Voy Por Ustedes

Very much looking forward to football tomorrow. My enthusiasm has been renewed. I am ready. It's been tricky wading through all the nonsense in the newspapers to find something interesting and informative about the new season. The Telegraph for example are running an article today I'd usually expect to find in the Daily Mail about how English players are now a minority in the Premiership.

This is of course not true. Of the 595 players in the Premiership 45% are English. That's 268 players from England. Far more than from any other country. English players are only a minority if you lump all the other players not from this country into one category, which would be daft and just an extension of our rabid xenophobia.

The argument that England's shrinking numbers in the top league will hamper the national team from winning anything is also nonsense and the very oldest of chestnuts. It's actually more likely that football in this country discriminating against it's own players will kill off any chance England have of winning the World Cup rather than ship loads of Jonny Foreigners coming over here and stealing our game.

Football discriminates against the middle classes. That's a fact. How many players can you think of who have an education beyond Comprehensive school? How many players have fathers whose occupations required an education beyond just Comprehensive school? About 5 I think is the answer. Education is frowned upon still. This is actually a fact and has been proven. Also, the Asian community are faced with the same levels of discrimination that black players endured in the 1980's...probably worse actually. If we limit our own pool of talent then we are of course limiting our ability to win nationally.

So let's hear no more about this foreign invasion soiling our national teams' prospects. It has improved our game and I deny anyone who has watched Dennis Bergkamp, or Thierry Henry or Gianfranco Zola, or Christiano Ronaldo to argue otherwise. So there.

The "experts" have been discharging verbal diarrhoea regarding the Premier League in equal quantities. Most pungent I find are the deposits left by anyone who used to play for Liverpool - Hansen and Lawrenson especially - who year after year insist that this is the season Liverpool finally become Champions. Of course, they won't.

Arsenal will definitely slip out of the top four this season apparently. Of course, they won't. I'm biased here of course, but Arsenal are in better shape now than last season. I want it on the record that a second placed finish at least is more likely than them dropping out of the top four.

Manchester United are in deep shit. They have to find about 30 goals from somewhere having let Ronaldo and Tevez go. Owen is worth 10 at the most. Chelsea look the strongest team to me. With the exception of some really shit teams - your Hulls, Pompeys and Burnelys - everyone else could finish 5th or 17th. That's what I think.

I shall probably not have anything like a proper bet on tomorrow's game as I generally prefer to wait until the players' tans have faded and some kind of form has started to develop before I start putting my Lego money on games. I do fancy Fulham to beat Pompey though and I shall have a small interest in them possibly in a double with Stoke.

I like the 6/1 you can get on Mark Hughes to be the first manager sacked. I'm amazed he still has a job to be honest. The man uses all of his 35 IQ points just to dress himself, how someone has trusted him with a cabillion pound football team is a baffling state of affairs.

Just for fun cause I know how to enjoy myself, I shall list my predictions for this weekend's fixture.

Aston Villa v Wigan - Villa win
Blackburn v Manchester City - Blackburn win
Bolton v Sunderland - Draw
Chelsea v Hull - Chelsea win
Everton v Arsenal - Arsenal win obviously
Manchester United v Birmingham - Draw
Portsmouth v Fulham - Fulham win
Stoke v Burnley - Stoke win
Totterington v Liverpool - Draw
Wolves v West Ham - West Ham win