The Mediocrity Muddle: The Squazzington Post's EPL Preview Part Deux (#11-20)
Its been a crazy opening week to the Barclays Premier League season, and we're only partially sorry that this, the second part of a two-part season preview, is a week late. The first week really showed us more about the top-8 teams, whether its Arsenal being in a relegation fight, Tottenham finally selling Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a reported £99 million, or Manchester City losing their captain and best player, Vincent Kompany, for a month, but the first week of the season also gave us a chance to get a good look at how the promoted teams, previous-season vagrants, and hopeful upstarts were going to be looking for next 37 horrifyingly unpredictable matches.
And so we bring you this, a vague, spittin's-distance prediction of where they'll end up come May, places 11-20 of the English Premier League. Spots 1-10 aren't easy to figure out, but damned if there's not always 6-7 teams that keep trading the same spots, whether its up to their money (Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool, Tottenham) or their long-term management (Man United, Arsenal, Everton). The bottom ten is a much more unpredictable place, and with the implications of relegation in the balance, a much more fun place to watch than say, the bottom of the American League West or the NBA's Southeast division. The £40M+ that comes to a club via Premier League survival, and what they lose if they are bad enough to get relegated, has no equivalent in the sporting world, and all the drama, anxiety, careful addition, and finally jubilation or despair is what makes this league one of the best in the world.
11. West Ham United - 10th last season
Liverpool South FC, as they're known now, had a remarkably solid campaign last year in what was their return to the EPL. After being relegated by Avram Grant two seasons previous, former porn magnates David Gold & David Sullivan brought on “Big Sam” Allardyce, who was famed for the way his Bolton teams used to basically play punt-and-shoot. But he came in and pulled the club back via the Championship playoffs, and then managed to win enough home games last year to keep them up (they won just three away from Upton Park). More surprising perhaps than their mid-table finish last season was the sort of soccer they were playing. Allardyce had brought in players like Kevin Nolan for the Championship run, then poached guys like Mohamed Diame, Joe Cole, Matt Jarvis and Andy Carroll from their clubs, which allowed West Ham to play some pretty nice stuff, you know, on the ground where it was meant to be played.
Now the Hammers will be looking to solidify their status in the Premier League and maybe push for the European places, and they’ve brought in some more quality to try and get the job done. If they can win a few more games on the road this year, and if Andy Carroll & Steven Downing can justify their price tags (and give the finger to Liverpool in the process), the Hammers could be climbing further up the table.
Key Arrivals: striker Andy Carroll (£18M, Liverpool), winger Stewart Downing (£7M, Liverpool), defender Razvan Rat (free, Shakhtar Donetsk)
Key Exits: striker Carlton Cole (released), defender Gary O’Neil (free, QPR)
Not a bad bit of business by West Ham. I mean, seriously
12. Fulham - 12th last season
This summer the Cottagers became the fifth Premier League team to be owned by an American when they were scooped up by Shahid Khan. The London club's fans will be hoping that the deal proves slightly better than the others, since Stan Kroenke has lorded over Arsenal's demise, John W. Henry knocked Liverpool off their own perch, Randy Lerner nearly penny-pinched Aston Villa into the Championship, and the Glazer brother made Man United more unlovable than they already were, and who thought that was possible? After one of the all-time “great escapes” from the relegation zone in 2008, Fulham have hung around mid-table respectability, and there’s not much reason to expect their ownership change to have a marked effect on that status. Though we said that for Blackburn Rovers when they were bought by the Indian chicken moguls of Venky’s a few years ago, and look at where they are now. In the Championship and broke. C’mon Mr. Khan, don’t screw this up for the rest of the Americans more than they have themselves.
On the field, Fulham might surprise some people this year after mostly being known for the extravagant Michael Jackson statue outside their stadium. Adel Taarabt and Darren Bent join on loan, and chances are the mercurial midfielder and the classic poacher will help Martin Jol find something the squad haven't had since Brian McBride retired; a consistent goal threat. At the very least they'll make it harder for Bryan Ruiz to get on the field regularly, and that's something we think all Fulham fans can get behind.
Key Arrivals: forward Darren Bent (loan, Aston Villa), midfielder Adel Taarabt (loan, QPR), midfielder Scott Parker (Tottenham, undisclosed), goalie Maarten Stekelenburg (AS Roma)
Key Exits: Mark Schwarzer (free, Chelsea), defender Chris Baird (released), midfielder Simon Davies (released), forward Medlen Petric (released)
13. Norwich City - 11th last season
Sorry to all the Norwich City fans out there, but at least you’re not going to be as pissed off as all three of the American West Brom fans when we get further down. Its not going to be a relegations scrap for the Canaries this year, but the competition to stay even in the middle of the table is going to be fierce. Chris Hughton did an admirable job in charge last year after Paul Lambert left for the Aston Villa job, and the club will be itching for bigger and better things after two straight campaigns got them to mid-table safety without too much drama.
