United will stand tall again

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As much of an insufferable soccer romantic as I am -- I still believe that Pelé and Maradona will hug it out someday, join forces and rid the world of Sepp Blatter -- let's face it: Swansea City will not win the EPL title this season.

Neither will Norwich, Aston Villa, Stoke, Bolton, West Bromwich Albion, Everton or that charming team in Tottenham.

We're living in an era in which you need several million barrels of oil or Sir Alex Ferguson to rule the EPL. Otherwise, the chasm between the league's haves and have-nots has only gotten wider. As always, there will be upsets and injuries, but sadly, it always seems to come down to five teams fighting for the EPL title and the four mega-million-dollar UEFA Champions League spots -- and really, Spurs fans, I'm truly sorry (hand on heart -- or close to it) that your club will not be one of them.

Below that upper crust is utter chaos. Last year's point gap between ninth and 16th place in the final standings was a Gerard Butler-thin six points, while a mere nine points separated a top-half finish from a year in Championship purgatory. As such, trying to divine anything other than the title chase is an act of madness that even Nigel de Jong wouldn't tackle. But, of course, I do below.

So, here are my predictions for the five monied contenders (as well as a Standard & Poor's rating) and title hopefuls in alphabetical order -- because it's the only way I could make Arsenal come out on top.

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Tom Dulat/Getty ImagesIs Arsene Wagner in denial about the impending departures of his top players? His curious offseason signings suggest as much.

Arsenal
OK, so the Gunners are going to lose midfielder Cesc Fabregas. Do they still have Samir Nasri? Probably -- but not for much longer. Do they have anyone else? Does a healthy Johan Djourou count? While Arsene Wenger lounges in his ivory tower, listening to Edith Piaf on his iPod and pretending that his two best players aren't leaving, I fear it's not long before "the big four" becomes "the big three plus a stylish but fatally flawed fourth that's always been happy to finish runner-up."

Or even worse, a big four that sees Liverpool catapult over a Cesc-less Arsenal.

Although Arsenal will always claim the EPL's lush moral high ground -- thanks to the pretty, noncynical brand of soccer forever championed at the Emirates -- it can't cover up the six years of trophy drought, the pesky questions about the team's mental fragility (blowing a 4-0 halftime lead to Newcastle) and Wenger's persistence in buying players who won't need a razor for years (17-year-old Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain being the latest teenage prodigy to pitch up in north London) instead of the tough, experienced defenders they so desperately need. It's abundantly clear to everyone but the stubborn Frenchman that something -- a big-name signing, a midfielder unafraid to get stuck in, a player shooting from outside the box -- has to be done to lift the malaise that has settled on my beloved Gunners like a collapsing debt ceiling.

If selling off those restless malcontents Fabregas and Nasri will help the Gunners start anew, let me carry their luggage through customs. Seriously, can it get any worse than it did after the 1-1 embarrassment with the Red Bulls, when the fans booed Arsenal off the field? Did Wenger not hear them? Does he really think that adding a proven Ligue 1 goal scorer like Gervinho is enough of an upgrade to a team that choked its way to fourth place last season?

What bizarro universe is Wenger living in for him to tell the English media only a month ago that Arsenal was "perfectly good enough" to win the league? Even if at the last minute he were to pull a commanding center back (and no, Scott Dann doesn't count) out of his beret, it's mind-boggling that he has waited until now -- barely 24 hours before the season kicks off -- to close the gaping wound at the heart of the defense. It's the kind of maddening indecision that you might expect from a rookie manager, not from a man who has led his team to 14 straight Champions League appearances.

Meanwhile, cherish those memories of European glory, Arsenal fans. There may not be a 15th appearance for a while.

Predicted finish: fifth
S&P rating: downgraded

Chelsea
On paper, the Blues look like the same bunch of bloated egos and creaking legs that stumbled down the stretch last season and made Carlo Ancelotti the sixth managerial casualty of Roman Abramovich's eight-year reign. But there is one intriguing new name, and even though he doesn't appear on the active player roster, Andre Villas-Boas may be the most important addition as it relates to Chelsea's fortunes this season.

Widely regarded as the fastest-rising managerial star in Europe, the 33-year-old has swagger and panache in sufficient quantities to recall previous "Special" days at Stamford Bridge. Although he is still young enough to play for the Blues -- he is, after all, the same age as Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard -- AVB's eye-catching résumé demands respect from even manager-in-his-own-mind John Terry.

