Crystal Balls

In the next post I'll be providing a reasoned, thoughful and hopefully debate-inspiring preview of the Premier League season that is on the brink of getting under way. In this one I'm going to take a more irreverent approach. Basically take the piss out of the whole thing.

So, without further ado, here is the SubPlease list of things that will define this season...

• By September 1st, Manchester City will have bought every single player. Just buy them all. You can't lose if the other team exists only in name and has no players, it's a brilliant and foolproof strategy.

• Arsenal's players all die. Wenger refuses to buy any more, putting faith in his medical team.

• Ian Holloway is loved and worshipped by everyone for his humourous approach, his soundbite heavy interviews, even his bloody accent. It matters for nothing however as his team get humiliatingly ruined week after week. His facade gradually erodes before the watching Match of the Day cameras until, after an 8-1 raping in April at the hands of a rampant Wolves team, he just flips out and goes mental live on air. It becomes the stuff of YouTube legend, due to his accent. You see, he has an accent. Did I mention to look out for his accent? Accent.

• Mere weeks into the season, Roberto Mancini is facing the sack due to failure to keep the 483 unplaying members of his playing squad happy. They are forced to pass their time spending their reported £300'000 a week as they see fit, presumably texting pictures of themselves in baggy white pants to local wannabe slag...sorry 'Wags'.

• Fresh from the signings of South Park juvenile temptress 'Bebe' and Fiat roadster 'Chicharito', Ferguson continues trying to build up an entire squad of nicknamed players. He signs 'Mugsy', 'Knuckles' and 'Stretch' before realising he has inadvertently reunited Fat Sam's gang from Busgy Malone. They beat Blackpool 5-1.

• Kenwyne Jones will quit his new club Stoke and sign for Brentford. Then he will announce he is moving to Atletico Madrid. After that fails he will get a job as a server in TGI Friday's, before trying a stint as a barbers pole. He just loves red and white stripes, you see.

• After every single weekend of the season, one or all of the tabloids will write a particular team out of the title race. Eventually realising they have written every single team out of the race, The Sun declares the whole thing to be a figment of the readers imagaination. To verify it, they have a dubious quote from a 'close source'. Not one of their readers questions this.

• 9 months later, after an exciting season whereby numerous 'smaller' teams make a spirited charge for the title, it will boil down to Chelsea and Man U finishing above everyone else. Yawn. The Australian Soccer League - now there's a competition...Go Heart!!