Pembroke Communications would like to introduce our guest blogger @peterwelshy
Just when you thought that all of humanity was crumbling around you, and that the Sky+ box was wrapped up and ready to be thrown out the window at the mere mention of another sentence containing the words Bale, Rooney or Suarez, the start of the new Premier League season is finally upon us.
Whether it was turning on the TV, opening up a newspaper, or flicking through one’s Twitter feed, the past ten weeks have seen us bombarded with incessant rumours and hearsay surrounding the futures of the aforementioned trio. An endless amount of column inches and yellow “breaking news” side reels have been devoted to these ongoing transfer sagas without any real developments in any instance, and one might be forgiven for forgetting that the real business actually starts this Saturday.
There has been a host of managerial changes, both old and new, an assortment of new faces that will grace the Premier League for the first time, and the debut of a piece of technology that the game has been crying out for many a year. The action is about to come thick and fast, but before you finalise your fantasy football team and settle upon your ante-post season bets, consider some of the following facets of information that may have slipped under the radar.
Laudrup to build upon his impressive start at Swansea City
There was much to admire about Michael Laudrup’s first full season in charge of the Swans. A highly commendable 9th place finish in the league and the capture of the Capital One Cup, the club’s first major honour in it’s history, had many people expecting the 49-year-old Dane to move on to a bigger club either in England or Spain. With the exception of a fruitless seven month stint in charge of Spartak Moscow in 2008, Laudrup’s foray into management has mirrored his illustrious playing career, and his stock has risen so much that he was widely touted as the next manager of Real Madrid when Jose Mourinho departed at the end of last season. Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins was already on the lookout for a new manager such was the speculation linking the former Barcelona and Real Madrid star with the soon-to-be vacant seat at the Bernabéu, but Laudrup signed a new contract with Swansea until 2015 indicating his willingness to continue the project he had already set in place.
They have managed to hang on to club captain and defensive rock Ashley Williams despite strong interest from Arsenal and Liverpool, and have added the likes of Jonjo Shelvey, Jordi Amat (the promising Spanish U-21 central defender), and Wilfried Bony, the Ivorian striker who netted 37 goals in 36 appearances for Vitesse Arnhem last season. If Michu can continue his outstanding form from last season, along with the new additions to the squad, the price of 7/4 with most bookmakers for Swansea to secure a Top 10 finish looks sensational value.
The Canaries are the big spenders!
Not that many people had noticed, but Norwich City were quick to get their business done in the summer, and splashed out a quite remarkable 30 million euro by bringing in up to eight new players to Carrow Road. Manager Chris Hughton has done a complete revamp of the playing staff, off-loading former club captain Grant Holt to Wigan Athletic and releasing another ten first team squad members. The former Newcastle and Birmingham City manager has bolstered his attacking options significantly with the addition of Ricky Van Wolfswinkel for a cool 10 million euro from Sporting Lisbon, and Gary Hooper from Celtic. Both of these players have plenty of goals in their game, and if they can accustom themselves to the demands of the Premier League, and capitalise on the service from Wes Hoolohan, and other new signings Leroy Fer and Nathan Redmond, the Canaries could surprise quite a few teams this season. They finished a highly respectable 11th in the table last season and Chris Hughton will be looking to his raft of new signings to improve once again this year. Keep a close eye on Norwich’s new signings when finalising your fantasy football team.
Fulham set to struggle
The signing of perennial underachiever Adel Taarabt on loan from QPR must have sent alarm bells ringing off in the heads of the Fulham supporters. There is no denying the technical ability of the Moroccan, there never has been, but the thoughts of him teaming up with Dimitar ‘keep calm and give me the ball’ Berbatov points to a match made in hell for the folk at Craven Cottage. Sure, it is entirely possible that both show ponies could wake up on the right side of bed one morning and carve open the likes of Cardiff or Crystal Palace, but when their backs are against the wall, which they inevitably will be, are these two really the people you’d want standing beside you in the trenches? Martin Jol has taken a considerable gamble taking Taarabt to Fulham. With Berbatov destined to play in his own world and at his own pace, can the Londoners really afford to have another player on the pitch singing off a different hymn sheet to the rest of the team?
Fulham are an ageing side with the majority of their players on the wrong side of 30. They possess plenty of experience at Premier League level, but Jol has failed to add any youthful exuberance to the side who could struggle in the latter months of the season. An already thin looking squad seems to have stagnated, and while they could pick up enough points at home, this could be Fulham’s most testing season in the top division for a long time. Albeit a short price, the 1/3 available for Fulham to finish in the bottom half of the table is as much of a banker as you’ll see this season, and should be included in any ante-post accumulator you’re considering.
Goal Line Technology is finally here
After years of disputed decisions and big moments in games being left in the hands of hesitant officials, the Premier League will finally debut goal-line technology this season. It was used in last weekend’s Community Shield game and will be in operation this year in all 20 Premier League grounds. The goal decision system, as the league calls it, uses 14 cameras and sends a signal within a second to the referee’s watch and earpiece when the ball has crossed the line.
Premier League Chief Executive Peter Scudamore maintains that the system is 100 percent accurate and specifically designed to tell if the ball has crossed the goal line.
The addition of this technology to top level football has long been overdue, and it is about time it has caught up with it’s counterparts in the world of rugby, tennis, cricket and even the amateur sport of GAA. How it will develop and where it will lead to is anyone’s guess at the moment, but it is a necessity the sport has been crying out for.
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