Growing up in a family that had a rugby playing father and a cousin who played for Ireland and the Lions, and having played rugby at school, to quite a high standard, it is somewhat surprising that I follow football as closely as I do, and tend to not follow the Six Nations.
There has been enough already written about the goings on in the Premier League, and I have had my own tuppence worth (see earlier posts), but we re getting to the end of the season and it is still 'Game On'!
At the top, it is obvious that one of the Manchester clubs will claim the title. Personally, I hope it will be the blue half of the city that is celebrating. What are the odds on Carlos Tevez scoring the winner in injury time in the Derby later on this month?
Further down the table it gets a bit more interesting. How high can Swansea and Newcastle finish? Swansea have delighted everyone this season with their style of football, and Brendan Rodgers has been rightly hailed as one of the outstanding mangers of the season. But hang on a moment, Alan Pardew has not done too badly either, having bee written off as the 'bosses friend' and expected to lead Newcastle into a relegation fight. But he has bought well, his strikers, if they remain at Newcastle will certainly light up the League next term, but there is the difficulty, they have played well and it has not gone unnoticed.
Chelsea seemed to have hit on a winning formula with RDM at the helm, what price on him keeping his job? I would also suggest that the main reason is the astute man-management that he has employed leading to the 'senior players' not spitting their dummies out when left on the bench. He has communicated his reasons to these players and they all seem to have bought in to his philosophy.
Arsenal, my wife's favourite team (she also has the hots for Arsene), have seemed to have done enough recently to claim a Champions League place, whereas Tottenham's wheels seem to have come off, and it is touch and go whether they will deny Chelsea their space in the top four.
Down at the bottom, I think that Wigan, Wolves and QPR (sorry James) will be the teams to go down, although one of those might successfully swap places with Bolton, a team that I thought would do better than they have. Blackburn, I hope, will be safe and a just reward for Steve Kean, who has been given dog's abuse that he did not deserve. If they do stay up, it will be interesting who they buy, and who they can hold on to, as some of the better players will be easily persuaded to jump ship.
Anyway, I have written enough, and I am sorry to have said so much, but you know.........
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