Rather than do a serious and stuffy analysis of last season’s “Top 8″ and where they are going wrong, going right, or going just plain mad, I thought I’d just riff for a few minutes on each team starting with the Champions and ending with Everton. From there I figure that I can work out who will make the drop and write a paragraph about the one dark horse that might throw a wrench into things.

The point of this article isn’t that I make perfect predictions, if I could do that I wouldn’t be giving away the advice for free, rather I’m just setting down a marker here. Think of this as a point of discussion, a place for you to tell me what you think, rather than me pretending I know everything (for once!).

Chelsea

Easily the strongest team last season despite missing their midfield engine in Michael Essien for large chunks. Internal strife threatened to tear them apart midway through the season until they realized that actually none of them are good human beings and put aside the fact that John Terry’s was just the latest example of horrible behavior.

The cliche is that they are older and thus slower or more prone to injury and in a sense this is true. John Terry certainly has lost a step, but they have also shed a lot of their older players and are bringing on “younger” talent like Alex who, at 28 years old, is in his prime. Carvalho, Deco, Ballack and Joe Cole have all been uncerimoniously dumped while the club has still held on to their key components in Cole, Terry, Lampard, Essien, Mikel, and Drogba.

Their one problem might be their lack of youth players and their lack of “homegrown” players. I read somewhere that they only have 5 sr. homegrowners and if that’s the case, they will only be able to name a 22 man squad. Of course, they could always go out and buy some players and fill in, but so far they haven’t done that. Maybe they are waiting until the last minute to see who Arsenal are going for and then scupper that deal like they have always done.

Anyway, hopefully, the rigors of the Premier League combined with some kicks from the new challengers like Manchester City and Tottenham will see them fail to retain the League title — but I wouldn’t count them out. League: 3rd place. Win: FA Cup

Man U

Man U didn’t get the memo last year. You know, the one that said “losing 2/3 of your top scorers, who combined for 40 goals and 14 assists SHOULD make you much weaker.” Instead, they signed Owen Goale and freed Rooney to run riot over everyone. This is why, despite the fact that they are still reliant on Giggs and Scholes, and they only really bought Smalling and Hernandez you can’t write them off.

Sure, Rooney hasn’t scored since March 30th and this should be a huge problem, but it isn’t. They have already won their first trophy (the Charity Shield) and in their first match they destroyed Newcastle. Their problem is a lack of consistency and if whiskey face can’t get the best out of them in every game they could finish out of the top four. League: 4th place. Win: Charity Shield

Arsenal

Well, I’ve already done Arsenal! League: 1st place. Win: Carling Cup. Champions League: Eliminated by Real Madrid

Tottenham

If Mancini had a brain in his head, Tottenham would have finished 5th, but he doesn’t and they didn’t and now Tottenham are a club that is full of cock sauce and believe that they are magically going to overtake their North London rivals.

Right.

Here’s all you need to know about Tottenham: they looked good for the first few minutes of their home opener but soon after reverted to form and slumped to a 0-0 draw against City. They also will look good against Young Boys in the Champions League and get into the group stages only to be eliminated by some team from Greece. Meanwhile, the toll of having the entire squad play in every international friendly while Chelsea and Man U rest the England A team will, erm, take it’s toll. They are pretenders, always have been pretenders, and always will be pretenders. League: 8th place. Win: they will beat Wigan 3-0 at some point.

Mancity

Mancini is probably looking at the season and thinking that there are days of wine and roses ahead but he’s going to find it hard to get this baby elephant to walk. They have so much talent that you have to think they will make a title push but they also have a manager who started the first game playing a 4-3-2-1 with three holding midfielders. You could say that it sort of worked, having all that lumber in midfield did keep Tottenham off the scoreboard, but you need to have someone who can open up a defense and especially one as soft as Tottenham’s. You simply can’t go into game starting Yaya, Barry, and de Jong in midfield unless your only hope is a tie and as my regular reader knows, I always say ties don’t win Championships.

Sorry but they will need to clear out the dead wood they have as manager if they realistically want to challenge for anything, which they will do, probably next week. League: 2nd. Win: Fastest manager firing

Aston Villa

Villa will find life hard after Martin O’Neill. His brilliant tactical nous and ability to spend loads of money on players while whingeing on about everyone and everything surely would have secured at least uhhh, 8th place or so. And now look, their best player, James Milner is off to join Moneybags City. I know they looked good in their first match but they were just eager to show their new boss how much they hated O’Neill, plus West Ham are CRAP. That was a flattering scoreline. League: Somewhere below 8th. Win: Most number of articles complaining about Arsene Wenger calling them a long ball team again.

Liverpool

New boss Roy Hodgson has struck a belief in the team and his signing the world’s best player in Joe Cole is just what they needed to shore up their decrepit back line. Oh wait, no it wasn’t. Cole was utter crap against Arsenal, making just 7 passes and getting sent off for one of his typically rash challenges. Meanwhile Hodgson showed the world what tactics he plans to employ all season: Stevie V in the second holding role and lob the ball up to a lone forward. Yawn. Same old Liverpool but hey, they will probably win the Europa League now that Hodgson has one or two actually talented players who have a history of winning in Europe. League: 5th. Win: Europa League.

Everton

Or as my friend calls them Eeeverton. Good manager, well organized, fun to watch at times, I actually have nothing bad to say except I guess that like Arsenal they develop young players, have a good academy, and live within their means. Only they do it at a much lower level than Arsenal do. Consequently, they will have a really hard time breaking back into the top four. League: 6th. Win: The 7amkickoff official seal of approval, right up until the first Merseyside Derby where both teams somehow become animals to delight the crowds.

RELEGATION!

Uhhh… well Blackpool was the team I thought would get relegated but they already have three massive points. West Ham on the other hand, were crap and have confirmed my feeling that they will be easily relegated this year. Wigan were also crap, as I suspected they would be, and lost to Blackpool. I’d like to see Newcastle back down where they belong and Stoke is a perennial favorite of mine to make the drop as well. SO MANY CHOICES…

I’m going with the all “W” relegation this year: West Ham, Wigan, and West Brom with Wolves vying for 4th worst!

Dark Horse

What happens if Blackburn is taken over by a billionaire and Sam Allardyce is given £100m transfer kitty? They might even get all the way up to 7th place AND as a bonus, if he acts now, he’ll also get an entire season of “Big Sam” going on and on about how he “did” Arsenal. OH JOY.