Top 10 Sporting Moments 2011

Hello all and welcome to my final post of 2011 (Or first of 2012 if you're in Australia or somewhere). The title says it all really. What are my top 10 sporting moments of 2011? First of all I shall list some honourable mentions who just missed the cut;

Spurs 4-0 Liverpool: The game that started Spurs amazing run of form, but we shall have to wait and see until May 2012 to analyse its true significance.

Darren Clarke and Rory Mcilroy: Both winning a golf major each this year is impressive but not enough to make the top 10

New Zealand Wins Rugby World Cup: The All Blacks ended a 24 year drought by winning the tournament but that was overshadowed over here in England as we were too busy ripping apart our shambles of a team and coaching set up!

Steven Gerrard's Return: Now I know he only returned last night but in the half hour he was on the pitch he showed he is still one of the best players in the Premier League if not the world. This could prove to be extremely significant for Liverpool if he can stay fit and help them reach the top 4.

And now for the Main List. I would ask for a drum roll but since I haven't got any drums I'll just crack on!

10: Christian Wins World Heavyweight Championship at Extreme Rules: Now I don't care whether you're in the WWE or any other sport, to work for 17 years to reach your ultimate goal is something that is worth celebrating. And that's what Christian did at Extreme Rules by beating Alberto Del Rio in a ladder match. All of the crowd in attendence went nuts and celebrated what was a worthy win and the crowning moment in a fine career which shall continue for a few more years for sure.

9: The Summer of Punk: What a year Phil Brooks (aka CM Punk) has had. At the beginning of the year he was in a company dominated by John Cena who was becoming the Hulk Hogan of his generation. Single-handedly Punk changed all this and after his now infamous shoot promo he beat Cena in the match of the year at Money in the Bank to win the WWE Championship and then won the title again at Survivor Series. Long live the reign of CM Punk!

8: Liverpool 3-1 Man Utd, March 2011: Hey I had to get my team in somewhere! In all seriousness though this game reminded everyone how dangerous Liverpool can be. It was a brilliant performance which blew United away. With more performances like this and with a bit of luck (Like not hitting the woodwork 18 more times this season!) Liverpool can make top 4 and get back into the Champions League.

7: Novak Djokovic wins Wimbledon: This was the match that finally ended the reign of Federer and Nadal and the age of Djokovic began. He blitzed Nadal in the Wimbledon final becoming the World Number One in the process. In terms of the rest of the year he won the other Grand Slams apart from the French Open and his total losses for the 12 months were in single figures. Incredible!

6: Mark Cavendish win Tour de France Green Jersey: The recently crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year became the first Brit to win the Green Jersey in the Tour de France and moved into fourth in the all time list of Stage wins. In addition, he won the Road Race World Championships Gold Medal in Copenhagen, which has raised expectations immensely that he can grab gold at London 2012. All I can say is good luck, although being the fastest man in the world on two wheels he probably won't need it!

5: Sebastian Vettel becoming Double F1 Champion: Well he might be extremely annoying by being so bloody quick and winning all the time giving none of the others a chance, but there is no denying how good a driver Vettel is. The greatest thing about it though is that he is a throughly nice bloke. He seems the sort of guy you would love to go to the pub and have pint with. You can also tell he is humbled and honoured to be amongst the names of the greats of the sport like Senna, Prost, Schumacher and others. Whether he can be the greatest remains to be seen, but he has time on his side.

4: Manchester United's 19th League Title: Typical United. Can't celebrate quietly ;) You have to admit though that they are now the undisputed football kings of England. The work Sir Ferguson has done in his 25 years at Old Trafford is nothing short of extraordinory. And with a new breed of young players coming through their domination may continue for years to come. There is another team wishing to stop them though.

3: Man Utd 1-6 Man City: The 'Other' team in Manchester fancy a few Premier League titles of their own and who can blame them. The quality of their squad is brilliant and the strength in depth is something to behold. Of course the sceptics shall say it's all down to the money and partly it is. But money does not win you games and does not create the atmosphere within a squad to challenge for trophies. This day at Old Trafford proved City are a force to be reckoned with and that they can easily take the bragging rights to the blue side of the City.  

