Very interesting post Mike. Lot's of food for thought. I will play devil's advocate on the first and last, but have to share your concerns about the middle bit.
Before I continue though: LEAGUE TABLE DEADLINE is SATURDAY!
Anyway, Mark Flipping Hughes. He is going to surprise in a big way this year. He aquired a number of signings, maybe not every last one, but enough that he has no excuse, that require a champions league place. He's got to man up and craft a team out of this crazy dispirate mess of money grubbers and the surprise will be that he is able to do it. He has enough players of enough quality that he can just straight bench anyone with a major atittude problem. He basically pulled apart his Brazillian clique and will do the same for any prima-donnas, which his team is now rife with. The interesting thing about City is that the squad is full of highly paid just below A level folks, who all have something to prove. That to me is the key to the squad. It's not settled established major talents, even Ade and Toure have to prove they can win something. Tevez needs to show United what they missed out on, Barry wants to win something real before his 45, etc. My prediction: inexplicably, Man City will be a massive force to be reckoned with this year. Please remember, however, I predicted something similar for Newcastle last year. Ahem.
You are right in spades about Real. You build a team that plays like Barca, you just can't buy that cohesion. Real will end up looking like Mourinho's Chelsea, rubbish, boring fart around stuff, until moments of absolute genius give them a wondergoal and they fart around the rest of the the game. Win 1-0. Repeat until you win everything in the most boring manner possible. HURRAY! Only they can't because the best team in the world is in their league. Showdown: goodness vs. evil, light vs. dark, Rebellion vs. Empire, Barca vs. Real. It will be delicious.
Arsene is another case though. While I don't think they will take the league this year, I do think he's positioned the squad well, and the young talent he's been developing forever should be coming into its own this year. He's claimed that he sold Ade and Toure (and soon Eboue) because of a clique in the dressing room that was disrupting morale. He's appartently decided Bendtner can replace Adebayor, which is patently ridiculous, but other than that I think there's enough strike power and enough midfield quality to do well enough, but he does need a major signing for DM and one more seasoned defender. I think it will happen and it will be a very good year for Arsene(al).
Alright, this is fun, Mike, looking forward to some good banter in the weeks to come!
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