Last season, Villas-Boas won the treble at Porto -- the domestic title, the Portuguese Cup and the Europa League -- and in the process established a club-record unbeaten streak formerly held by You-Know-Who. Porto also scored a jaw-dropping 145 goals in 58 games, which bodes well for the kind of free-flowing soccer Abramovich has craved at The Bridge ever since he docked his missile-resistant yacht there. AVB is convinced that all it will take is for the players to buy into his philosophy and be willing to "die for the cause" -- in this case, Abramovich's holy grail, the Champions League title. Fernando Torres' concussion will certainly spare the new manager an early-season selection headache.

Predicted finish: third
S&P rating: steady

Liverpool
The Reds -- aka 10 midfielders and a keeper -- have been loitering for far too long outside the velvet ropes of the EPL's elite club, but this season they might finally regain admission, if not full access, to the champagne room.

In luring plenty of homegrown midfielders to Anfield, presumably to get inspired by the elocution talents of the scarlet-faced Scouser Jamie Carragher, it would appear that manager Kenny Dalglish and owner Fenway Sports Group is slowly building a team that can compete for a place in Europe by adding much-needed width and depth.

I covered the challenges facing Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam and Steven Gerrard in Part 1 of my preview, but what about the rest of the team? Will forwards Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll combine to be the attacking equivalent of Smith & Wesson? Thanks to that standing-room-only midfield, the pair will have no shortage of service, but like many teams, they could use reinforcements, as evidenced by the hilarious number of preseason goals conceded to the murderer's row of Valerenga, Guangdong XI and Hull City (15 in six games). Does King Kenny have any Red Sox money left to fix those obvious weaknesses? He had enough to snare Luis Enrique to fill the left-back void, but who's going to cover the back line when Carragher is finally packed off to the glue factory?

If Liverpool is to finally make good on its "This is our year" mantra unveiled every August (last realized in 1989-90), it will need talisman Steven Gerrard to reach back across the years and regain his Istanbul mojo while the new signings settle rapidly. If the Reds manage the trick, there will be joy in Merseyside. If not, there'll still be joy in Merseyside -- it'll just be the Evertonians celebrating.

Predicted finish: fourth
S&P rating: volatile

Manchester City
Manager Roberto Mancini leads a charmed life at Eastlands. Not only has he kept his job while finding a way to shackle the most expensive array of talent to ever be assembled, but he also manages to keep a straight face when wailing that he needs two or three more world-class players.

But you can't really blame Mancini for occasionally acting like an entitled prima donna, because he has a couple of Mariah Carey-worthy pouters in Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli -- and it takes a diva to understand a diva. The Italian is smart enough to put up with their histrionics because the pair are also pretty damn good strikers. (Tevez accounted for nearly one-third of City's EPL goals last season, and Balotelli managed one every three games.) But when you have a transfer budget that Spurs wheeler-dealer Harry Redknapp famously proclaimed "will blow your brains out," you're always looking for more, better and finally best.

There's a feeling that in signing forward Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid, Mancini has landed a player on the cusp of greatness. If nothing else, Carlito's national teammate jumps out as the player I look most forward to watching this season. He'll either set the league afire or flame out like the now-beatified Diego Forlan did at United.

Silky playmaker David Silva is the most likely reason for Aguero's eventual success, happily supplying him with needle-threading passes to bury in the back of the net. The thought of those two running amok will have Sir Alex reaching for that extra vat of cabernet as he ponders just how noisy his arriviste neighbors are going to be this season. My guess is that only United will be louder.

Predicted finish: second
S&P rating: luxury goods

Manchester United
Try as I do, it's hard to fault United's summer, as the defending champions ticked all the boxes. Sensible spending to shore up its most obvious flaws? Check. Improving the team's fitness and bottom line by beating up on MLS clubs? Check. Leading the league in super-injunctions and hair transplants? Check.

Laurece Griffiths/Getty ImagesWho wins in a Manchester United diva-off? The rest of the EPL.

Unlike some other clubs, most notably their despised rival on Merseyside, United avoided paying the "English premiums" for overrated domestic players, which is not to say that manager Sir Alex Ferguson didn't open his wallet. For $32 million he nabbed Ashley Young, Aston Villa's best player last season, to give dynamic wing support to United's rising star Nani. He landed a long-term replacement for the retiring Edwin van der Sar in David de Gea and bought a young, England-pedigreed center back in Phil Jones to serve either as insurance for the increasingly injury-prone Rio Ferdinand or as an extra right back if needed.

Ferguson still craves a creative linchpin in midfield, which explains his heavy-breathing pursuit of Wesley Sneijder. The Dutchman would be the ideal puppet master now that Paul Scholes has retired and Ryan Giggs must be in his late 60s or 70s by now. (Not that he looks it thanks to a new, luxuriant mane courtesy of hair-growth treatments that he and Wayne Rooney underwent over the summer.)