2: Barcelona win the Champions League: What happened at Wembley back in May was sheer footballing perfection. It was just incredible to see Barcelona pick apart Manchester United to show that Barca are in a league by themselves. Of course Lionel Messi was star man with a beautiful curling finish, but everybody contributed and the passing was just a pure joy to behold. Best Team ever? Maybe. Just Maybe!

1: Jenson Button wins Canadian GP: This was without doubt, the best Formula 1 race in over a decade perhaps more. It had everything. Heavy rain, delays, crashes magnificent overtaking and overall pure motor racing. When the Safety Car came in at the end of lap 40 of 70 Sebastian Vettel was comfortably leading and Jenson was last after colliding with his team mate Lewis Hamilton which forced him out of the race, struggled on his tyres, had to cope with the almost 2 hour rain delay, and then collided with Fernado Alonso which got himself a puncture thus dropping down to last. What happened next was the best driving I have ever seen in my lifetime. He showed bravery and huge amounts of race craft by passing all of the pack including Michael Schumacher who was having his best race since his comeback and then hunting down Vettel. The most incredible thing was that on the last lap he basically crushed Vettel mentally and he made an rare unforced error which gifted Button the win. An incredible race, an incredible win and no doubt my top sporting moment of 2011.

Thanks alot for reading and I hope that you have a very happy New Year. 2011 has been a great year for me and I hope it has been for you too, whilst I'm sure you'll join me in saying: Bring on 2012!

So until next time, The Outsider is Out! :)

The Curious Case of Chelsea FC

Welcome all to my first blog post in almost a month. The last time I posted Chelsea was in the midst of a mini-crisis. Now, even with that out of the way doubts still remain.

As I speak, they are six points behind Man City who have a game in hand. Yet all respectable pundits seem to be writing them off for the title. At first you might think this is truly ridiculous, but if you further you can see why.

One of the main reasons is that their squad overall is too old. I know people bang on about this but it's true. Their average age is roughly 28 and that includes players like Terry, Drogba and Ivanovic all not known for their blistering pace. This in turn limits there tactical options. They can't play the high line that Andre Villas Boas would prefer to play, because they're picked off almost every single time. Now they have reverted back to the old ways things have got better but problems still remain.

When you think about it, who really so far has had a good season for Chelsea? Apart from Daniel Sturridge, who has been outstanding, everyone else has been extremely average, if not worse. Chelsea fans are probably screaming Juan Mata right now, but what has he really done? We have seen glimpses of brilliance but nothing in the really big games. And please don't anybody mention the Man City game. Granted Chelsea played much better, but got lucky in the process. There was no way Chelsea or Mata was breaking down that City defence for the second time that night, even when they were down to ten men. Chelsea couldn't find the answer until they were gifted a penalty, which was a bit harsh in my opinion. But I suppose you make your own luck sometimes right? Drogba is coming slowing back to form, but in the game against Wigan last night; he seemed thoroughly disinterested and extremely ineffective. Heck, Fernando Torres could've done better (Actually forget I just said that)!

Don't forget it's the African Cup of Nations next month, so Drogba and Kalou will be away for a few weeks, which will leave the manager with a huge decision to make. Does he give Sturridge a go as the main centre forward, without really knowing if he's more effective there than his current wide position in the 4-3-3 formation, or does he go back to Torres and we all know the problems he has got at the moment! Mainly not being able to kick a ball properly, let alone score!

On a quick side note, an interesting fact for you. Currently, Fernando Torres has scored more league goals for Liverpool (four) this calendar year than for Chelsea (three). Torres was at Liverpool for a month and has been at Chelsea for 11 months. Oh how the mighty have fallen!

