Something Approximating an EPL Roundtable

Look at that roundness!

What is the deal with round tables, anyway? They’re not really round. Well, some are, but when people do roundtables it’s often at something completely different from a table. A bar. A bus station. A vapid living room coated in pastel shades. Maybe we all wish to channel King Arthur or something. Yeah, that’s it, I bet.

And in the spirit of those hallowed Knights of lore, a few of us had an email “roundtable” about the EPL, what it all means, what we expect, what we look forward to, what we fear, and some shards of tangents about inequality self-loathing, and all points west.

Participating in this whirlygig:

- Me. The ultimate unreliable narrator.
- Precious Roy. Insouciant. Incisive.
- The NY Kid. Flippant. Hilarious.
- Outside Mid. Sagely. Southern.

Enjoy!

PR—
If I may… does anyone see another side seriously challenging United this year?

JT—
Actually, I do, and I’m not delirious enough to include Liverpool in that grand vision. Manchester City might still be a touch off the pace still, what with missing or homesick puzzle pieces, but you can’t misuse that much expensive world-class talent forever. They’ve made mistakes, yes, but I’d put those more on Mancini’s tactical cowardice than on the stars themselves. As soon as Roberto learns to trust his team and let them handle their business without his misguided need to be seen as club custodian, they will flourish.

And no, I do not see Chelsea in any of this. Next year.

OM—
It would take either a big impact player move in January by one of the other contenders or a rash of injuries to United to derail their chances me thinks. Even with injuries, SAF identified certain positions and added depth with targeted signings this summer.

And, the grand January signing doesn’t even guarantee a challenger like Citeh or Spartak can overhaul them. Bigger question might be the trailing scrum for CL & which side’s weakness cause them to be on the outside looking in.

At this point, I was shocked to my core.

JT—
So everyone is calling the title race because Fergie bought Ashley Young (who can’t get a game for England because of Walcott and Lennon), Phil Jones, and a promising Spanish goalie who tried his utmost to throw away the Community Shield?

Please, someone get this street urchin a sandwich

OM—
Not necessarily. More out of a disbelief that the others are strong this season to cut down enough on those mistakes & pull out more points. You’re right–talk about Spartak next year, and perhaps the same with Liverpool. Citeh will probably be closest, but something tells me they will drop points at times SAF will be able to take advantage.

The problem with last season’s contenders was that they were unable to capitalize when United dropped points & I am expecting nore of the same.

PR—
Not calling it. But the team that won last year got better. And I’m not sure how much I can put into the ‘other teams won’t make the same mistakes’ theory. Wenger has become a joke among supporters for his inability not to make the same mistakes for 5 years running. Roman fired another manager and spent a shit ton on players he fetishized (okay, that was in January) whether they helped the quad or not. And you’re asking an Italian manager not to resort to being cautious and defensive. Ha!

Plus, United are going to get 5-6 points handed to them by the refs. That’s not me whinging about the refs. The refs are human and make mistakes, but because of the crowd at OT or because they are intimidated by SAF, they often make mistakes in favor of United. I’m sure United fans could list a litany of times they have been victimized, but I bet on balance bad calls give them a minimum of 5 points a season over each of the last 5 years.

Holy shit, the NY Kid awakes from his slumber and proceeds to truth-bomb the living bejeezus out of us.

NYK—
RE: Teams at the top of the table – I think it’s foolish (and extremely premature) to just hand over the keys to the Prem to United on the basis of preseason shenanigans. Did Fergalicious improve the side? Probably; howev-ah, I believe that De Gea is going to represent a huge hole for them in the back, as he isn’t yet capable of making some of the saves that Van Der Sar produced (which helped United to a few wins) last season. I think we’ll know a little more about the status of the top of the league on September 19th, after ManPoo have played Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea.

And speaking of those other sides, I’m not ready to give up on Arsenal for this season, as that would also be incredibly premature (and I’m NEVER premature about anything, ladies…). Is Arsene frustrating with his seemingly oblivious transfer policy, especially given that we all know that money is available? Sure. Is Squillaci still the shittiest defender ever in the history of the universe? A tad harsh, perhaps, but he’s certainly close. The general consensus seems to be that the Arse will finish in 5th, thus forcing us to suffer all of the Europa League jokes that we foisted upon James T and The Fan’s Attic last season. Certainly, with having to play in the qualifying round of the CL as well as concentrating on not getting off to a poor start (home v. Liverpool; away to ManPoo in August) we are facing an uphill battle. BUT…all the pieces are still in place if we can stay healthy. Nevermind, we’re never staying healthy.

As for Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea, meh. Has any of them done anything to frighten the title-holders?

Balotelli: Malevolent, maybe, but excellent hair

I think it’s clear that the best push comes from Man City, despite their crumbling in the Community Shield. Winning the FA Cup and adding Kun Aguero to the side provides loads of momentum coming into the season, even with the distractions of Cranky Carlos and Malevolent Mario (we should start a Garbage Pail Kids-style series of cards!). If they wind up signing Nasri, all bets are off. And by all bets are off, I mean that Ladbrokes will be weeping at the fact that so many punters took Man City to win at longer odds earlier this year.