Move over Van Persie, Ricky Van Wolfswinkel's on the job, and already has a point-saving goal to his mouthful of a name
The Canaries have unlocked one of the secrets of long-term Premier League survival by making Carrow Road a dangerous place for teams to visit, and it’ll be even more so after the additions Hughton made to the squad this offseason. Ricky Van Wolfswinkel and Gary Hooper are serious upgrades to Grant Holt in attack, and adding youngsters like Redmond and Olsson will bring up the quality even more throughout the squad. Mid-table mediocrity isn’t what most fans across different sports would wish for, but for a club like Norwich in a league like this, its pretty damn alright.
Key Arrivals: striker Ricky van Wolfswinkel (Sporting Lisbon, £8M), forward Gary Hooper (Celtic, £5M), winger Nathan Redmond (Birmingham City, £3M), midfielder Martin Olsson (Blackburn Rovers, undisclosed), defender Javier Garrido (Lazio, undisclosed)
Key Exits: striker Grant Holt (Wigan, £2M)
14. Southampton - 14th last season
The Saints go marching on, in a way. Last season they rose to the Premier League all the way from League One after consecutive promotions, but Southampton struggled early to balance attacking with defense (conceded 24 goals in their first 8 games), and had an abysmal record away from home. After firing perpetual happy-man Nigel Adkins, the club brought on former Espanyol manager Manuel Pochettino and righted the ship just enough to finish just a few spots above the relegation places. This time round they’d like for it not to be quite so exciting in the wrong sort of way for too long, but the league around them is just going to keep on getting better and better. They play some nice, possession-based stuff under Pochettino (Adkins was a more counter-attacking man), and south-coasters claimed home victories against Manchester City, Liverpool, and Chelsea, true, but they also lost at home to all three of the relegation clubs from last year. Not taking points off the teams around you can be dangerous, so they’ll have to show a greater sense of urgency throughout the season.
Ricky Lambert knocked in 15 goals for Southampton and put himself on the radar of England manager Roy Hodgson last year.
Southampton did some pretty nice business in the transfer window last summer when they brought on record transfer players like Jay Rodrigues and Gaston Ramirez. This summer they’ve splashed the cash again, bringing on Pochettino’s former Espanyol pupil Pablo Osvaldo from Roma, and defender Victor Wanyama from Celtic. The Saints are a club trying to get back to some sense of EPL stability after going through multiple relegations and administration a few years ago, and they’re making all the right moves. For better or for worse though, the Premier League is a crazy, dynamic competition where everyone is doing everything short of murder to stay at the billion-dollar poker table, so expect a less of a relegation scrap for the Saints, but not much progress up the table.
Key Arrivals: striker Pablo Osvaldo (AS Roma, £15M), defender Viktor Wanyama (Celtic, £12M),
Key Exits: forward Jason Puncheon (loan, Crystal Palace)
15. Sunderland - 17th last season
Home to the kookiest (and probably the most fascist) manager in the Premier League, the Wearside club of Sunderland suffered a tumultuous campaign last year, and it’s hard to see how the drama will dissipate easily. Winning would be one way for the Italian Paolo Di Canio to distinguish himself from the man he replaced, Martin O’Neill, but just like he used to do for West Ham as a player, Di Canio brings one part pedigree, two parts crazy to the job. When he wasn’t going through the most absurd celebration routines every time his team scored last year, he was ripping them up and down and throwing their guts against the walls in post-match press conferences.
The Black Cats have been in turmoil for about three years running now, and having a verified kook running things rarely helps smooth things out, but some part of you has to wonder if Di Canio’s temper-tantrum style of management might just work with a bunch of guys who’re at the club BECAUSE of him. I mean, they really cleaned house this summer and brought in what looks to be a hard-working bunch that will either buy into his methods and but club (and city) first and foremost, or rebel and cause a fracas that could doom a club that has had its share of drama over the last few years. We’re banking that its the former (for now, crazy people tend to wear players out), mainly on the basis of our faith in Jozy Altidore finally showing Europe that he’s “got it”, and pint-sized dynamo Emanuele Giaccherini’s performances with Italy at the Confed Cup this summer (looks like a good signing for the EPL).
Key Arrivals: striker JOZY “FIRST-TOUCH HAT-TRICK KING” ALTIDORE (£9M, AZ Alkmaar), midfielder Emanuele Giaccherini (£7M, Juventus), goalie Vito Mannone (undisclosed, Arsenal)
Key Exits: Anyone with a drinking habit. The list is long.