Back to business and the final problem with Chelsea is that notion that all the purists of the game shiver at the prospect: Player Power. It's well known that Jose Mourinho had his favourites during his time at Chelsea mainly being Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Cech etc. Ever since he left, ever single managerial reign since bar Carlo Ancellotti has been dubbed with infighting and battle for control of the club. Leaks from many sources have been frequent recently which has led to the banning of Academy players from the main training. I wouldn't be too disheartened by this as an academy player. It means there's no chance of Ashley Cole "accidently" shooting you with a rifle. Unfortunately the bigger and more influential players can't seem to take no for an answer and they will have their way and play their way even if it can be completely ineffective. It has to be the mangers fault in some of the player’s eyes, although to be fair that's probably the same at any football club these days if things are going badly.

None of the younger players have the guts to stand up to them especially John Terry. I'm sorry but Terry should've been replaced ages ago. He's got no pace, less and less movement every game and looks like he's going to f**k up every tackle he goes into. The England game against Spain in which he didn't play in showed that he's no longer needed either as 1st choice defender for his country or for his leadership either. There are new young leaders coming through like Phil Jones Jack Rodwell and others, which is what we will need at the Euros. Also soon enough, Terry might be a convicted racist but that remains to be seen. One we do know is, although the fans have that banner: JT, Captain Leader Legend, I think everyone outside Chelsea can see that he is nasty piece of work, thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread and certainly not a legend.

And no those huddles he seems to conduct at the end of every game Chelsea scrape through to win is not leading. That's acting to try and show a united club. The fact is that Chelsea has been a divided club for a long time and it might finally be starting to cost them.

Thanks for reading. If I don't post again before, I hope you all have a very merry christmas and that it is prosperous and happy for all (I hope especially you get all the presents you want and that your favourite team gets three points!) Stay tuned because before the end of the year I shall be compiling my list of the Top Ten Sporting Moments of the Year

So until next time, The Outsider is Out!

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

Well today has been a truly sad day in not just the world of football, but for I suspect quite a lot of people across Britain as well. The news that Gary Speed was found dead this morning after apparently committing suicide. What I shall do now before getting into more details about today is look back best I can on the career of what was probably the first footballer I ever knew by name.

To say that he had an excellent playing career would be a massive understatement. He played 840 career games, scoring a total of 134 goals. He also is the second highest appearance maker in the Premier League with 535, only beaten by David James. Before Sheffield United were relegated back to the Championship he shared with Ryan Giggs the distinction of scoring at least one goal in every season since the Premier Leagues inauguration. He played in two League Cup finals once with Leeds and once with Bolton, losing both times. His crowning moment however was when he won the First Divison Championship with Leeds, in the final season before the Premier League replaced Division One as the top league in English football. Along with this he secured 85 caps for his country Wales, the second highest amount behind only Neville Southall.

He was one of those players who was able to adapt to any situation, as I seem to remember him being in a more defensive role for both Bolton and Sheffield United but was still able to get amongst the goals. I wouldn't say he was the complete midfielder but he wasn't far off it. Every time I have watched him play, you could see the passion, the drive to try and get everything that was possible out of the game. Always one of the first names on any teamsheet, he rarely failed in giving it his all. So as a player, he was never the greatest, but nearly always the most important for any team he played for. The Model Professional.

By last year he had made the transition into management and got the Wales job last December. He was doing quite a brilliant job with the only defeat Wales having recently was against England and that was a game they should've easily drawn. Their World Cup qualifying group looked promising as well.

As a man he seemed like a very nice person who gave advice to many young players going through the system at many different clubs and player like Robbie Savage and Craig Bellamy have previously praised him for his kindness at the beggining of their international careers. He was one of those people was in the spotlight, but wasn't if you see what I mean. He wouldn't be the first person you would think of first thing in the morning or when discussing football matters but if you saw him on TV, you'd know what his name was. Or if he came up in a random conversation, you would know who he was.

To say that his death is tragic is again a masssive piece of understatement. My shock at this news was probably confounded by the fact that just yesterday, I was watching Football Focus and he was on the show. He seemed happy all show, was having a laugh about the old days with his former Leeds teammate Gary Mcallister, expressing his pleasure at how well his national side was doing and how confident he was about World Cup qualification. Dan Walker, the presenter said on his twitter page today how he recorded the focus forum afterwards with Speed and said how he was talking about his family, golf and football with no sign at all of what was going to happen. Emotion has been shown by all comers, with many of my freinds and followers on twitter expressing their sadness at his passing. Shay Given was in tears before the Swansea vs Aston Villa match began and Craig Bellamy withdrew from the Liverpool squad to face Manchester City.

