If you beleive the bookies then Chelsea are even money to win the title by a massive ten points again this season


According to William Hill, Chelsea are even money to get 90 points with Man Utd on 80, Arsenal on 78 and Liverpool on 76 (you can get even money on those teams getting above that number of points. Tottenham and Newcastle round out the top six.


At the bottom of the table Sheffield Utd and Watford are firm favorites to return to the Championship at first time with Reading, Fulham and Charlton battling for the other place - unless of course David Dein is found out at trying to fix matches in which case Arsenal will be relegated to the old third division at which time Chelsea will execute their $600m clause to take over the Emirates stadium and Arsenal will be relocated to their old home town of Woolwich.


Returning to reality - Aston Villa, Wigan, Weat Ham, Everton and Portsmouth according to the William Hill bookies will round out the bottom half - leaving Man City, Blackburn, Bolton and Middlesboro to fight it out for the Intertoto Cup - Which should really be called the UEFA Preliminary back door rounds as you do not win anything in the Intertoto Cup any more.

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One of the longest transfer sagas is about to come to its inevitable end this week with the transfer fo Ashley Cole from Arsenal to Chelsea


The departure of Asier Del Horno to Valencia means that Chelsea require another left back to support Wayne Bridge and all the signs post towards Ashley Cole. Sky Sports reported today that Arsenal Chairman Hill Wood has stated:

I think things are happening but I'd really rather not talk about them at the moment

So while both Chelsea and Arsenal are keeping their cards close to their chests it would seem that the move is finally inevitable. According to Jose Mourhino:

Ashley Cole is an Arsenal player, I don't think it is correct to say something. As Peter [Kenyon] was saying we have Wayne Bridge coming back, his [loan] experience in Fulham was good. Good for them, good for Wayne but also very good for us and he is a player that we trust and we also have to wait to see what is happening with Del Horno.If we arrive into a conclusion of selling him and if that happens then we will have a space there and a space there of course has to be to a good player. Ashley Cole is a good player yes, but as Peter was saying we are, from your point of view, connected with every good left-back in European football so we have to wait but at this moment we have Del Horno and Wayne Bridge, and I repeat Ashley Cole is an Arsenal player.

So as Mourhino says, once we have sold Del Horno there will be a space available. Of course other players mentioned have been Roberto Carlos, Phillip Lamm and Zambrotta. Zambrotta has signed for Barcelona, Bayern do not wish to lose Lamm and Carlos may just be coming up to his past due date.


It makes a nice change to see Chelsea poaching players from Arsenal as opposed to what used to happen five years ago - Sol Cambell from Spurs and John Terry was heavily speculated as going to Highbury until Abramovich came along. At the end of the day Ashley Cole has never forgiven Arsenal for his treatment during the tap up scandal last year which was hypocritical at the least and an abuse of power within the FA at the worst.


It will be good to see the two Coles, Ashley and Joe terrorising defences on the left hand side and with Salomon Kalou also a demon left winger defences in the Premiership beware!!


Related Article: Cole Fire Burning

Here's a sample of what we've got to look forward to from Sheva next season (double click on image):

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UEFA Team Ranking 2008

The UEFA team ranking is determined by the UEFA team coefficients in the last 5 years. The team ranking is used for the seeding of draws.



For the full figures, click here

With the non-World Cup players now back at training and the rest of the squad back over the next two weeks depending how far their country got in the tournament, the countdown is now on for the Pre-season games


To add to all the excitement, Adidas now take on mantle as Team Shirt sponsor and have been tantilising Chelsea supporters by releasing images of different parts of the shirt on the Chelsea and Adidas websites over the past couple of weeks. I could understand the excitement if it was some blonde performing a striptease - but Frank Lampard or Michael Ballack - no thank you.
Anyway, according to the Adidas site, we are 2 days, 4 hours and 24 minutes away from the release - click here


No pictures yet of the shirt, but here's the new Adidas Chelsea Short

Woven shorts with jersey inner, side pockets, 3 Stripes at legs and adidas embroidery at left leg. Outer 100% polyester. Inner 65% polyester 35% cotton. Exciting stuff, isn't it?


Anyway the strip will make its first appearance during the pre-season friendlies which are as follows:

Its amazing that we play Liverpool at Home on September 16 which will mean that we will have played them no less than 12 times in two years. It really has become the grudge match for both teams and Liverpool probably represent the main challengers to Chelsea at this time based on their transfer activity over the close season and the lack thereof from Arsenal and Man Utd to this point.


With Mourhino accumulating a host of world class midfielders and with Duff likely to go to Spurs (if we beleive the rumours) there is certainly a lot of speculation on whether Chelsea will adopt a 4-4-2 formation as opposed to their normal 4-3-3 on a more regular basis.


By the time the league kicks off for Chelsea at Home to Man City on Aug 20 we hould have a better idea how comfortable we will be looking for "three straight" Premiership titles.


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