A new season of the Barclay’s Premier League kicksoff in less than thirty days. An abundance of pundits will be making preseason predictions. Half-Baked is putting in its two cents, and by doing so, living up to our name. Certainly, there will be some blockbuster transfers that will take place before the start of the season, and even on deadline day that will impact the title race. But now’s the time to go out on a limb and prognosticate.
The Relegation Battle. From here, it looks as though five or six teams could be in for a long relegation battle. Here are the relegation picks:
20. Swansea City: Hate to say it, but I think they are going to have trouble staying up this year. Brendan Rogers got out while the gettin’ was good. Gylfi Sigurdson has gone to Spurs, Joe Allen may be on his way to Liverpool . . . From all indications, this is a selling club without a whole lot of margin to sell.
19. Southampton: Honestly, I haven’t really followed the Saints’ transfer rumors over the summer. However, I’m thinking that two of the three newly promoted clubs are going back down. Last season was an atypical year with all three promoted sides staying up. My gut feeling is that Southampton hasn’t done enough to improve the club to give them a fighting chance of staying up.
17: West Ham: This prediction gives me no pleasure, since I am a long ball fan and love the physical, direct, British-style of football that Sam Allardyce employs. Perhaps they will be able to get a big, physical striker a la Andy Carroll and they will prosper. Otherwise, I don’t know where the goals will come from to keep them up.
Half Baked 