On a quick side note, it's quite sad in a way that it takes an event like this to realise that football doesn't matter. Not really. 

I suppose the question over the coming days, will be as Robbie Savage, one of Gary's closest freinds said on twitter: Why? From the outside Gary Speed seemed to have it all. A close family with a wife and two sons. A clean bill of health, a healthy managerial career and respect from many quarters in football.

Those answers will probably start to unravel over the next few days. But for now lets remember Gary Speed as the great footballer and great man. I just hope after todays outpouring of sympathy and tribute, that he knew how much people liked and respected him.

RIP

1969-2011

 

Super Sunday (More than just Football)

Hello all again. This blog is now being read in Russia! Perhaps my hope that this will be read by millions will come true! Anyway down to business.



There's only one game in the Premier League today and that's Chelsea vs. Liverpool. Always a huge game in each teams seasons, this is undoubtly too close to call. Chelsea play too much of a high line in defence and that suits the game of Suarez and Bellamy who must surely start up front together. However there is the threat of the Chelsea attack which could consist of Drogba, Malouda, Sturridge Lampard and many others that can break a defence down any day of the week. Both midfield are pretty even too with pace, creativity and power in both.

You'll have noticed that I didn't mention Fernando Torres. Now of course as a Liverpool fan myself, I hope he has a nightmare today. I've been saying to my freinds all week if Torres plays Liverpool are perfectly safe as long as the ball is right in front of the target! However with my unbias head on, you can't help but feeling that if he has a great game today it might finally be the spark he needs to get into a run of consistent form (which is not absoloutly rubbish). Of course also it'll be sods law if Torres scores a hat-trick against Liverpool today!

However, for Chelsea they will have to be wary of Luis Suarez. If he turns up there will be problems in the Chelsea defence adding to the fact that Andre Villas Boas still isn't 100% sure on the make up of his back four. I was surprised to see that Suarez has only scored four goals this season, because it feels like he's done so much more. Nobody can deny, despite the recent racism allegations, that as a footballer he is a class act and on form he can beat a team on his own.

So I shall say a 1-0 win for Liverpool and I'm comforted by the fact that Kenny Dalglish has never lost a game as Liverpool manager against Chelsea (8 wins and 3 draws to be precise).



Also happening on this Super Sunday is the start of the World Tour Tennis Finals at the O2 Arena in London, with Roger Federer playing as I type. He, as always is ones of the favourites, along with Murray and Nadal, but it's difficult to look beyond Novak Djokovic, with his amount of losses in 2011 in singles is quite staggering and I predict he shall beat Nadal in the final next Sunday.



The final part of Super Sunday (Well early Monday morning in the UK) is WWE Survivor Series in Madison Square Garden in New York, where Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson returns to team with his Wrestlemania 28 opponent John Cena against the Miz and R-Truth. The Cena-Rock match at 'Mania is being promoted hugely in the US and this match shall have many eyes glued to their screen to see if they both can co-exist. We must not forget that there is real-life animosity between these two and you must wonder whether this will play a factor in the success or not of this match. Furthermore CM Punk goes in to the garden to attempt to win the WWE title from Alberto Del Rio. Lets just say that nearly everybody who is anybody wants him to win this match and have his chance at the top of the company.

So sit back relax and enjoy Super Sunday. The results shall be fascinating and may be talked about for a very long time.

So until next time the Outsider is out!

Time for the Lions to Roar

Hello and welcome to my first blog post it what seems like an age!

Preparations for England's game against Spain have been overshadowed by the John Terry racism row and the row over whether they could wear poppies (shame on you FIFA!) This is the only time I shall mention these incidents in this post as I shall now be focusing on the game itself.

Now many newspapers reports I have seen this week are panicking at the fact that Fabio Capello is going to use more of his youthful and inexperienced squad members against the best international team in the world, European and World Champions Spain.

