OK, I'll put myself in the firing line:

West Brom, Boro and Hull to go down. (Although I would love Spuds, Chavski and the Mancs to be relegated).

My beloved Irons to come fifth. Payet to stay, and Bilic will build on the successes of 2015/16.

Top four: Liverpool, Spuds, and two from Arse, Citeh, Mancs and Leicester. Klopp, if he gets the right players in, could nab the title for Liverpool.

Chelsea will struggle again - not as much as last season, but they'll struggle. Mancs will be all over the place but, in that obnoxious, greasy way of theirs, will probably sneak into the top four. Saints will get De Boer and be fine - and finish above Everton. Bournemouth will impress. Everton will struggle initially but Koeman will stabilise them and mid-table mediocrity beckons. Mackems under Hippo Head will be safe. Palace and Watford will struggle but will ultimately survive.

One thing's certain though - Chelsea will continue to be detested by everyone.

Difficult to tell what'll happen in the Championship and Leagues One and Two as the fixtures aren't out for another week but I fancy Derby, Brighton and AN Other to come up. The big question is of course, what will happen at Villa?

Kevin-W posted:

One thing's certain though - Chelsea will continue to be detested by everyone.

 

Don't think that's quite the case, it's your chip telling you that again Kevin...

Clearly after your likely forthcoming loss on the opening day, you may still continue to feel bitter

Mmm... Even the Spuds and the Mancs agree that Chelsea are the most disliked PL team, and everyone hates them as well. I'd like to hear your candidates...

As for a loss being "likely", who knows? If we can take four points (shoukd have been six, of course) off the blue scum again this season, I'll be happy. As I said, no guarantees this coming season, especially not for the bloated and arrogant Sky 4 with their misplaced sense of entitlement.

Well the Spuds can't win at Chelsea and frankly their fans are pretty much the worst at the 'Holier than thou' thing, so that's no surprise. As for 'the Mancs', anyone who interferes with their apparent God given right to win is perceived as a threat they'd prefer not to deal with, so no surprise there either really.

I enjoyed your predictions for the 16/17 season, Kevin, and would agree with much of it. I'd like you to be right about Bournemouth but promoted clubs, if they survive the first season, typically find the second season even harder as many side have worked them out. I think the Baggies now have more resilience than they've had in the past  so might escape. I though wonder whether the Swansea and even the Stoke bubbles will burst.  A weak start to the season for either of them might be hard to turn-around.

You make no mention of Newcastle (or the Bar-codes are you entertainingly labelled them) bouncing back.  If they start well and gain momentum and confidence I think they will win promotion. If they don't I can't see the manager lasting to Xmas. The Owls are my dark-horses for promotion from the Championship.

Burnley to be relegated again. But not before being damned with false praise and generally patronised. Once more the Sky team will forget we are founder members of the league and have won every division and the FA cup. Just happens we were not near a chair when the music stopped and the big money arrived. To quote Private Fraser, we are doomed.

"Premier League, EFL & FA introduce new player behaviour rules"

Offences which could earn players a yellow card

• Visibly disrespectful behaviour to any match official;

• An aggressive response to decisions;

• Confronting an official face to face;

• Running towards an official to contest a decision;

• Offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures towards match officials;

• Physical contact with any match official in a non-aggressive manner;

• A yellow card for at least one player when two or more from a team surround a match official.

New red card offences

• If a player confronts match officials and uses offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures towards them;

• Physical contact with match officials in an aggressive or confrontational manner.

So, looking forward to some games with about 15 players left on the pitch!!!

Seriously though, it's about time. Maybe it will get a bit more respectful like in Rugby (usually). Mind, they also have TV reviews in Rugby...And some refs will need to up their game...

From the BBC website...

Sam Allardyce: Sunderland boss will be named as new England manager

Key facts & figures

• Allardyce has never won a major trophy as a manager
• He has a 33.6% Premier League career win percentage
• Sunderland's average possession last season was 39.94%
• 21% of their passes were 'long', compared with 14.4% at Eddie Howe's Bournemouth

super

Well I've got tickets for the Community Shield and also for United's first away game - at Bournemouth 

JamieWednesday posted:

From the BBC website...

Sam Allardyce: Sunderland boss will be named as new England manager

 

Key facts & figures

• Allardyce has never won a major trophy as a manager
• He has a 33.6% Premier League career win percentage
• Sunderland's average possession last season was 39.94%
• 21% of their passes were 'long', compared with 14.4% at Eddie Howe's Bournemouth

 

super

Well, Jamie, it's nice to see Big Sam's beaming smile on being appointed. He seems to really fancy the job.  Let's hope he can bring a smile to all us England fans' faces. 

Same shit. Different day.

