2010 – 2011 Barclay’s English Premiere League Preview

The 2010/11 Barclay’s English Premiere League is about to get underway this weekend. The preseason is now over and the teams are now ready to begin the season. With England’s performance at the World Cup, I’m sure everyone in the country can’t wait to start playing soccer again, so that they can forget about their countries disappointing performance.

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Wayne Rooney had an excellent campaign last year in the EPL and tallied 34 goals throughout the season. Rooney was anything but impressive at the World Cup and I’m sure he’s going to be fired up when Manchester United play Newcastle this upcoming Monday (August 16^th). Manchester United finished last season in 2^nd place and only trailed Chelsea by 1 point in the standings.

Sir Alex Ferguson hasn’t made many changes to the squad this year other then receiving transfers Chris Smalling from Fulham and Javier Hernandez from Guadalajara. If Man U. expects another successful campaign this year in the EPL they’re going to need more goal scoring from players other then Rooney, such as Berbatov, who since transferring to Man U. has been a disappointment.

Chelsea won the EPL last season and is favourites again this season heading into the first weekend of games. The team will bring back most of the players from last season including superstars Drogba, Lampard and Terry. What scares me about Chelsea this season is the fact they lost several important players including Cole, Ballack and Deco and they didn’t bring in much talent other then Benayoun from Liverpool and Delac from Inter.

Arsenal finished 3^rd in the EPL in 2009-10 and they haven’t been able to win any hardware in 5 years now, which has every Arsenal fan worried and anxious. Cesc Fabregas decided to stay with the squad in the summer and this has everyone excited about the upcoming season. I have a feeling Arsenal is going to finish in worse then 3^rd spot this upcoming season though, with other teams becoming more competitive.

I can’t wait to see how Manchester City does this year after the spending spree they went on this summer. The squad has added several quality goal scorers to the team including David Silva, Yaya Toure and Jerome Boateng. I can’t see them winning the EPL, but I think they’ll be in the fight for 3^rd-4^th place this season. Last year Manchester City managed to come in 5^th place, which meant they didn’t earn a spot in the 2010-11 UEFA Europa League Playoff Round.

Tottenham, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Everton were all in the mix last season as well, but I expect this season to be even closer. Aston Villa, Tottenham and Liverpool didn’t really make any changes to their squads this summer, which could hurt them by the end of the season. Everton has improved over last season though and I definitely think they’re going to do better then their 8^th place finish last year. Liverpool finished in 7^th place last year and I also have them improving this season as long as their star players Torres and Gerrard can stay on the pitch and not on the sidelines.

2010/11 EPL Champion Odds – (Odds From Paddy Power)

• Chelsea – +170
• Manchester United – +240
• Manchester City +500
• Arsenal +600
• Liverpool +1200
• Tottenham +3300
• Everton +12500
• Aston Villa +20000

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