Now while at first this sounds like a horrifying prospect I have to disagree with the papers negativity. This is indeed the perfect opportunity to see if the youngsters are up to the challenge.

Now let's us face reality. If all goes with the script tomorrow Spain will comfortably beat England. There squad is clearly superior (You can tell that from the fact that they can leave players like Fabregas on the bench and not have any problems) and form wise there are on an incredible roll. This means that England have nothing to lose and all to gain.

This refers to the youngsters who would get the confidence boosts of their careers if they could upset the odds and beat Spain. The seniors of the side like Terry Lampard Barry and others are known to have choked in international tournaments and really cannot be relied on for England to have a successful Euro 2012.

The youngsters like Phil Jones and Chris Smalling need the experience from somewhere not just for next summer but the upcoming World Cup in 2014 in Brazil. By then the likes of Gerrard Ferdinand Lampard and co will have gone and it'll be up to a new era to steer England to success. Now is the time for Capello to see who is and who is not up to the task.

It shall give England a small chance of winning Euro 2012 because now still 7 months away from the tournament Capello shall probably know what the majority of his squad will be barring injuries.

So hopefully tomorrow will go well. I shall predict a 3-1 victory for Spain but all I really want to see is a good quality performance by England. If they can do that with a young team then maybe some belief shall be installed back into us all again.

Thanks for reading and until next time The Outsider is out!

A Week is a Long Time Part 2

Hello again :)

So after addressing the football I shall now address the main political event of the past week and as usual these days they don't make pretty reading!

There was the vote on Britain's EU membership in the commons on should we have a referendum on staying in or coming out. In the end the government won comfortably with over 400 MPs voting no but 81 eurosceptic Tory MPs defied the three line whip and rebelled breaking the previous record of 41 members rebelling on a Europe vote during Sir John Majors Premiership.

Now for those people out there who don't have a clue what a three line whip in basic terms it's when the political party's top brass demand that every single MP in that particular party vote with the Government and not rebel. Anyone who doesn't comply can be punished and if any government member rebels then they get the sack. Iain Duncan Smith the work and pensions secretary apparently threatened to resign if ever again he had to vote against his principles.

The main problem here is that there was absolutely no need for the Tory three line whip to be imposed. Labour and the Europe friendly Lib Dems had already imposed a three line whip and their number combined nearly equates to half of parliaments MPs and the other parties in the commons are not all exactly eurosceptic. The government would've easily won whatever whip was imposed so to tell people with specific beliefs that they have to vote a certain way is staggering and is not democracy at all more bordering on dictatorship

My local MP Stephen McPartland was one of the 81 who rebelled. In my local paper he spoke the words that the majority of the country is thinking.
"I believe it is wrong that people under the age of 54 have never had the opportunity to vote on the issue of issue of Europe. I believe in choice and people should be able to choose what relationship they would like with Europe"
That sums it all up in a nutshell!

For the record I'm a Conservative supporter and shall vote for them when I'm able to. I believe the austerity measures being taken are painful but necessary and were caused by Labours horrific last government, although I promise thats the only time ill ever say that because even Im bored with government members saying that nearly every day of the week. But I'm not a person who will just praise everything the government and David Cameron does just because I'm a Tory.

All party supporters should give criticism when it's due and the Prime Minister has missed a golden opportunity to adhere himself to voters by steering to giving them more of a say. Instead he packs the TV visible benches with women to try and get more women voters. Ed Miliband will probably start doing this to with his "MiliBabes". How sad can you get?

The most important fact however is that in a national newspaper survey this week it found that almost half the country wanted a referendum on Europe immediately. Perhaps it's time the politicians listen to the people who put them there more often, otherwise I fear democracy may never really be fully recognisable again.

Thanks for reading again. Just to let you know I shall soon be starting a series of articles looking at popular sports across different countries, seeing what impact they have and how do they compare to the UK, so you all have something to look forward to ;)

So until next time The Outsider is out!

