Season Preview

Obviously Chelsea and Man City will be battling for one and two.

I thought Chelsea blew it last season and should have won. City followed their first title (under Mancini) with a disappointing season and I think the same may happen again and that lets Chelsea in. But...

I'm unconvinced by Chelsea's signing of Diego Costa. Looks a good football league forward but not Premier League material.

Lack of European football last season massively helped Liverpool. It doesn't follow, though, that it will be a massive hindrance this season. Even without Suarez.

The thing is, they've been so long out of the picture that they are in the third seeds pot. This means that, like Man City previously, they face a ridiculously tough group stage.

Assuming Arsenal win their play off match they will be one of the pot one seeds again. Chelsea are already there so that means there are only 6 pot one opponents for Liverpool and that will be Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern as teams to really avoid and then Benfica, Atletico Madrid and Schalke/Dortmund.

Hard to say what Atleti will be like after losing a few players but it's 50/50 that Liverpool will draw one of the super three and you wouldn't bet on  them against the others.

Pot two could see Schalke/Dortmund, Juventus or PSG, so again 50/50 for tough opponents. Others could be Ajax and Olympiacos. Even Basel have proved difficult.

Supposed 'whipping boys' could be Roma, Anderlecht, Monaco.

Porto and Napoli will be somewhere too.

There's every chance that Liverpool's CL 'run' will end early and maybe no parachute into the Europa either.

If that happens, they may be just as free to concentrate on the league as last time, just missing Suarez but with a little more strength in depth.

Arsenal got off to a great start last season and then fell away mainly because of a poor record against the other top teams. Will that poor record change?

Alexis Sanchez should be good for them but may 'replace' rather than add something. Rotation and how Wenger handles it will possibly be an issue, but the main thing is likely to be their record against the rivals.

ManU were atrocious last season. Having said that, they still did okay in Europe and were decent away. They also won and drew against Arsenal. There have already been massive signs of improvement and without Januzaj and van Persie too. I see them as having a psychological edge on Arsenal and early fixtures may see ManU tot up some points advantage.

When the more difficult games come, they may have built some confidence that sees them through, especially as there's no European distraction.

I see ManU coming third to Chelsea/City and Liverpool battling with Arsenal for 4th. Arsenal to edge it if Liverpool make the CL knock out rounds.