16. West Bromwich Albion - 8th last season
Albion got off to a roaring start last year, making a push for European places before they slowed down considerably in the second half of the season. Still, eighth place was a great achievement for the club that used to drop in and out of the Premier League with astonishing regularity, and was a even better achievement for first-time head coach and long-time Liverpool assistant Steve Clarke. Let’s hope for his sake that the fans at the Hawthorns don’t get too restless when that sort of success isn’t replicated this time out.
Albion lost 17-goal man Romelu Lukaku when he returned to Chelsea this summer after an excellent loan spell in the Midlands, and it’s more than a little bit difficult to just go out and find a replacement for a player like that. And with striker Peter Odemwingie still making googly eyes at bigger clubs in the Prem, club vets like Chris Brunt and Jonas Olsson are going to have to perform at an even higher level than they did previously if the team is to survive.
With the teams around them like Norwich and Southampton splashing cash to ensure their Premier League survival, West Brom seem to have taken a relative step back by not taking a step forward. Diego Lugano and Nicolas Anelka are both proven performers at the top levels of international soccer, but one has to wonder how much they have left in the tank if a small club like Albion was able to get them for free. Clarke showed that he has the chops to be a top-level manager in his first shot at the big time last season, but the stasis that the squad finds itself in could be dangerous.
Key Arrivals: defender Diego Lugano (free, Paris St. Germain), striker Nicolas Anelka (free, Shanghai Shenhua), wing-back Scott Sinclair (loan, Manchester City)
Key Exits: Romelu Lukaku (returned from loan)
17. Cardiff City - 1st in Championship (2nd division) last season
The Welsh club with Malaysian owners will have a tougher go of it in their return to the top flight than their neighbors Swansea did two years ago, and you can once again chalk it up to just how tough this league is on teams. It’ll be good to see Welsh bad-boy Craig Bellamy back in the Prem, but by our estimation, Cardiff stand just a good of a chance of getting relegated as either of the other two newly-promoted teams. They ran away with the Championship last season on the strength of their defense, but time and time again we’ve seen teams shred through second division-rated defenses with you know, the Van Persies and Suarezs of the world. But they still have some quality throughout the team, and are also are led by a remarkably competent and low-key manager, Malky MacKay, so their chances of firing their man halfway through the season (ALWAYS a bad sign) are pretty low.
They’ve brought some real international quality into the squad with guys like Guy Medel, Steven Caulker and Andrea Cornelius, and that just might be the difference between them and 18th place when May rolls around. All we can say is, its going to be exciting at the top, the middle, and the bottom. And that’s what makes this sport as great as it is.
Key Arrivals: forward Guy Medel (Sevilla, £11M), striker Andreas Cornelius (FC Copenhagen, £8M), defender Steven Caulker (Tottenham, £8M), defender John Brayford (Derby County, £1.5M)
18. Newcastle - 16th last season
Why Newcastle, a once-proud club with a still-proud fanbase, for the relegation drop the second time in four years you say? Since predicting things in the Premier League is such a crap-shoot anyways, especially in the morass at the bottom, there's two big thing to consider: is the club floating at a dangerous stasis (and lost their first game 4-0), and are they apt for a mid-season explosion that’ll probably end up with noted hot-head Joe Kinnear as their manager? Ah, and in the case of Newcastle, the answer is yes. The Tyneside club made an excellent return to the big stage in 2011 when they brought on Pardew and a virtual boatload of Frenchmen to the team, which resulted in near-Champions League qualification in their first season back. The Magpies then slogged through a brutal campaign in 2012/13 that saw them play in qualifiers, the groups stages, and the knockout round of the Europa League as well as get knocked around quite often in the EPL once injuries started to take their toll and top-scorer Demba Ba was sold to Chelsea in January.
They've brought on only a couple of players over the summer after splashing big in January, but after last seasons near-disaster relegation battle the club is in a bad spot management-wise. The aforementioned Kinnear was brought on as the club's director of football, which means the Magpies will have three insanely conceited gentlemen trying to run things: owner and noted beer guzzler Mike Ashley, the kooky Kinnear just below him, and of course the irrepressible Alan Pardew coaching the team. At some point during the season, its either the Di Canio situation at Sunderland or this mess that is liable to go off and ruin the team’s chances of survival. And because I think it’d be a near-disaster for America’s no. 9 (Jozy Altidore) to get relegated for the second time in two trips to the Premier League right before the World Cup, I’m going with Newcastle.
