Today In Sport

The World Athletic Championships have been going on in Berlin over the past week and they have been dominated by two stories.  One, Usain Bolt, The Man, The Myth, The Legend has done it again and amazed us all.  And two, the Caster Semenya gender controversy.

Usain Bolt is a freak of nature but also a finely tuned machine and he has worked hard to get where he is.  Sure there are still people out there that think he must be on the juice and I guess that would be fair considering some of his colleagues have been found with drugs and the history of some of the sprinters in recent times.

But he has been tested non stop ever since he started impersonation Superman.  He has never refused a test and he has never failed one.  Sure, he may be using some super secret drug that no-one knows anything about and can’t test for but you have to take him at face value at the moment and all the results point to him being clean. (continue reading…)

Well last season was a good one for the Wolves.  They finished as champions of the Coca Cola Championship and earned promotion to the Premiership.  Can they bring this winning form with them or will they find life just as hard in the top flight as they did the last time?  We will see wont we.

The squad they brought up with them is obviously good but it still needed the addition of some seasoned professionals and some good young talent to help out.  Have they got enough horses now that can get them through a season of the premiership and survive?  Well they have tried but I think they will find it hard to move up the ladder very much.  But they can survive, of that I am sure. (continue reading…)

Wigan are another one of those teams that needs a lot of points early to try and make sure of their continued survival in the premier league.  They performed very well last season and have made a few good additions that will bolster their squad to a point that they have a good chance of staying up again.

Striker Hugo Rodallega is a fast and lanky player with a keen eye for goal.  The Colombian is a menace to opposing defences and will continue to cause all sorts of havoc around goal.  Having said that though they are a little light on for help for him.  He will have to shoulder a lot of the burden of goal scoring this season.  Through midfield there are a number of good hard workers. (continue reading…)

Manager Gianfranco Zola came in last season and turned a disappointing team into something that resembled a competitive unit.  He has had to deal with the constant pressure from above with the financial difficulties of the club forcing them to sell on some of their better players and also some of their future stars from the youth system.

But he has done a great job of making do with what he has.  They will never be a force in the league if they continue to be a selling club but players may come to them if they think that a couple of good seasons with West Ham will see them move on to a big club.  So saying that, we may see the likes of a Carlos Tevez giving a good season for the club, making them some money between seasons so they can go get another one. (continue reading…)

Spurs have a big chance of being one of the big movers up the pecking order this season.  They started last season in complete disarray after the disaster that was the Dimitar Berbatov trade debacle.  Then manager Juande Ramos who had only been in the job a short time himself was shown the door and in stepped Harry Redknapp.  All of a sudden there was a renewed sense of belief around the club and they started to climb the ladder of success…and the premiership.

This season has seen the  return of striker Peter Crouch and the new start for Robbie Keane as he rejoins a forward group that already had Jermaine Defoe and Roman Pavlyuchenko.  They are not light for strikers and potential goals this season.  The problem will be satisfying all their needs for game time.  But I guess that is a good thing for the manager, at least he knows he will get goals. (continue reading…)

Sunderland was another club that was being sucked down into the relegation abyss but somehow survived to fight another season in the top flight.  They fought off relegation and have now regrouped for another tilt at survival.  Which mean I dont give them much hope of doing much damage this season, but they might be able to survive.  But just barely.

They have some great workers in midfield and up front that can make enough trouble for the better defences to handle.  Guys like Steed Malbranque and Darren Bent have to get as many goals as they can for this to be a successful season.  Their defence sometimes resembles Swiss Cheese but they do have enough horses back there in Nosworthy and Rio’s brother Anton Ferdinand.  (continue reading…)

The Potters had a pretty decent first season in the Premiership finishing 12th.  They defied the odds and everyones expectations by having a very solid season with some good results against some very good teams.  Can they repeat the dose and continue life in the top shelf competition?  Well it will be a lot harder this season but they might be able to do it.

They have a bit of a shaky defence and not many pure goal scorers up front.  But having said that, they do fight hard and will cause some teams a lot of problems trying to break them down.  James Beattie and company will have to get as many goals as they can to counter act the flow of goals at the other end.  There is a chance that the defence can be better after having a season in the top flight and learning some new tricks. (continue reading…)

Last season Pompey experienced a slide back down the ladder after a couple of season in the rare air of the top half of the table.  The almost found themselves being sucked into the relegation battle but managed to escape that fate by the skin of their teeth.  But will this season be any different or have they recruited well enough to climb slowly back up the rankings?

Well, yes and no, depending on who you talk to.  They have lost two of their better players in Diarra and Crouch and the battle up the ladder might lie with how the remaining players band together and work as a unit for the greater good.  I think there is still enough talent there to be competitive but as for getting back in the top half of the league, they are no chance. (continue reading…)

Another season, another championship.  Sir Alex Ferguson just keeps churning out the wins and no matter the personnell, he is in charge and he makes his team win.  Last season was more of a grind than the previous one but he somehow managed to push his team over the line despite the grumblings of some players.

But this season comes with a new challenge, trying to win without Cristiano Ronaldo.  He has done it before after losing stars like Eric Cantona, Ruud van Nistelrooy and David Beckham.  But Ronaldo, despite all the money that came with selling him to Real Madrid, is not a player you can easily replace.  And truth be told, they haven’t replaced him at all.  Not yet anyway. (continue reading…)

So, Man City had a pretty quiet off-season.  Not much happening there…..and if you believe that then you have been living on Mars for the last year.  Manchester City were throwing out so many lines in the hope of landing some big fish, it was hard to know where to look or where the fish were coming from.  But have they built a team good enough to win the Premiership?

The new additions covered some holes in all areas of the park but also created some selection issues especially up front.  Guys like Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor and Roque Santa Cruz will all be fighting with last years signings of Robinho and Craig Bellamy for time in the forward half of the pitch. (continue reading…)