Your Predictions for Next Season

[Gurgen]

I think 3rd is the best we can hope for as it stands now.

But until the transfer window closes this thread is pretty useless.

 

[asajoseph]

Third would seem optimistic to me at the moment - I'd expect Liverpool to perhaps swap places with Utd, but otherwise I think that unless we see a new signing or two, a repeat of last season's top four placings is absolutely the best we can hope for...

 

[N!]

We will win the Prem next season.

Because... every time i go on a proper holiday (i.e. on a plane) we always win it.

'97-'98 - went to Australia for a month
'01-'02 - went to America for 2 weeks
'03-'04 - went to Australia for a month again
'06-'07 - going to Gran Canaria for 2 weeks

but i shouldn't get my hopes up.

oh, and next year i am going to Australia, so if this theor works we will be chamions next season too!

 

[I love Pascal Cygan.]

With the squad we currently have:

League: 3rd - 5th. Depends on injuries and what Man Utd do. We are better than last season even if we don't sign another player because the young players are better physical, technically and mentally. I hope we add two or three more players.

FA Cup: Depends. You can't really predict it but I think Wenger sees it as a distraction from winning the C.L. I love the FA Cup but I don't think we should let it distract us in the annual pursuit for 'Ol' Big Ears'.

League Cup: Who cares? I just hope we get to see some kids get a good run out - invaluable experience for them.

Champions League: Who knows? All I hope for is that we draw Barca - I want revenge. I think we can go one step further.


I want the C.L more than anything. I'd take finishing 17th and losing 4-0 home and away to Sp**s if it meant winning the C.L.

 

[wingontravel]

asajoseph, i think tottenham will really threaten next year. their about to sign duff. all they need now is a RB and their team is champions league material. They have two excellent ball winners in the middle. and lennon and duff are two of the best wingers in the league.

Lennon------Zoroka---------Carrick--------Duff

 

[I love Pascal Cygan.]

Lennon------Zoroka---------Carrick--------Duff

No one knows what Carrick's status is at the moment.

Apparently Sp**s will announce the capture of Duff with the sale of Carrick.

If so, you can put Jenas in there instead.


It's still a pretty good midfield whatever way you look at it...

 

[D2D]

league:
1. chelsea
2. united
3. liverpool
4. Arsenal FC
5. ****


fa cup: final (maybe winners).

champions league: quarter final.

league cup: winners.

i think we lack some quality and depth in our squad. we need at least one more central defender incase phil or kolo gets injured.
overall, we are a very very good team, but i'm not sure we can be consistent in the league.
TT will probably get injured a lot this season. so the question is: do ade and robin can cope togheter and be effective at the same time?
if we can get one (theo) of our (theo) young (theo) strikers (and last but not least, theo) to adapt, it will be wonderful.

 

[BreakAway]

League:Champion
CL:Champion
LC:Champion
F.A. C:Champion
.......
Seriously speaking,we will get 1 cup I think.League 2nd.
If we have less injury,maybe we can get another cup.
Anyways,we can't get the premiership league cup,we can't win it without both Cole and Campbell.

 

[patrick42uk]

one worry i have is that totteham are doing everything right in terms of the transfer market to improve on last year. and of course, susrprise surprise, we stand there doing nothing with wenger hoping that our young player's improvement will be enough.

i think liverpool have pushed on with their signings. its not about the names, its about benitez identifying and capturing the players that fits his idea of fotball. man utd will make signings, maybe we will too. but i think man utd suffered the most from chelsea's dominnce because they have lost the fear factor that made them who they were. i think 3rd-5th will be filled by man utd tottenham and arsenal but i'm not sure which order. i think this will obviously depend on what we do between now and the close of the transfer window.

one slight concern i also have is about henry. i'm convinced that he made up his mind to leave arsenal last year, maybe till as late as the cl final. if he's signed because of guilt, then i'd worry about just how much patience he can show and his motivation for next season. as always, our season hinges on the perfromance of henry and i hope he wont let us down.

 

[sn196]

League:3rd
CL: Winners
CC: Final
F.A. 1/4 finals


Would be well happy with the above.

 

[apollo]

This thread's replies are so depressing...

