EPL Half Season

It's now slightly more than half an EPL season. Let's review what happened so far and how's our prediction so far.

As expected, Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea still in the hunt for EPL title, and at first we all thought Liverpool might be able to challenge for the title after years of suffering and it look like finally Rafael Benitez can put together a side capable to challenge for the title.

As usual Man Utd had a slow start this year, and they were nearly being written off just after a few games into the season. Once Rooney and Co clicked in, they are unstoppable, and they could even grinded out results when needed. Ronaldo is in the form of his life, and from the way he plays, it is not difficult for him to hit a record number of goals scored by winger since George Best. Until yesterday he got 27s to George's 32s total. So another 6 goals in 20 odd games should not be a big problem for Ron the boy. Not only these two, Tevez also get into the team fairly fast, and now with Tevez, Rooney and Ronaldo, Man Utd is the most fearsome attacking team of EPL. Don't forget about Ryan Giggs, Scholes, Carrick, Ferdinand, Anderson, Nani, Vidic, Brown and so on. List just keep going and going. All have played their part and surely they will carry on into the second half of season.

Arsenal surprised us most. We thought after the departure of Henry, the gunners will suffer because lack of fire power. Yet in turn they found Adebayor. Record doesn't illustrate him as a natural replacement for Henry, and that his record is hard to convince he is. But after half season, he proved people wrong by being the 2nd highest scorer. What if he grab another few of his chances. Cesc Fabregas and Flamini also a revealation for Prof Arsene. They have form such a combative partnership and they could withhold any of midfield combination of EPL. I think the most worry Arsene has is when one of them is down injured or absent. Arsenal is a totally different team without one or both of them. So whether Arsenal can sustain their good form is remain to be seen

As for Chelsea, they have showed they recovered from the sudden departure of Jose Mourinho. Avram Grant is not well known, and that his record has nothing to show to convince us he's the correct replacement. Yet his recent result proved us wrong and now they are still within touching distance of the big twos. When theirAfrican players are back from African Nation Cup, surely their squad will be stronger and more complete. Then they would mount a serious title challenge to the big two.

As for Liverpool, it is quite a big dissapointment after the bullish x-mas period. They were only few points off the top, as compare to 17 last year same period, we all thought Liverpool finally can put a team capable to challenge for EPL crown. But just when you think you are able to do it, twists always stands in between. That's exactly what happened to Rafa. He thinks Liverpool is strong enough to rotate the squad, that's where his biggest failure comes in. I think his players doesn't have faith in him anymore because you could play really well this game and being told to sit out the next. There's no continuity at all and by looking at it, Liverpool has no chance of whatever silverware let alone the EPL.

This year there are few surprise packages. First is Everton and Man City. Both have done exceptionally well, so do Portsmouth and Blackburn. But 2 of them dropped out a little since x-mas, and I think Everton might spring some surprise by qualify for the Champions' League Qualifying round rather than Liverpool. Man City may ended up in UEFA Cup competition under Sven Goran Eriksson. I would love to see them qualify for that as well, as this can prove some English that Sven is a good coach for England, and they have missed out a good coach/manager.

Others not much of surprise, and expecting Derby, Fulham and Wigan to drop into Championship next season.