley on 30 with West Ham surviving on 33, and the rest at least 7 points clear of relegation.

[ONO]

A lot of Villa fans think now it would take something special to even finish 5th. A golden opportunity has been missed. O'Neills reluctance to play a quality RB is baffling, considering Cuellar is clearly not a RB, who cannot pass the pall at all.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I was surprised Villa came fifth in my predictions because I was thinking that Villa would probably fade now. I think they seem to have an easy run in though if I remember correctly.

[The Quasi Juice]

A lot of Villa fans think now it would take something special to even finish 5th. A golden opportunity has been missed. O'Neills reluctance to play a quality RB is baffling, considering Cuellar is clearly not a RB, who cannot pass the pall at all.

I know he's not a RB but where's Wilfred Bouma, I thought he was fit?

[stokeriño]

I like Villa (of course), but unless they can arrange for United and Arsenal to both throw away their matches this weekend, I hope Chelsea batter them.

I also really, really hope we don't get any more defensive injuries. We're only one away from having to play Jeffrey Bruma in the starting line-up.

[Pesci]

Ah, I did the Predictor a few weeks ago. For some reason I always do all the games and it puts some teams on 36/37 games played.... which is weird. Can't be assed to upload it but even with some of the results I predicted having gone completely the wrong way I like how it's ended up. Man Utd winning the league with Arsenal second. Chelsea third with Liverpool fourth... which until our next slip up I still have confidence in. Man City next, Spurs sixth (but 5 points behind Liverpool... can't see that, for some frustrating reason Spurs haven't been throwing away easy results in the last few games... maybe there's still hope the Arsenal/Chelsea/Man Utd run will derail them)... my personal favourite is Everton in 7th which I still strongly believe will happen, at the expense of Villa in 8th.

Birmingham, Fulham, Stoke and Blackburn next... seems pretty likely they'll finish in that order, maybe Blackburn above Stoke? My two biggest errors are having West Ham in 13th, 7 points ahead of Bolton in 18th... whoops. The bottom few teams look pretty shit in fact. Liking my top 12 though.

[Crybaby Bunting]

FA Cup semi-final previews today

Villa Vs Chelsea

Pompey Vs Spurs

Could be worse, they could have the league matches in between the two legs :/

[Lineker]

According to Stevo on the BBC live text:

1454: I've just been told that Iain Dowie's official title at Hull is Football Management Consultant. Haha. I mean, haha. Seriously though.

Dowie's such a mug.

[ONO]

Dowie is a fucking tool.

John Carew I love you more each game.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

They just showed Nasser Hussain through the rain at Chelsea but for a few seconds I could have sworn that it was Vladimir Putin

[Crybaby Bunting]

So yeah, Chelsea are a boring team and luckily it'll come to haunt them at the end of the season and they're -20 goals behind United...

This past month sure learned the doubters

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I'm happy cos a) I'd actually prefer Chelsea to win the league out of the top 3 and b) this is severely dented (if not all but destroyed) Villa's hopes of taking fourth place.

Thing is, Friedel hasn't played that badly, every shot has been unstoppable.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Frankie!

More of this leading up to the World Cup please fella!

[Dynamite]

Our game at Bolton now is massive and we're playing without Rio or Rooney. Pretty worried about today, we have tougher matches coming up and we need this win but Bolton are capable of getting a draw out of us at least. Macheda is our only striker on the bench. Wonder what the odds are for him to score the winner today.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

BOOYAH! Birmingham late equaliser!

[Dynamite]

PHILLIPS!!

[Crybaby Bunting]

Given the amount of pressure on Machada it's likely that eventually he'll have an off day despite coming on as a sub.

Could the man who won the title last season be the man who could lose the title this season?

[Szumi]

So how long until Zola gets sacked now?

Knowing Sullivan, I'd say only an hour, but it is probably happening tonight. I just can't see how Zola gets to keep his job, especially with Sullivan in charge.

[Crybaby Bunting]

He's definitely going either tonight or tomorrow morning.

It's a sad thing, but West Ham have got far too much to risk.

I'd see him going to a Serie A club or something for a while...

[Shelty92]

I must be psychic. I was about to check out the result of the Chelsea game during Arsenal-Birmingham and sarcasticly said to my brother "I bet it's like 5-1 or something, yay", and it was. Then, just seconds before Nasri scored, I said it looks like Arsenal will put it in in just a few moments. And after Nasri bottled his chance to make it 2-0 in stoppage time, I said "I bet Birmingham will score and Nasri commits suicide" - and about 30 seconds later Birmingham did score. 3/3, perfect.