In lieu of Sneijder, United will make do with the rapidly improving Anderson as its midfield fulcrum, backed up by the hyperenergetic Ji-Sung Park and the stylish (if not dominant) Michael Carrick.

After a shaky performance in the Community Shield, there is some concern at Old Trafford that de Gea may not be "de Guy" in goal, but the Spaniard is only 20 years old, and the wily Ferguson has the experienced Anders Lindegaard waiting in the wings should his young tyro falter. Even with Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool all markedly strengthened for the coming campaign and unlikely to hand deliver the title to Old Trafford as they did last season, it takes a braver man than me to bet against United. At this rate, it will require another Giggsian super-injunction or a 30-goal haul from City's Sergio Aguero to keep United from winning a 20th topflight title. But I hope I'm wrong.

Predicted finish: first
S&P rating: blue chip

As for the rest of the EPL teams, some will raise their game and make mincemeat of the form line. Others will descend quickly into Relegation City. Here's how I see them settling in May:

6. Tottenham
Harry Redknapp and Daniel Levy have been so busy fending off Chelsea's flirtatious advances toward Luka Modric that they have thus far neglected to do the one thing that might persuade the Croatian playmaker to stay put at White Hart Lane: provide a striker for him to service who isn't Robbie "Childhood Dream" Keane. Throw in Peter Crouch, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Jermain Defoe, and you have a strike force that simply isn't worthy of Modric's sumptuous passes, not to mention Rafael van der Vaart's verve and Gareth Bale's silver-platter crosses. That said, because they are Spurs and seemingly exist to torment me, I fully expect them to do the double over Arsenal, if not nip the Gunners for fifth place. And if, God forbid, that were to actually happen, I'll be hunting you down, Cesc. And I will know exactly where to find you.

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Olly Greenwood/AFP/Getty Images Clint Dempsey has made a career of defying the odds. Can he lend Fulham a bit of that magic in its pursuit of a Champions League appearance?

7. Fulham
It's hard to believe that an American is the all-time leading scorer at a top-tier English club in the Premiership era, but then Clint Dempsey has been defying the odds his entire career. Would anyone have been shocked if Deuce had moved on from Craven Cottage and taken his warrior talents to a Champions League contender like, say, a Fabregas- and Nasri-shorn Arsenal? Could Wenger have found a place in midfield for Dempsey's badass edge and panache? Sorry, I was daydreaming.

Martin Jol, the roly-poly Dutchman brought in when Mark Hughes departed in a fit of hubris, has to be immensely grateful to have not only Dempsey back but also a healthy Bobby Zamora to spearhead a potent attack. Add a sturdy Brede Hangeland-led defense, and Fulham may have just enough to make the statue of Jacko outside their stadium sit up and take notice.

8. Everton
For the Toffees, life is bittersweet. Laden with debt (reportedly 45 million pounds) and desperately searching for sugar-daddy salvation, they tread water on the Europa League bubble year after year while their nearest rivals sell their souls to sheiks, baseball moguls and chicken magnates. On the other hand, the Toffees have David Moyes. The stoic Scot has few peers when it comes to achieving more with less, even though it must get kind of boring to keep reliving a Groundhog Day season, forever finishing in seventh or eighth place. Still, Moyes has been able to keep his molten core intact -- no easy feat in today's radioactive transfer market. In Marouane Fellaini and Tim Cahill, Everton has two legitimate game-changers who could grace any team in the top five. Additionally, Leighton Baines may be the best English set-piece maestro since The Bendable One, and with Mikel Arteta conducting in the center and Tim Howard marshaling a resilient rearguard, Everton may be no more than a cash infusion away from the Champions League. But isn't that what we say every year?

9. Stoke
The Tony Pulis formula of clogger + heavy tacklers + long-ball hoofers = an extended EPL stay. But will Stoke evolve this season? Will the club leaven its bully-boy style, personified by Ryan Shawcross and Andy Wilkinson, with a bit of flair? Or will the drudgery and mayhem continue? Just please, Tony: Don't maim any Gooners this year. You can do as you please with the rest.

10. Sunderland
Along with the metaphysical curio that is Fergie Time, Steve Bruce's job security is one of the EPL's enduring mysteries. He has an owner who's willing to bankroll his transfer flights of fancy -- now-departed Darren Bent, U.S. dream killer Asamoah Gyan, highly rated young striker Connor Wickham and Lee "Leg Breaker" Cattermole -- yet 10th place is the best Sunderland can muster. Is it attitude? Is it complacency? Or is it the kind of comfort that comes from knowing that no matter how brilliant (a 3-0 demolition of Chelsea) or dire (defeats to Wolves and Birmingham down the stretch) as they can be, there are plenty of teams in far worse shape? If the Mackems exert more effort in 2011, they could compete for a Europa League spot, but the more likely scenario is another season of midtable mediocrity.