Key Arrivals: midfielder Loic Remy (QPR, loan)
Key Exits: wing-back James Perch (Wigan, undisclosed), goalie Steve Harper (released)
Ashley, Pardew, & Kinnear, the perfect storm at Newcastle
19. Hull City - 2nd in Championship last season
The rollie-polliest manager in England returns to the Premier League, and Steve Bruce brought Hull City along with him. Last time they were in the first division, the Tigers were most well known in the States as the club of Jozy Altidore, and most well known everywhere else as the club of egomaniac-supreme (& terrible singer) Phil Brown. Both of those unqualified disasters have moved on to other teams, but the fans at the KC Stadium will be hoping this squad can wash some of the stink off of what was their last foray in the EPL. Bruce has had a smattering of success at some of the Prem’s smaller clubs, but has earned a sort of mercenary reputation that hasn’t worn off since he managed five different clubs between 1999 and 2001 in his early days. Premier League success at Birmingham City and Wigan was tempered by near disaster at Sunderland, but he did bring Hull through promotion in his first year on the job, so it’s not going to be all down to him if they fail to stay up necessarily.
The problem that all three promoted clubs usually struggle with in their first seasons is the gulf in class and pace of the game that separates the English Championship from the top flight league. As they proved at Chelsea last Sunday (Cardiff & Palace did the same as well in defeats), Hull are going have the very same problems after having too many loose touches to compete and looking a half-step too slow. In fact, all three of the promoted clubs managed a paltry 6 shots on target between them in their opening weekend matches, which illustrates the point quite nicely. It’s rare for all three promoted clubs to go down, but if one of the established clubs doesn’t have the melt-down we’re expecting, the competitive nature of the league might just shake it out that way, with Hull being the second most-likely to make the drop.
Key Arrivals: midfielder Tom Huddlestone (£6M, Tottenham), Curtis Davies (£2M, Birmingham City), striker Danny Graham (loan, Sunderland), midfielder Jake Livermore (loan, Tottenham), midfielder Ahmed Elmohamady (undisclosed, Sunderland), defender Maynor Figueroa (free, Wigan), goalie Alan McGregor goalie Steve Harper (free, Newcastle)
Key Exits: striker Jay Simpson (released), midfielder Seyi Olofinjana (released)
20. Crystal Palace - 5th, Won Championship playoffs last season
First off, if you don't know about Crystal Palace's gregarious manager, Ian Holloway, go google him. No seriously, here's a start (slightly nsfw). Ok, and welcome back. Holloway was last in the Premier League with another scrappy playoff-winner, Blackpool, just three years ago, and he’ll be hoping that he can keep Palace up for more than the one season that the Seasiders lasted. The Crystal Palace fans will be hoping the same, since this is the fourth time that their team has been promoted to the EPL since 1992, and they haven’t avoided the drop once. They rose to the first division from the ashes of administration (basically Chapter-11 for sports teams), and will have one of the smallest budgets in the league, which can be a huge problem when jumping between the hurly-burly of the Championship and the international quality of the EPL. The team lost its clear-cut best player when teenager Wilfried Zaha earned a transfer to Manchester United last January, but he at least stayed on and helped the Eagles secure promotion. The also lost their top scorer from a season ago when Glenn Murray tore a knee ligament at the playoff semi-final in May. Now the squad will depend on a man who won the league’s golden boot 14 years ago (40-year old Kevin Phillips), a young striker who hasn’t played above the Championship before (club-record signing Dwight Gayle), and a smattering of other clubs’ cast-offs (Marouane Chamakh, Jason Puncheon, et. al.).
So what does this all mean? Well, it means its going to be a long campaign for the fans who pack tiny Selhurst Park every weekend, and that its unlikely that they can break their streak of four seasons of EPL promotion being followed by immediate relegation. Palace started the season with a tough test at home against Tottenham, albeit without Gareth Bale, and could have lost 5-0, or gotten a draw and a point from what turned out to be a 1-0 loss. They looked half a step slow and about 5 pounds too light for the big boy league when they were on the ball, but their backline played very tight and prevented the scoreline from emphasizing their problems. Holloway needs to bring on another quality midfielder and perhaps another defender if Palace are going to stand any chance over the season’s long haul, but they are guaranteed to play with plenty of spunk and panache as long as the dancingest man in the Premier League is in charge.
Key Arrivals: forward Dwight Gayle (£4M, Peterborough United), midfielder Jerome Thomas (free, West Brom), striker Marouane Chamakh (loan, Arsenal), midfielder Joseph Campana (£2M, Sevilla), forward Jason Puncheon (Southampton, loan)
Key Exits: winger Wilfried Zaha (£12M, Manchester United), forward Glenn Murray (cruciate ligament injury)
