Guest Post: Arsenal are the team to beat (says a Chelsea fan)

Wenger: pointing out to the children where his windowless van full of ice cream and puppy dogs is parked

My good friend Wanker’s Doom is suffering a crisis of confidence regarding the EPL season. Last week, before the 6-1 at Goodison Park, he penned this and wished that I share it. After all, he’s a lifelong Chelsea fan whose love of the Blues has spanned several decades (including all the ones before 2001 when Chelsea were a s**t provincial club of modest effort and support).

He’s worried about the title race thanks to the Frenchman across town. I neglected to post this until now in case he changed his mind, but no. He wants the world to view his suffering.

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i’ve sat quietly and forlornly in the cupboard nestled under my staircase at home, reading about transfers both real and imagined (and in the case of Real Madrid, they are both hopelessly intermingled), eagerly awaiting the August rebirth of the greatest football league in the world.

Nope, not the Pub Dart League at the Kinsale Tavern, but rather the EPL.

And I’ve come to the most noisome of conclusions, one that forces my bile to leave its natural resting place and the gorge to rise.  A painful, thought process that culminates in the most odious of logical ends.

Arsenal may win the Premiership this year.

God, I have put it in writing.  Father, father, forgive him, he does not know what he types.
Where lies this vile womb from whence springs this abomination of a statement?  Look no further UF reader than your own cortex, for once your synaptic processes resume their laboured efforts, you’ll see the truth like s**te on the bottom of your favourite pair of plymsols.

It begins with Manchester United – unless you’ve spent way too much time in Lingering Bursitis’s hash den of a living room, not a one of you believes that the current crop of Red Devils is the equal of last year’s iteration.  Ronaldo, the second coming of the Football Christ, will now ply his diving genius in La Liga.  You could stop there, but look a little deeper.  Berbatov slows the ball at every touch and runs counter to the Man U fast-break philosophy.  Tevez’s pugnacity and diligence are gone, replaced by the aching legs of the oldest 29 year old in football, the once resplendent Michael Owen (anybody else think that putting him in the vaunted #7 jersey is heresy?)  Van der Sar is down for two months; Nani is, well, Nani.

United may not even be the best side in, or around, Manchester, which segues nicely to Man City.

Unless they can consistently manage to eke out 5-3 wins, they look to be a far more expensive version of every Spurs team from the last decade.  Just a quick glimpse at the last few years shows us that the EPL winner is the one that ships the fewest goals, and while I suspect that this will not be the case this year, Man City is as porous in the back as is the late, lamented Bigus Dickus’s mom.

Liverpool – there’s so much to say about Liverpool, coming off a terrific last campaign, but we know that Torres and Gerrard will only play about 20 games together, and that their new signing from Rome is out for two months, and ….You know, it goes on forever and so I’ll make it simple and cadge the definitive quote on this topic straight from the mouth of UF icon, Autoglass:

Liverpool will never win the League under Rafa Benitez.  Thank you God.

Spurs: will win nothing

Spurs.  Oh that’s rich.  I think I just accidentally squeezed a little piss out of my overly full bladder. Spurs, as a contender for anything?  I apologize.

Chelsea.  This is the team that Sir Aneurism Ferguson, hisself, picked as the top contender for the crown, and they are a legitimate side.  The Russian winger, Zhirkov, is a talent, and Joe Cole’s return could give Chelsea pace and skill on each flank.  Any team that has Terry, Essien and Lampard up its spine is to be reckoned with (although Chelsea will rue the day that they turned down Man City’s prodigious offer for their Captain).  The team has no glaring weaknesses, possesses depth at all positions and will be right up there.

Ultimately though, Chelsea has three problems.  First they are consumed by CL glory, to the point that those matches take precedence emotionally over their League matches against the likes of Hull.  It’s why their home form was so spotty last year.  Secondly, the team is aging.  It doesn’t have another gear forward like the Barca’s of the world.  It’s strong, steady and in slight decline.  Finally, I don’t see a retread of an Italian manager, several years removed from anything resembling glory, stepping into the tactical and managerial genius that was Guus.  And Ray Wilkins is getting really, really, really fat.

Which leaves it.  That thing, managed by the repulsively snotty and arrogant French t**t.  Immense energy and talent on the squad.  A bunch of precocious infants who managed fourth place in virtually everything last year.  A team that eliminated two malcontents and made money doing it.  A group that is so talented that it could be the next coming of FC Barcelona.

A team that may hoist the League Trophy at year’s end while I stab myself repeatedly in the gonads with a blunt butter knife.

I think I’m going to be ill.