11. Aston Villa
Gerard Houllier literally didn't have the heart for life at Villa Park, but the palpitations at the Holte End are due to the new red-headed bluenose manager from across town -- Alex McLeish. The Villains have sold enough of their blue-chip talent (Ashley Young, Stewart Downing) to fill several safe-deposit boxes but have enough left over (hello, Darren Bent) to stay up and find a comfy spot in the middle of the pack.

12. West Brom
Retread Roy Hodgson has his kind of team: overachieving and blessed with fans simply happy to be there. After years of yo-yoing between the top two flights, "the man who could not be king" at Liverpool led the Baggies to a rock-solid midtable finish, an effort that they may even improve upon in 2011 if Peter Odemwingie proves that last season's 15 goals weren't a fluke and Chris Brunt (fourth-most assists in league) keeps teeing him up.

13. Bolton
No Johan Elmander. No Daniel Sturridge. No Chung-Yong Lee. With all due respect to the promising American midfielder Stuart Holden, when your hopes rest on his recently reattached limb and on the venerable head of Kevin Davies, it's as if Owen Coyle is bringing a water pistol to an oil fire. This season, the Wanderers are likely to find themselves meandering nearer the bottom of the pack than the top.

14. Blackburn
Now in their second year under Indian poultry magnate ownership, the Rovers don't have much to crow about. Venky's early promises of spending to reach CL heights have gone the way of cholesterol-free egg yolks. The fearsome Chris Samba remains, but the Rovers -- one of only four teams ever to lift the EPL trophy -- are much closer to relegation than they are to title contention despite manager Steve Kean's delusions of poaching a top-10 finish.

15. Newcastle United
Increasingly, the Magpies are their own worst enemy. Tension between an unpredictable owner (Mike Ashley), a dour coach (Alan Pardew) and a Che Guevara-worshipping midfielder (Joey Barton) gives the dressing room all the fun and bonhomie of Arnold and Maria at a parent-teacher conference. Pardew did bring in some credible French reinforcements (Sylvain Marveaux, Yohan Cabaye), but there's no longer-suffering fan than a Geordie one, and their misery only figures to deepen this season.

16. Norwich
The best of the promoted teams, but that's like saying one "American Idol" winner is better than all the rest. Manager Paul Lambert's work at Carrow Road has been nothing short of miraculous -- two successive promotions -- and the Canaries should fly just high enough to avoid relegation.

17. Wolves
We were within a fractured tibia of purging Karl "My Studs Weren't Up" Henry and his plucky band of thugs from the Prem last season, but no such luck. And Mick McCarthy still has his two life rafts, Matt Jarvis and Kevin Doyle, to keep the Wolves afloat in the top flight for a fourth successive year. We can only hope they capsize.

18. QPR
The reigning nPower champions have money, pedigree and Adel Taarabt -- the most coveted player in England last year not in the Prem. So why does it feel as though they'll be playing the likes of Ipswich and Coventry again in 12 months? Two reasons named Kieron Dyer and Danny Gabbidon, whom you might remember from their influential roles in leading West Ham into relegation last season. If that's the Rangers' idea of an upgrade, then they have little hope of survival, although with the combustible Neil Warnock at the helm, they can be counted on for at least one good touchline dustup before they go back down.

19. Wigan
Roberto Martinez must have studied Houdini, the master of cheating death and eluding disaster. This time, though, with Wigan's sole creator, Charles N'Zogbia, shipped off to Aston Villa, I suggest you get your Latics time in early and often, because we won't have them to kick around next season.

20. Swansea City
The first Welsh side in EPL history, the Swans will be flying the Blackpool flag for fluid, attack-happy soccer. Unlike the Tangerines, the defense isn't too shabby -- just 42 goals conceded in 46 games last season -- but a lack of proven topflight strikers (Leroy Lita scored eight goals in 47 games over two EPL seasons with Reading) makes Swansea a most likely thrilling, one-and-done team in 2011.

David Hirshey has been covering soccer for more than 30 years and has written about the sport for The New York Times, Time, ESPN The Magazine and Deadspin. He is the co-author of "The ESPN World Cup Companion" and played himself (almost convincingly) in the acclaimed soccer documentary "Once in a Lifetime."

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