By popular demand...

Regular commenter JJ left a comment on an article a few days back now which prompted requests from numerous people for it to made into it's own article. So by popular demand, here ya go.

I've been looking at the transfer activity of our competitors and really, to date, we have nothing to worry about, discounting the teams we 100% expect to finish above us anyway such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester City, the other teams look rather weak and have lost talent rather than strengthened. Lets take a look:

Aston Villa: In - Nobody. Out - Ashley Young.
Blackburn: In - Nobody. Out - Phil Jones.
Bolton: In - Darren Pratley. Out - Daniel Sturridge, Johan Elmander.
Everton: In - Nobody.
Fulham: In - Nobody
Liverpool: In - Jordan Henderson. Average Joe player who doesn’t strengthen them in the least bit, but wastes valuable funds.
Norwich: In - Elliott Bennett, Bradley Johnson, Richie de Laet and Steve Morison. Doesn’t exactly scare me, and I see them finishing rock bottom.
QPR: In - Nobody. Out - Wayne Routeledge, who was great for them.
Stoke: In - Nobody.
Sunderland: In - Connor Wickham for £8m. Massively over-rated and over priced), Seb Larsson, Ji Dong-Won and Craig Gardener. Out - Jordan Henderson. On the whole they have probably improved slightly but not gained much.
Swansea: In - Danny Graham. Out - Darren Pratley. It kind of balances out and I see them being this seasons Hull/Blackpool with a quick start followed by a slow finish.
West Brom: In - Nobody. Out - Scott Carson.
Wigan: In - Nobody. Out - Probably Charles N’Zogbia.
Wolves: In - Dorus de Vries. Out - Nobody.

All in all, we have gained: Yohan Cabaye, Sylvain Marveaux and Demba Ba, and effectively Hatem Ben Arfa and Dan Gosling whilst shedding Kevin Nolan, which makes us slightly stronger in my opinion.

I expect us to at least finish above Wigan, West Brom, Swansea, QPR, Norwich, and Blackburn (for me the weakest Premier League we’ve seen in some time) which puts us into a minimum of 14th place…

We will be competing with the likes of Bolton, Aston Villa, Everton, Fulham, Stoke, and the Scum for that top seven/eight place in my opinion… and just how well we strengthen, or don’t weaken, in the next three weeks will decide that mini-league…

Final summary for us this season: Worst possible outcome we finish 14th. Best possible outcome we finish 7th.
Prediction: Bolton, Everton finish above us and we take 9th place… :) … perhaps one lower if we lose Joey Barton and Jose Enrique without good replacements.

So by popular demand, have a muse over that courtesy of JJ. Agree? Disagree? Let us know.