Gadzooks that was a tasty platter of Real Talk! At this point, I scramble mightily to steer our HMS Roundtable into transitional waters.

JT—
Where are we now, the second tier of teams? Who exactly fills that 6-10 space this season, anyway? What Everton do on a shoestring budget is nothing short of miraculous, though it’s a self-perpetuating stasis that has no chance of seeing the Toffees move up unless they land a Fairy Sheikhmother to write the checks. Bolton will surely regress now that they’ve lost Sturridge, Elmander and then Chung-Yong to a long-term injury. Will they sell Cahill and weaken themselves even further?

Could we see Stoke finishing higher again this season? Hard to bet against them when they’ve got their thuggish formula down pat and the teams around them are either regressing or suffering identity crises.

I know for certain Aston Villa won’t be that upper-mid-table threat like they used to be. A manager who’s great at overseeing successful relegations and their two best midfielders sold to EPL contenders? Good luck with that. Darren Bent could score 50 goals and it wouldn’t matter.

PR—
Six points was all that separated 9th from 16th, and if you want to make it even weirder tack on 3 points. A mere nine points was the difference between relegation and the top half of the table. That’s crazy. And I think there might be even more of a log jam in the middle to bottom-middle of the table this season. So I don’t see it as 6-10 as much as I see it 6 and 7 or maybe 6, 7, and 8. then everybody else.

Pause for chin-stroking and deep thought. He’s right. The gaps, they be close.

JT—
Alright… So we’ve established that the margin for error is getting thinner and thinner as the class gap between super-rich and the bottom widens, while the footballing middle is squeezed one way or the other. Excluding the newly promoted, which clubs are most likely going to regress this season and really struggle? And do we see any of the promoted making a major impact in mid-table?

Canaries icon Grant Holt enjoys a pie hidden under his fashionable sleeve

PR—
Taking the last part first, I actually see Norwich doing the best of all the promoted clubs. I don’t think it will quite be mid-table impact, but since we’ve established that the difference between 10th and relegation is likely to be slim, then a good season by them could see them easily go as high as 10 or 12… which I guess actually is mid-table. I’m not even sure I’m making sense. So I’ll stick with Norwich does the best of the promoted clubs.

As for the middling getting squeezed down the table, I think Villa could be in trouble. Given is a great pick up for them, but I think the McLeish might be the only person in the world who can stop Daz Bent from scoring. They’ve sold off most of their quality (save maybe Agbonlahor, who has such a penchant for disappearing that calling him ‘quality’ is generous) elsewhere on the pitch, so I think they end up somewhere around 15th.
I see the W’s—Wigan, WBA, and Wolves—all struggling again, only to maybe be bailed out by at least one of (if not both) QPR and Swansea going right back down. Of course I think I pick most of the promoted clubs to go right back down and I’m usually wrong.

OM—
I’d also tab the Canaries to do the best out of the promoted clubs. QPR succeeded last season with a squad comprising bits & pieces of Prem clubs no longer wanted in the Prem. (See Routledge, Wayne, now with Swansea). Swansea lost Borini to Parma & de Vries is gone in goal. Still, Rodgers is a capable manager, could be interesting (I doubt it though).

West Brom perhaps a bigger regression in Year 2? Only Blackpool shipped more goals than the Baggies last year, and Hodgson could be a lot closer to the bottom rather than the top of that second half of the table. Blackburn’s interesting. How do they fare if Samba goes? If he stays, should we expect the Chicken Chokers to be a surprise at the top of that heap? I don’t even want to go into Sunderland—absolute schizophrenic club over the years. It would make my head hurt.

TRUTH-BOMB TIME.

NYK—
RE: Teams at the bottom of the table – It is very clear that the difference between the haves and have-nots is increasingly, and possibly at an exponential rate. In a strange twist, that is reflective of how income inequality works in the US (i.e. income inequality – defined as the difference between the richest 5% and the poorest 5% segments of US society – is increasing), but NOT of how it works on the global scale (i.e. income inequality across countries is actually decreasing, driven mostly by the emergence of China and India – although, the poorest 5% of Americans are still richer than 70% of the world’s population; frightening).

Feral Mick McCarthy is feral.

Perhaps Blackburn was merely the start of a new era of the globalization of the EPL (to be fair, that may have started with Lakshmi Mittal and QPR who – surprise! – are now back up), and we will be seeing investment in clubs from the Chinese sector next. In that light, the promotion of Swansea, and to a lesser extent Norwich, is surprising given their relative lack of resources, but remaining in the top flight would be even more stunning.

Clearly, Swansea look to be the safest bet to go back down, but Norwich (who have a brutal run-in, with Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal) and QPR have the chops to stay up. On the other hand, Wolves have done nothing to convince me that they can stay up, although losing Mick McCarthy would be a devastating blow to the EPL All-Antics team. The other side with a wonderful opportunity to sink are Wigan, who open the season against the three promoted teams. Winning those matches might lead to a bit of overconfidence, which could be the death of Roberto Martinez’ side.

At this point, we derail into tirades about oil money at Malaga and PSG, which could easily be used in a future episode of the roundtabling roundtables of Unprofessional Foultable. Until then, I bid you farewell, goodnight, and round tables.