A Week is a Long Time! Part 1

Hello again everyone,
I'm back from my holiday in Cyprus and boy did I miss the best premier league game in a while!

The first I heard about the City vs United score was in a local Cypriot Kiosk where they had some English papers printed. When I saw the back pages I, like anyone for that matter was gobsmacked. United 1-6 City. Must've been a misprint surely.

But as this result sinked in you get the sense that the winds of change really are blowing. Sir Alex Ferguson obviously knows this after calling that result his worst day in football. The toughest challenge of his managerial career is upon him and it is one he cannot afford to fail in simply because it is for the pride of Manchester.

City now seem to have a stronger squad and seem to be playing with more confidence. The pride of the City shirt has returned and the players with the egos are starting to do what's vest for the team and not themselves Balotelli is completely bonkers but at least his anitics (and fireworks) are away from the pitch at the moment. Although you sense it's only a matter of time before he does an Ashley Cole and shoots an academy member with an air rifle during training!

Of course United know a thing or two about winning title races and it is certainly not over yet. But reading the match report for the game made it feel like a definitive moment and that this might well be the time for City to make the transition from noisy neighbours to the best club team in England.

Moving on then to Arsenal. Crisis, what crisis? 5-3 win over Chelsea, 1/4 finals of Carling Cup going well in the Champions League couple of points behind Liverpool and Spurs in the League, it's all coming back together for Arsene Wengers Men, not to mention Robin Van Persie who is in the form of his life which is almost single handedly thrusting Arsenal up the table. A few weeks ago we were writing them off not they have turned the battle for fourth place into a 3 way battle (Sorry Newcastle it's not happening although stranger things have happened) So for Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal it's game on my friends game on!

Finally a quick word on the 2 racism rows going on. We should all put club allegiances aside and hope the book is thrown at John Terry and Luis Suarez if they did make racist remarks towards Anton Ferdinand and Patrice Evra respectively. We should also hope that the book is thrown at Ferdinand and Evra if they are found to be lying about these most serious of allegations (I believe Evra is but hey I'm no professional)

Thanks for reading, stay tuned in the next couple of hours as I shall have another blog up on the political events of the past week. Lib Dem rant anyone?

So until then the Outsider is out! :)

Where's Gaddafi? Ah there here is!

Ah I've got 1 post before I go off on holiday and it's my first step into the political realm!

Well theres only one story worth talking about now isn't there? Liam Fox must be thanking the Lord that the spotlight is off him, whilst Libyan rebels finally captured and killed Colonel Gaddafi.

Of course there is much debate going on right now on how he died and the UN seem concerned enough by the possibility that he might have be executed that they have demanded a full investigation.

Some would say that it doesn't matter how Gaddafi died as he was by all account a murderous dictator who had no sense of reality (He wasn't called Mad Dog for nothing you know!) Others would say it's never right to murder/anyone whatever there past contains. Both arguments are valid and can easily be asserted but I highly doubt we shall ever see a definitive answer.

Libyans now though have a great chance to create a peaceful democratic country if they put their minds to it. Unfortunately even before Gaddafi their politics was dominated by secrecy, brutality and just a sense of not being nice to anyone. But as Jeremy Bowen said on BBC News if they put there minds to it there's the possibility of a democratic Libya becoming very successful!

A mention must be made for NATO and the UN as well. To be fair to them if it wasn't for them Bengazhi would've fallen and we'd be back to square one. But with hours to spare resolution 1973 was enforced and it saved the revolution perhaps the entire Arab spring. The person who led this with President Sarkozy was David Cameron who now has a first military victory, which is a rare plus point for the coalition at the moment.

Of course there's a long way to go for Libya for it to become to fully running country again, but with Gaddafi now gone who knows? Perhaps they will be able to get onto the UN security council. Pakistan did earlier today so why can't they?

Thanks for reading, I shall blog again when I get back from holiday (probably back to some sports writing!). I'm also thinking of a little series to do on a specific subject or something like that, but I haven't decided yet so I'll keep you posted!

So until next time the Outsider is out! :)

Up the Toon!

