Neck on the line time! I'm not normally a big predictor of the game being, as it is, an often unpredictable sport. That's part of its great attraction, isn't it?
And although we appear, for the
most part, to be shaking off the shackles of 'typical City' and are becoming a little
less of the 'great unpredictables' that we've come to both love
and often despair of down the years; predicting City is still an unsettling
and somewhat dodgy pastime.
And I do this before teams have
even finished strengthening and, in some cases, weakening their teams...and
they have a further 30 days (to date) to complete their business.
So why am I doing it? Well
although I've tried to be as logical and as accurate as possible, it's just a
bit of fun really. Should Liverpool sell Suarez
to Arsenal,
The Gunners might well pip Spurs
to 4th spot and Liverpool might not finish as
high as I've said they might. Manyoo
might not buy anyone other than a 28-year old Everton
left-back and might, therefore, not even finish in the top 4; then again
they might sign Cesc Fabregas, keep Wayne Rooney
and make a challenge to retain their Premier
League crown. Steve Bruce
might surprise me and keep Hull City
up...
You just never know...but here
goes!
League
fixture list for 2013/2014
August Start of season prediction
Newcastle Cardiff Hull City
Stoke City (A) W
Manyoo (H) D
Aston Villa (A) W
Stoke City (A) W
October
Everton (H) W
Everton (H) W
West Ham United (A) D
Tottenham Hotspur (H) W
December
West Bromwich Albion (A) W
West Bromwich Albion (A) W
Southampton (A) D
Arsenal (H) W
Fulham (A) W
Tottenham Hotspur (A) L
February
Chelsea (H) W
Chelsea (H) W
Stoke City (H) W
March
Manyoo (A) D
Manyoo (A) D
Aston Villa
(H) W
Fulham (H) W
Arsenal (A) D
April
Southampton (H) W
Southampton (H) W
West Bromwich Albion (H) W
May
Everton (A) L
West Ham
United (H) W
W / L / D:
Won – 27
Drawn – 8
Lost – 3
2013/2014 league
finishing places:
1st Manchester City
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
2nd Chelsea
3rd Manyoo
4th Tottenham
Hotspur
- - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
5th Arsenal
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6th Liverpool
7th Swansea City
8th Sunderland
9th Southampton
10th West Bromwich Albion
11th West ham United
12th Everton
13th Norwich City
14th Newcastle
15th Aston Villa
16th Cardiff City
17th Fulham
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
18th Stoke City
19th Crystal Palace
20th Hull City
As you can see, these result predictions would give us 89 points - the same as Manyoo finished on last season. And although I doubt that we'll finish 11 points clear of Chelsea, I think that'll be enough for us to finish a few points clear of Jose Mourinho's side.
Going off my predictions, we'll manage to get rid of our Britannia Stadium hoodoo, thanks largely to Mark Hughes taking over form Tony Pulis (sorry Mark). We should fare a little better than recent seasons away at Sunderland but despite a change in Manager; I don't think we'll quite shake off our Goodison Park frustrations for some reason - leaving for a tense final home game?
Tottenham away will be tricky as will Stamford Bridge - both of which complete our 3 defeats of the season.
As for the Derbies...I'm getting splinters from sitting on the fence with 2 draws.
Will the league end up looking like this come 11th May 2014? Probably not...but I recon I won't be too far off. Chelsea worry me more than anyone else. Jose took over a very, VERY good squad of players and have strengthened even further. Furthermore, although some football pundits are saying that 'you should never go back'; he is a quality Manager and, crucially, has Premier League experience. If anyone is going to beat us to the Championship it'll be the Londoners.
And although I've put them 4th, if Manyoo don't strengthen in the next month, they should be very worried about Spurs. With or without Gareth Bale they'll be an improved team this season and may even push us & Chelsea all the way.
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