Premier League, Notts County, North Korea

The Premier League returns tomorrow with a packed schedule of 9 games, the only one on Sunday is the clash between Liverpool and Arsenal, more on that tomorrow. There's nothing worse than when you get a Saturday with like 4 matches because of Europe and FA Cup replays etc, where they might aswell cancel Match of the Day, thankfully tomorrow will be a nice long one. Man Utd v Villa is the late game and there's a chance we might see an upset here, or at least a draw for me. Utd will field a real makeshift defence of Fletcher, Carrick, Vidic and Evra - don't get me wrong the 2 midfielders are good players but when you don't play that position regularly, it's possible you'll get caught out. I fancy the dirty Fletcher to bring down Ashley Young for a penalty at some stage, and with the likes of him, Milner and Agbonlahor they pace and nous, Carew and Heskey provide the strength and physical presence. Villa are doing pretty well at the moment so I expect them to be right up for this one. No-one expects to go to go Old Trafford and get a point, let alone three, but we can all see that Villa are setup to counter attack and are good away side for that.

Chelsea will be looking to bounce back from last week's defeat to Man City, and in fact 3 games now without a win in all comps. Everton have been brushed aside by Arsenal, Utd and Liverpool so far (as well as a few shitter teams to boot) and I don't expect that this will be anything but a home win. But we've seen in the past that the Toffees can do some damage and defend quite solid - first goal tomorrow will be massive. I really like the look of Bilyaletdinov and if they can get Arteta, Jagielka, Osman and Neville back around the turn of the year, we should see an improvement in form. Stoke Wigan is the early game, where a lot of attention will be drawn by a spat between Pulis and Beattie last weekend. Allegedly Beattie had arranged something for the boys which required the Monday off training (whether that was a steam up on Sunday or paintballing on Monday I don't know) and Pulis decided to cancel that by ordering them in to train. Since then Beattie has apparently not apologised and wants a move, something that the boss was keen to play down at his press conference. Man City travel to Bolton in what is being described as a bigger game for City than last week's against Chelsea, this is something stupid the papers make up because the Chelsea game has already happened. It'll be the same three points their playing for this week as it was last week, but they're right in saying that it's imperative they follow up such a good result with another. Bolton will treat them like they treat every other team that goes there, they'll be sharperning up Kevin Davies head and elbows and then tossing the ball in the mixer.

The great revolution at Notts County is falling apart quicker than a Sol Campbell get out clause. All these great things were being promised about Premier League football in 5 years, Europe in 8 to 10, great players getting brought in, Sven Goran Erikson, and now the owners have put the club up for sale. Maybe they realised that Sol was absolutely right and that League 1 football isn't all that it's cracked up to be. There's plenty of good Championship clubs (Reading?) and probably a few Premier League sides that are available for investment or for sale. Why would you bother with a club that is frankly never going to bring you much glory or money? Rumours have it that Sven is keen to buy it, I wouldn't bother mate, you might aswell fuck off back to Italy.

Finally, a funny story emerged yesterday regarding North Korea and their dictator leader Kim Jong-Il. Anyone who has seen Team America will be familiar with the little chap, he's a reery reery nasty piece of work. According to the piece I read (and I must stress that it was in The Sun and might be completely fabricated because as of yet I haven't seen it picked up by a reliable source) there will be no World Cup matches shown live in North Korea, and only short highlight packages will be put together IF North Korea win a game. If they don't then all football stories and coverage will be ignored and they'll pretend that the World Cup just isn't happening. Yes you did read all that right. They're like a modern day fucking Nazi Germany. Given that N.Korea are in a rape of a group with Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast, the N.Korean people and fans will most likely have to make that trip south across the border, if they want to know what the fuck is going on. Take her easy.