 

[jay-d]

Depressing but realistic. People forget our squad is actually even weaker than last season at the moment. We hobbled to 4th spot only because Sp**s lost their nerve at the last. Now Sp**s have greatly inproved the squad with some excellent signings. We have lost Pires ( 15 Goals ) and Campbell and only so far bought in Rosicky and a couple of youngsters. That is not good enough. This season really required signings not only for the first team but squad signings as well. As it stands we have Cygan starting the season at centre back, yes Cygan who looked troubled even at Barnet FFS. All our Rivals bar Man U have greatly enhanced their squads with top players.

Chelsea
Michael Ballack (free)
Hilario (free)
Salomon Kalou (undisc.)
Jon Obi Mikel (£16million)
Andriy Shevchenko (£30m)

Liverpool
Fabio Aurelio (free)
Craig Bellamy (£6million)
Mark Gonzalez (£4million)
Gabriel Paletta (£2million)

Sp**s
Didier Zokora (£8.2million)
Benoit Assou-Ekotto (undisc.)
Dimitar Berbatov (£10.9m)*
Dorian Dervitte (undisc.) + Duff imminently.

Man Utd will make some big moves. With possibly a World Class Centre Forward and Midfielder arriving.

Now as I said at the moment we have lost 2 players who started the season as first XI players and bought only 1 in. One area were we struggled was CM last year and Wenger tried to address that with Diaby and he is out for a long long time.

Yet we finished with a measly 67 points last year , 15 points behind 3rd place Liverpool, 16 Behind Man U, a huge 24 behind Chelsea and only 2 ahead of Sp**s. So with all these teams improving we seem to be standing still. I know there is still over a month to go for the transfer window to shut but there are no noises or apparent desire to strenghen key areas like the other teams have.

So all in all I'm the same as I was before the start of last season which was very pessemistic. Last year I was proven right in regards to our league form I hope I'm not right again but fear I will be.

 

[UrbanArts]

Sp**s are just doing what we've been doing for the last 10 years. They are simply playing catch up(granted they are doing a good job of it) but shouldn't we be happy with the direction the club is going? Supporting a club is a long term thing and as much as I hate the use of the overused term "transition period"...that's exactly what's happening at Arsenal whether you like it or not. How many of Tottenham's players would actually make it into any of the top 4's first team? Only players who would have a chance at Arsenal are Carrick, Lennon and maybe King(but not sure if he really is better then Big Phil and Toure). If Sp**s don't win any silverware in the next 5 years they will be in big trouble.

 

[Clrnc]

it depends on who wenger signs seriously. if he signs 2 more quality signing like he said it would be alot better. i certainly hope is would be a DMC and a defender since he ruled out any striking option. our attack is good enough seriously. 1 more will be luxury.

based on current squad, i am going to say

EPL-3rd is the best we can do due to squad depth lacking
CL-depends, hoping for semis
FA-semis
LEAGUE CUP-WIN

 

[Lukazan]

i think people here are writing off united far too easily.. as crap as the team looks right now with the rooney/rvn/ronaldo mess, they still finished 2nd last year and had no problem scoring goals. i dont think they will win the premiership but they will be difficult to displace in 2nd place.

liverpool obviously improves with bellamy instead of cisse - theyll be tough as well, but i think with any kind of away form, we'll be right up there.

i can imagine the chelsea team suffering from boredom after having wiped their asses with the rest of the league, and maybe they'll have some initial problems integrating ballack and shevchenko. that could just be wishful thinking...

as for us, if we lose cesc for any period of time, we're screwed. i dont care what any of you think, rosicky and hleb are not CMs in a 4-4-2. if we have to switch to a 4-5-1 if/when cesc goes down, goals will be hard to come by.

I agree about people writing off Man United.

Give Manchester United Thierry Henry and they'd win the Premiership next season. It's as simple as that. So okay, they ain't going to go out and get a player of Henry's ability, but you see what I mean, they ain't that far off having a squad that could genuinely challenge Chelsea next season.

 

[kel varnsen]

i think people here are writing off united far too easily.. as crap as the team looks right now with the rooney/rvn/ronaldo mess, they still finished 2nd last year and had no problem scoring goals. i dont think they will win the premiership but they will be difficult to displace in 2nd place.

liverpool obviously improves with bellamy instead of cisse - theyll be tough as well, but i think with any kind of away form, we'll be right up there.

i can imagine the chelsea team suffering from boredom after having wiped their asses with the rest of the league, and maybe they'll have some initial problems integrating ballack and shevchenko. that could just be wishful thinking...

as for us, if we lose cesc for any period of time, we're screwed. i dont care what any of you think, rosicky and hleb are not CMs in a 4-4-2. if we have to switch to a 4-5-1 if/when cesc goes down, goals will be hard to come by.

