Tony Cascarino’s Column: Arsenal Worst Place to Start for West Brom, Chelsea the Team to Beat, Wigan the Surprise Package, QPR Not Good Enough, Birmingham Men Against Southampton Boys!

As most of you will know already I am a man that likes a flutter and after examining the Premier 10 and Footy 15 matches this weekend, there are definitely a few ‘bankers’ in there to get you all started. After all, I can’t see any of the top four slipping up at the first hurdle though you may be surprised at a few of my other selections.

The biggest ‘home banker’ of the lot has to be Arsenal entertaining West Brom as there is no worse place to start the season than a trip to the Emirates. Personally, I would make West Brom my favourites to go down as after watching them last season I cannot see them being strong enough defensively for the top flight. In fact, I wouldn’t bet against them conceding a record number of goals this season despite their new recruits.

Chelsea’s opener against Portsmouth will be an extremely tight match but I would back Big Phil to get off to a winning start. Whether Chelsea switch to an outright attacking style as many have predicted is highly debatable but I’m sure they’ll play more with a mixture of their usual powerful style with a bit of flair thrown in. For me, Chelsea are the team to beat this season as last season they ran United extremely close despite a number of first team regulars missing important matches. If they can keep the defensive pair of Ricardo Carvalho and John Terry fit and available then they will take some stopping.

Two managers I expect to get off to tricky starts are Mark Hughes and Paul Ince as defeat is on the cards for both. Man City travel to Aston Villa in what will be a tight match but I fancy Martin O’Neill’s boys for this one mainly because they’re the more organised of the two teams. Everton may have failed to bring any new players in as of yet but in front of their home crowd they should overcome Blackburn.

There are two unfancied sides from last season who I expect to perform well this time out which are Fulham and Wigan. I think Roy Hodgson pulled off an excellent coup by signing Andrew Johnson from Everton and he will prove to be a very good buy. In fact, I would go as far as to say that his strike partner last season Yakubu partly managed to score as many goals as he did due to the work rate and unselfish running of Johnson. Hodgson has added some other useful acquisitions this summer and I feel they will begin the new season with a rare away win.

Wigan are my choice to be surprise team of the season. Steve Bruce has kept hold of the players he wanted to keep at the club and brought in some good players. The Latics ended the season strongly and may surprise a few people starting with a win at Upton Park.

In regards to the Championship matches from the Footy 15 list this week the game between Sheffield United and QPR springs to my attention. After all, a lot of people have backed Iain Dowie’s side to win promotion this season but for me it’s a case of ‘smoke and mirrors’ at the club concerning all this reported wealth and funds available. In my opinion they are not good enough to get out of the Championship with the team they’ve currently got. I also watched Sheffield United last weekend and thought they did pretty well and were unlucky to lose so I would back them to win this one.

Then there’s Southampton’s match with Birmingham. It’s got to be Birmingham hasn’t it? After all, the Southampton team is made up of kids, they’ve got no players, I reckon the groundsman will be playing next. Seriously though, I can see them shipping plenty of goals this season even though they didn’t do too badly up at Cardiff last weekend. Birmingham on the other hand have some good players, they have the likes of Marcus Bent, James McFadden and Kevin Phillips in their squad who all performed well in the Premier League so I see them doing well this season.

For all of you who expect Celtic to win convincingly at Dundee United, think again. On paper, it should be an away win but Gordon Strachan’s side are not looking very convincing so I’m going to stick my neck out and predict a draw. After all, for me the Tangerines are the next best team in the SPL after Rangers so this should be a tight game.

Whether you agreed with me or not, good luck with your own Premier 10 and Footy 15 selections this week it certainly should turn out to be yet another entertaining weekend of football but not for the Baggies!

 Read Alan Hansen’s Column Here>>>

Find out what Tony has predicted this week as well as the choices of John Barnes, Alan Hansen, Former Referee Graham Poll, Radio 1 DJ Chappers plus many more. Click here to read>>

Tags: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Blackburn, Celtic, Chelsea, Dundee United, Everton, footy 15, Fulham, Man City, Portsmouth, Premier 10, QPR, Sheffield United, Southampton, Tony Cascarino, West Brom, Wigan

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