See the Magpies - or the 'bar-codes' as KevinW amusingly labelled them-  haven't started their campaign to get back to the PL too well having lost 1-0 at Fulham tonight. 

Not much change to most of last season for the toon - awful performance. 

Looking forward to the new season Chelsea, Man U & Man City all have exceptionally good new managers and with some exceptionally good players coming into the league I think normal service will be resumed with respect to those three clubs and if some of the traditionally mid placed teams play as well as they did last year then we are in for a real treat. As an Arsenal supporter I'm sill very much behind our manager and I think despite what the press would have us all believe I am still in the majority, this though is the most important season Wenger has ever started in my opinion as if he can go up against Conte, Mourinho and Guardiola arguably the best three managers in the world and come up with a major title (not a domestic cup) then he would have proved himself to one of the truly great managers of our time. With the right signings and less injuries to key players I think we can put up a real sustained challange this year lets hope Chelsea, Man U, Man City, Liverpool, West Ham and even Spurs and Leicester and all of the other smaller clubs ; ) all come out fighting and it will be a fantastic season for us all. Can't wait!!!!

Well here we go again, far too early my opinion. Big test for my team [Owls] tomorrow against Villa interested to see if our play off loss has had any effect.  Its on Sky if anyone is at all interested.

Shame about the toon last night   

Graham.

A couple of days ago I went to our new stadium to see the Irons put the mighty FC Domzale to the sword.

It wasn't a great game, but a decent one, and it was good to see a reverse of last week's dire performance. Kouyate was an absolue beast, he seemed well at home, Nobes and Randolph as solid as ever, Ferghouli looks to be a real find and young Reece Oxford very composed. A few more decent signings (a striker, a couple of full-backs) and we should do well this season.

As for the stadium, we weren't in our usual seats tonight, but afterwards we wandered over and tried our seats in the BML, about 30 rows back behind the goal. Very good views. The stadium was better than I expected, so was the atmosophere (which should improve), although I desperately miss the old place.

And getting back from the stadium to Stratford was a farce - crowd and route management needs to improve. And quickly.

Well a disappointing start for my lot at a very warm and packed Fratton Park this afternoon. Usual failing which cost us last year: pretty possession football but no real penetration in the final third facing a defence minded away team prepared to sit back and soak-up the pressure. Particularly disappointing was the Carlisle even played an hour of the game with ten men but we still couldn't win!  Ah well, another 45 games to get it right. 

Good win for the Owls today, against a team who we really did not know just what to except. We had the better of the first half Villa shaded the second, a mistake by their goalkeeper was beautifully finished by FF Norwich away next Sat another ex prem team to beat.

From what I saw after he came on in the second half, I would say Southampton's Pierre-Emile Højbjerg looked quite Schneiderlin-esque in their 1-1 with Watford.

Quite how Southampton didn't win it after Watson's sending off I'll never know.

Chris

Natural order restored at Stamford Bridge tonight.

Chelsea played very well, West Ham didn't

Referee should be reviewed though, some bad decisions both ways. And while I fully support the brandishing of cards to players being aggressive to officials (about time), I don't think a player querying a decision in a slightly loud voice should be booked, especially when the decision was clearly wrong!

JamieWednesday posted:

Natural order restored at Stamford Bridge tonight.

Chelsea played very well, West Ham didn't

Referee should be reviewed though, some bad decisions both ways. And while I fully support the brandishing of cards to players being aggressive to officials (about time), I don't think a player querying a decision in a slightly loud voice should be booked, especially when the decision was clearly wrong!

 

Watched it on Sky. I agree Chelsea deserved the 3 points, though I thought they'd blown it when Collins equalised. 

West Ham were rubbish, and Dirty Chels probably deserved to win, but that scumbag Costa shouldn't have been on the pitch after that foul on Adrian.

Super Slav has an awful lot of work to do...

Kevin, you let yourself down again with your vitriol and claret tinted glasses

Costa - a talented player - let himself yet again with his egregious behaviour. If you take your blue-tinted specs off you'll acknowledge this.

Kev

My first game was West Ham - Leeds 1972  my Dad took me I was 8.

I am a Man City supporter way before the money came in and go to 8-10 games a year.Love City as they get up Uniteds nose and always have been  the underdog and most Mancs support City.I also follow Middlesbrough.

Back to Chelski -Kings Road wine bars with City types drinking in them  why I detest them is most of their supporters aren't from that area,who could afford to ? Match days City types drinking in the wine bars on the Kings Road going to see there beloved Chelski mixing with the rough Chelski supporters.

3 players I ve always loathed are Jody Morris.....cocky little shit.....Dennis wise just so odious! and of cause the Legend that is JT......one more season.....yawn !  .....it always gets emotional .

Also that crap Russian polka that is played before every match

Sorry to have a rant but Upton Park,proper working class area and supporters enough said