Football
Lets start with the Premiership. At the top of the table Man City went from looking like an unbeatable force to a bunch of squabbling school kids in a matter of months, whilst Sir Alex Ferguson has shown that once again he has the team to last a full season. In my opinion you'd be absolutely mental if you can look at the table now and think Man United are not going to win, unless Mancini does some kind of deal with the devil, maybe if he just refuses to play Balotelli he'd stand a chance. The fight for the remaining champions league places goes on, with Tottenham fading, Newcastle surging, and Arsenal and Chelsea fighting in there too. After their win against city, Arsenal are looking strong to finish in third, and recovering some of the form from previous years. I hope, for Arsenal and the Premier league's sake, Van Persie stays at Arsenal because he is a brilliant player, and Arsenal would not be third without him. Newcastle have shown January signings can work, and Alan Pardew has done brilliantly at creating and shaping a team that has many different dimensions, and genuinely they look genuinely capable of beating anyone right now. Di Matteo has done well restoring confidence to the Chelsea side, but in my opinion they will have to wait another year for any success in the PL. And if Barcelona score first in their European tie, Chelsea may as well go home. The midfield pack is shaping up with the usual suspects, with Liverpool floundering in the new year and Norwich playing some brilliant football of their own. Mr Lambert has to be up for Manager of the year. Towards the bottom of the table and there aren't many surprises here, Swansea are safe due to some brilliant flowing football, but the bottom 3 aren't a shock at all. Wolves and Wigan have both been hovering around relegation for years and i just don't think they're premiership quality. With some of the players Blackburn have they really shouldn't be in this mess, but I think they deserve to go down this year, and have a complete restructuring. I hope Mark Hughes and QPR survive, he's the kind of manager that could do very well with the financial backing he would have at QPR. All in all i don't expect too much movement before the end of the season, maybe Newcastle to take fourth, and as a West ham fan I hope Chelsea can nick fifth from Tottenham.
Championship now and it seems the automatic places are all but decided. Reading and Southampton play each other next for a potential title decider. West Ham's awful home form means they are most likely going to have to settle for third, not what anyone at West Ham wanted. Portsmouth are making a mad dash for survival, and I would (given their financial troubles) love them to make it, but it doesn't look likely. I would expect the playoff places to stay the same now as well, possibly Leicester to sneak in with their nice goal difference cushion.
Cricket
England managed to transform themselves once again, this time from a dominating side into one struggling to even bat out a single day. They need to refocus, and get their batting back to where it was. The bowling has not ever really been in question, they still restrict their opponents to reasonable scores, sometimes very low scores, but the batsmen cannot get the targets that are required. Hopefully after winning the last test against Sri Lanka, they can come back with a bit more confidence and actually put up a fight for their number one ranking.
Rugby Union
Wales were victorious in the Six Nations after playing some wonderful rugby. And although fortuitous against Ireland with the last minute penalty that was a bit dubious, no successful campaign is possible without a small piece of luck. England showed they could still play some decent rugby, in no small part due to Lancaster coming in and getting England back to playing the way they play best, solid with few errors and a reliable kicker. Hopefully England can build on that for the next world cup. Scotland looked like a team completely lacking in ability and confidence, and the Italians took advantage of that in one of the poorest games of rugby I have ever seen. Still the Italians played to their pack strength and got the result. France looked brilliant at points, but so flimsy at others, serious improvement is needed on their part if they want to make any marks on future competitions.
Formula one
McLaren look like they've finally delivered a winning car for their world champion drivers. Red Bull are looking way off the pace, and the Ferrari looks as though it has a Roulette function built in, brilliant one day, undrivable the next. If Lewis and Jenson can stay consistent with their racing, there is no reason they should not win this year. Sergio Perez has to be the talking point so far though, absolutely brilliant drive in Malaysia, and he really outperformed with the car that he had. The next race will be massive.
Tennis
What we've learnt this year in the world of tennis:
- Federer is still a class act
- Djokovic is bordering on the superhuman in terms of physicality
- Nadal is complaining about the structure of the calendar and ranking system
- No-one outside the top 4 has a chance of winning much this year
- Great Britain are still not good enough to play with the big boys of tennis
Golf
McIlroy v Woods. The showdown that just didn't happen. I just dint know why people thought it would. Woods has been out the running for so long, then he wins one tournament and suddenly people are saying 'he's back to his best'. Not by a long way. As for McIlroypre-tournament favourites. Watson deserved the jacket for some brilliantly solid rounds of gold, as well as a brilliant nervy recovery shot from the trees on the playoff. McIlroy or Woods could win a major this year, but i doubt we'll ever get to see them both finish high up the same major leaderboard.
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