Predictions 2013/2014

[Park Life 71]

I'm surprised people have such little faith in Arsenal. Wenger is the only title contending manager that was at his club last year. From the window closing on Feb 1st up to the end of the season arsenal topped the league by 5 points. He really seemed to have found their groove.

 

Predixting 5th and below seems mad to me when they have qualified for champions league so consistently...and are now actually able to spend big.

When's the last time they were actually 'contending the title'?

[aimaad22 4085]

there's no chance spurs are finishing a head of arsenal especially if they lose bale

 

Not if they use that money which they probably will. Paulinho is quality too although Im not too sure about the amount they've paid for Soldado. Unless Arsenal buy a couple of people this may be the year Spurs finally tip them over.

[Happy Face 29]

When's the last time they were actually 'contending the title'?

 

 

More recently than they finished outside the top 4 ":lol:"

 

[Happy Face 29]

 

Not if they use that money which they probably will. Paulinho is quality too although Im not too sure about the amount they've paid for Soldado. Unless Arsenal buy a couple of people this may be the year Spurs finally tip them over.

 

Arsenal are threatening to break the British transfer record for Suarez. If Liverpool don't allow it, I'm sure Arsenal won't do like Ashley and forget about bringing in anyone else.

[hostile_statue 0]

1. Man C

2. Chelsea

3. Arsenal

4. Man U

5. Spurs

6. Liverpool
7. Swansea

8. Fulham
9. Everton
10. West Ham
11. West Brom

12. Newcastle
13. Norwich
14. Sunderland
15. Aston Villa
16. Southampton
17. Cardiff
18. Stoke
19. Crystal Palace
20. Hull

[Happy Face 29]

Guardian writers' predicted position: 12th (NB: this is not necessarily Louise Taylor's prediction but the average of our writers' tips)

 

Last season's position: 16th

 

Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker) 1500-1

 

Guus Hiddink, March 2013: "Newcastle are very strong; they must be in the Premier League's top five next season."

 

Paolo Di Canio, April 2013: "Newcastle are very strong: if we let them, they have the ability to smash us to pieces."

 

So why did Alan Pardew's players dally with relegation last spring? And how come less than 48 hours after Di Canio's warning, the Italian choreographed Sunderland's 3-0 win at St James' Park?

 

There are no simple answers to a conundrum that Mike Ashley, Newcastle's owner, inexplicably attempted to solve by appointing Joe Kinnear as his director of football in June.

 

Yet despite inevitable concerns about the feasibility of Pardew effectively answering to Kinnear – a man harbouring plenty of frustrated managerial ambitions – there seem more reasons for optimism than pessimism about the coming season. Last season's disconnect between soaring potential and sorry underachievement looks eminently fixable.

 

Firstly, Newcastle are not in Europe. Last spring they impressed while beating Hiddink's expensively assembled Anzhi Makhachkala in the Europa League before coming within touching distance of overcoming Benfica in the quarter-finals, but the extra European games exerted an immense toll on a talented but thin squad.

 

Granted, Hiddink might be slightly off the mark and they may not quite reprise their 2012 fifth-place finish, but Pardew is a much better manager than his critics make out. Moreover, any team containing, among others, Hatem Ben Arfa, Tim Krul, Fabricio Coloccini, Yohan Cabaye, Moussa Sissoko and Loïc Rémy cannot be underestimated.

 

An awful lot hinges on Ben Arfa, or more specifically Ben Arfa's hamstring. Newcastle's best player and attacking creator supreme is a fantasy player, a game-changer, a match-winner. But Ben Arfa missed most of last season with a hamstring tear so severe some specialists saw surgery as the only answer. The France international was not keen on following that route but, last spring, he kept breaking down. Pardew, incidentally more successful than just about any other coach in man-managing the often volatile Ben Arfa, must hope the hamstring holds up. So far, the signs are encouraging.

 

A rash of hamstring injuries throughout the squad disrupted things last term, which is one of the reasons Pardew has appointed Faye Downey, a fitness consultant well known in the rugby world, as his conditioning consultant. Newcastle's players are reported to be extremely impressed with her pre-season work, and they hope it will pay dividends during the coming months.

 

Jonás Gutiérrez has complained that training was sometimes "too easy" last season but Pardew, a fine coach, is changing things and will be working with players on the training pitches much more than during the 2012-13 campaign, when he took a slight step back from the day-to-day, mud-on-boots routine.

