All about the Premeir League season

 Liverpool head coach Juergen Klopp PHOTO : PATRIK STOLLARZ

It appears it has been a week of scrambling. As the football giants in Europe were scrambling for a chance to be in France for the Euro 2016, football mandarins at Fifa were scrambling to live and fight another day.

It started with some major sponsors calling on Fifa’s almost-life president Sepp Blatter to be suspended over gross impropriety. The organisation’s major sponsors, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Budweiser and Visa, called for Blatter to step down immediately when the investigation started.

Even before we could fully take stock of who was backing who in the fight to retain relevance at Fifa, news started filtering in that Uefa boss Michel Platini too was not as clean as he would have us believe.

This is one man who had been touted as an apt replacement for Blatter. But he too appears to have hung around Blatter for too long that some undesirable characteristics started to show. We know here that Platini received ‘disloyal’ fees to have him keep his little mouth shut on the goings-on at Fifa headquarters.

Further, Platini, like a plate of rice, was bought to ensure he backed Blatter in the last elections.

There is foul smell hanging around the entire block that houses the Fifa headquarters and the sooner we clear the air, the better for all and the beautiful game. Where are the iconic former footballers when you need them? We need to put an end to these shenanigans, lest it is transmitted here during our football elections. We need emancipation from this skulduggery!

Back to the Premiership

This past week, the English press like they always do, laid out the red carpet for former Borussia Dortmund and now Liverpool Manager Jürgen Klopp. He has received a lot of accolades and he instantly endeared himself to many neutral fans when he humbly referred to himself as the ‘normal one’.

This was of course a craftily laid out insult to Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho. The laughter that greeted that statement at the press conference must have had Mourinho in knots. You could also most touch the sarcasm at that press conference. I fully expect Mourinho to throw Klopp a barb as he does his pre-match conference later today.

So can Klopp get the Kop to smile again? Certainly, but it is no walk in the park. He gets a rather tough reception when he takes his team to London to face Tottenham who are yet to impress but have done something spectacular; they annihilated Manchester City to make the leg as wide as Tana River.

But while Tottenham may claim the giant-killing title, they have been falling over maize cobs. They have posted unconvincing draws and narrow wins over teams that barely play better than I would expect from my Saturday drinking buddies. So what does my crystal ball tell me? This will be a nervy 1-1 draw.

By the way, reports indicate that Klopp, after taking over Brendan Rodgers’ job at Liverpool went ahead and occupied Rodgers former house. Now this is what I call a complete takeover. I do hope that Klopp will not go ahead and inherit Rodgers’ partner as well.

As soon as Klopp exits the scene in London, Jose Mourinho will lead his walking wounded Chelsea to face Aston Villa. Now Aston Villa is one of those teams that have one grand goal in the game - play well, play safe and avoid relegation. Last season, they almost nearly went through the trap door, but there were other teams more determined to beat them to the trap door and they succeeded.

This season, they have to make it safe in good time and Villa knows that Chelsea is like a wounded buffalo, it can easily go down in the valley of death. For this reason, I expect Villa to give it their all; they can nick a point, perhaps three.

As for Manchester United, they have had to wear that massive loss against Arsenal for two weeks. I am sure they cannot wait to face Everton and make things right. But the problem is that Everton tend to be a tough nut to crack when they are playing at home. In fact, right now I suspect if you gave Man United a point and asked them to skip Everton, they would bite off your hand as they scrambled for the point. We have all heard that Arsenal need consistency to think about the title. That is true but the consistency we refer to here is the sort of sexy menu that was served to Man United a fortnight ago.

Teams see Arsenal and the only vision in their mind is Man United puffing and huffing chasing shadows. At Watford, the Republic of Gooners worldwide expects nothing short of the tantalizing football that we have seen flashes of in the past. This show must continue and the belief must remain.

Though Manchester City have had their inspirational goal machines Kun Aguero and David Silva injured, they still have enough talent to keep their campaign alive. To remain at the forefront, they must pick all the low-hanging fruit and tomorrow they will effortlessly pick points off Bournemouth aka Burn Your Mouth.

-Twitter: @tonyngare