I agree about people writing off Man United.

Give Manchester United Thierry Henry and they'd win the Premiership next season. It's as simple as that. So okay, they ain't going to go out and get a player of Henry's ability, but you see what I mean, they ain't that far off having a squad that could genuinely challenge Chelsea next season.

agreed. if they can strenghten their midfield, they might even challenge chelsea next year. they finished 15 points ahead of us last season, even though their midfield is a real mess...

 

[weisheng]

one worry i have is that totteham are doing everything right in terms of the transfer market to improve on last year. and of course, susrprise surprise, we stand there doing nothing with wenger hoping that our young player's improvement will be enough.

i think liverpool have pushed on with their signings. its not about the names, its about benitez identifying and capturing the players that fits his idea of fotball. man utd will make signings, maybe we will too. but i think man utd suffered the most from chelsea's dominnce because they have lost the fear factor that made them who they were. i think 3rd-5th will be filled by man utd tottenham and arsenal but i'm not sure which order. i think this will obviously depend on what we do between now and the close of the transfer window.

one slight concern i also have is about henry. i'm convinced that he made up his mind to leave arsenal last year, maybe till as late as the cl final. if he's signed because of guilt, then i'd worry about just how much patience he can show and his motivation for next season. as always, our season hinges on the perfromance of henry and i hope he wont let us down.

great post, but whats the duration of Henry's contract? I cant remember but i dont think it was a one or two year deal.

I agree about writing manure off too. they recovered and pushed chelski all the way last season.

 

[Tony Montana]

I agree with Kamikaze and LuKaZan. Manure look ready to challenge Chelsea if they sign a couple of quality signings. As for us, we'll struggle like last year, simply because we haven't bulit on last year. We sold Pires and brought in Rosicky, we let Campbell go and we're not likely to get a centre-back other than Curtis Davis and even that's not certain. Consistency and strength in depth wins titles, not flashes of brilliance once in a while.

 

[Burnwinter]

I think it's Chelsea who may suffer a hangover next season. Back to back wins, more changing of the guard, more egos, some players getting old.

We have a lot of potential in our squad and I think it may show up transfers by the likes of Sp**s. There's nothing to suggest that a player like Berbatov will have more impact up front for them than any one of our secondary strikers will for us.

Predictions:

EPL: 3rd, with any two of Liverpool, Man Utd, and Chelsea ahead of us
FA Cup: quarters
League Cup: quarters or earlier
CL: semis

Probably a tad optimistic, why not?

 

[Tony Montana]

one worry i have is that totteham are doing everything right in terms of the transfer market to improve on last year. and of course, susrprise surprise, we stand there doing nothing with wenger hoping that our young player's improvement will be enough.

i think liverpool have pushed on with their signings. its not about the names, its about benitez identifying and capturing the players that fits his idea of fotball. man utd will make signings, maybe we will too. but i think man utd suffered the most from chelsea's dominnce because they have lost the fear factor that made them who they were. i think 3rd-5th will be filled by man utd tottenham and arsenal but i'm not sure which order. i think this will obviously depend on what we do between now and the close of the transfer window.

one slight concern i also have is about henry. i'm convinced that he made up his mind to leave arsenal last year, maybe till as late as the cl final. if he's signed because of guilt, then i'd worry about just how much patience he can show and his motivation for next season. as always, our season hinges on the perfromance of henry and i hope he wont let us down.

Good post.

It's amazing how last year Liverpool were some 20 odd points behind us and needed some sort of revolution to challenge for the title again. When they won the CL, everything changed. Liverpool have overtaken us no doubt. Last season they were 15 points ahead of us. They are making a few signings although we've got to understand that not all these signings will be successful. I remember Juan Veron for Maunure as well as Kleberson etc. I don't think all Liverpool's signings will be that good. On the other hand, with our current squad there's no way we will win the title. I think our aims have been lessened to finishing in the top four.