 

In a recent interview Brian Deane, the much-travelled former striker, said Pardew's training sessions at West Ham were "the most interesting and enjoyable" he experienced, but Newcastle fans will be expecting him to sharpen up the set-pieces, particularly when it comes to scoring from corners.

 

Of equal concern in certain quarters was the statistic highlighting their topping of "the long-ball charts"; something at odds with Pardew's stated desire to "control" games with "rhythmic passing".

 

Such hit-and-hope tactics were partly down to Cabaye's assorted injury-induced absences and – providing Paris St-Germain, Monaco or Manchester United don't spirit him away before September – the playmaker's return to fitness should enable Newcastle to calibrate passing and control tempo a bit better.

 

A mixture of injury and personal problems saw Coloccini, whose reassuring defensive presence enables Newcastle to play considered stuff from the back, missing for long periods but the Argentinian centre-half has made renewed pledges of loyalty this summer and the team should be much better with their classy captain restored to its defensive heart, alongside the often underrated Steven Taylor.

 

Puzzles remain. Where, for instance, are Sissoko and Ben Arfa best deployed? Will Cheik Tioté ever learn to avoid being booked? Can Cabaye and Sissoko fully complement each other's skills? Is the sometimes brilliant Davide Santon really best deployed as a left-back?

 

Then there is the question of optimal formation. Newcastle played their best, most fluent, fluid football of recent years during 2011-12 when Pardew introduced a 4-3-3 formation, but last season he seemed to prefer a fashionable 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2, and neither quite convinced.

 

The pace and goals injected by Rémy's arrival on loan from QPR can only aid the cause, although he will miss the opener against Manchester City with a calf strain. Once Demba Ba moved to Chelsea in January, Newcastle were light on strikers with Papiss Cissé struggling to shoulder the burden alone. Pardew could do with Kinnear finalising the signing of another new striker, Bafétimbi Gomis, aka Baby Drogba, from Lyon before the transfer window closes.

 

Gomis's arrival would boost the French contingent in Newcastle's first-team squad to 11. Throw in the francophones, Cissé and Tioté, and it is easy to understand why observers fear the emergence of dressing room cliques. Pardew has demanded that his "Baguette battalion" learns to speak English, but a broader international mix might arguably have been healthier.

 

Like Pardew, Kinnear is keen on boosting Newcastle's British contingent, but the pair are unlikely to become soulmates anytime soon. With the latter's startling appointment as Ashley's "eyes and ears" at the club having prompted the resignation of the former managing director Derek Llambias – or Lambeezee as Kinnear called him – the manager has lost a key boardroom ally and remains rightly wary of the new set-up.

 

No one knows quite what was in Ashley's mind when he brought the one-time Wimbledon manager – aka JFK – back to Tyneside but the chants of "Stand up if you hate Kinnear" and banners emblazoned with "Support the team not the regime" supplied by Newcastle fans during pre-season should serve as a warning to the owner that replacing Pardew with JFK would not be a good idea. Surely even Ashley would not be that self-destructive?

 

In any case, with Ben Arfa, Cabaye and Coloccini behind him, Pardew's survival chances are probably better than they might initially appear. Dysfunctional and disconnected may sum up many aspects of Newcastle United at present, but arguably the biggest disconnect of all is that between the pessimism surrounding the team's prospects and its exciting potential.

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/aug/12/premier-league-preview-newcastle-united

[Ayatollah Hermione 13762]

"Paolo Di Canio, April 2013: "Newcastle are very strong: if we let them, they have the ability to smash us to pieces."

 

Best evidence yet that he's a proper lunatic

[Happy Face 29]

When's the last time they were actually 'contending the title'?

 

 

[Christmas Tree 4669]

Still on for my predicted top 7 finish. How's your own prediction doing?

[Tom 14011]

Just the 5 points behind Everton with one more game played.

 

Nailed on top 7.

[Christmas Tree 4669]

Just the 5 points behind Everton with one more game played. 

 

Nailed on top 7. 

Closer to mine than you are to yours

[Tom 14011]

Aye.

[The Fish 10672]

 

1. Chelsea
2. Man City
3. Arsenal
4. Man Utd
5. Tottenham
6. Liverpool
7. Swansea
8. West Ham
9. West Brom
10. Everton
11. Newcastle
12. Fulham
13. Sunderland
14. Southampton
15. Norwich
16. Stoke
17. Cardiff
18. Villa
19. Hull
20. Palace

 

FA Cup Everton

League Cup Manchester United

CL Barcelona

EL Chelsea

 

 

Only 2 bang on, 10 within 3, 8 are way off though.