Just a quick Post. One team that I didn't mention that I should've done is the suprise package so far this season; Newcastle. Along with Manchester City and United they are unbeaten and lie 4th after an impressive 2-2 all with Spurs. Shoala Ameobi looks like a new man and the signing of Demba Ba from West Ham looks like a masterstroke.

It's great to see that a group of players that are not seen as world beaters are mixing it with the so called big teams, but then again it wasn't long ago that Newcastle were consistently in the fight for a top 4 finish. Only a couple of years ago the unthinkable was happening and relegation to the championship became a dire reality.

Even when they got back immediatly into the premier league, it wasn't plain sailing. Chris Hughton was unfairly sacked and Alan Pardew was brought in at first without 100% player and fan support, but he has turned it around brilliantly as he now is the highest placed English Manager in the league at the moment. England job anyone?

Personally I feel they will not finish fourth and a top 10 finish is a more realistic target, but as always in football you never truly know until it has happened!

Thanks for reading and until next time, The Outsider is Out! :)

A Premier Leauge Review

Welcome all to my first post.

Hopefully millions of people shall be reading this. ;)

I shall begin with the thing I love most in the world; football. As I'm off to Cyprus next week I shall be missing 2 weekends of action, so for me it is a good time to reflect on the season so far, especially for my club Liverpool.

This time a year ago, Liverpool had just got new owners and relegation looked a distinct possibility. Now after over £100 million investment, the Reds are in the top 5 and have got a real chance of a top 4 finish and a return to the Champions League. Saturday's performance against Man United was very good and we would've had 3 points if it hadn't been for the usual late United goal! With Gerrard back and looking fully fit, it could be a very good season indeed.

The team that will challenge Liverpool for 4th will be Spurs. It's first blood to them with them having a game in hand and the 4-0 thrashing of us last month (I really can't wait for a chance for revenge and hopefully to silence my Spurs supporting friends!). When the transfer window closed I thought they'd had a nightmare by selling quite a few players and turning down £40 million for Modric. In fact it was the best decision they have ever made and with the addition of Scott Parker to bolster the midfield their squad is looking as strong as ever. The injury to Ledley King during the game against Newcastle is a setback though.

Arsenal fans will probably think they can still get back up there as well. Personally I feel the squad still lacks depth and relies too heavily up front on Van Persie, whose magnificence against Sunderland shows how much they will need to rely on him this season. If Arsene Wenger could actually teach Theo Walcott to keep the ball for more than 3 seconds they might get somewhere. They will definitely finish top 10, but I can't see them getting higher than 6th.

A quick mention for the new teams and the relegation battle. Blackburn and Wigan I think will definitely go down, but none of the new teams will join them. I'm keeping a close eye on Norwich especially this season as, their striker Steve Morison, used to play for my local club Stevenage only a few years ago and is now getting praise from the likes of Alan Shearer which is great to see. I hope he does well for club and country for many years to come.

Finally for today, the big debate. The title race. Red or Blue. City or United. (Not Chelsea! They’re not going to win the league but they're in no danger from Liverpool or Spurs so they'll finish 3rd)

Both City and United's Squad are impressive in attack but a bit shaky in defence. The central pairing of Ferdinand and Vidic doesn't inspire anymore, whilst Kompany, Lescott and Toure lack in pace which could prove costly in the Manchester derby next week. Both sides quality of attack is mouth watering though with Rooney, Welbeck, Hernandez, Nani just to name a few and for City Aguero, Ballotelli, David Silva and so on (I would say Tevez but he's a greedy idiot so we'll move on) The Manchester derby should give an inkling on should shall ultimately win the war. United have the experience, but City have no fear, even if that means fighting with each other in training every once in a while. Certainly Aguero is there trump card. If he can stay fit and continue this rich vein of form I think City have enough to win the league, but as always you can never count United out. Love them or hate them, there ethos of Never give up is astounding.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, please comment what you think and maybe what I should do to improve. This is all about me practising my writing skills so I have a head start when I hopefully go to Uni to study Journalism so any constructive criticism is welcome!

So until next time The Outsider is Out!