Only one of our Three Wise Men says Chelsea will make the top four
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CITY for the title… Champions Chelsea fail to make the top four… Is Lukaku fit enough?
sportsmail’s three wise men, Jamie Redknapp, Martin Keown and Chris Sutton, sat around a table to argue about the new Premier League season. lee claYton listened in. JAMIE REDKNAPP: This is the hardest season to predict. MARTIN KEOWN: I’m sure you said that last year.
REDKNAPP: This is harder than that. How can you pick a winner? I look at Manchester City and I don’t think they can win it unless they keep Vincent Kompany fit. Or they buy Virgil van Dijk. Mauricio Pochettino is the only manager who knows what his best team is. No other manager in the top six knows his best XI.
CHRIS SUTTON: But Spurs fans I know are worried about their lack of signings.
REDKNAPP: They shouldn’t be. They’ll get Ross Barkley before the window closes, they’ll get another one or two. Ross is such a good player and that will be the best move for him. This is how Daniel Levy does his business. With Harry Kane and Dele Alli Spurs will be close again. Dele eclipsed Paul Pogba last year, he’s one of the best players in the world right now.
SUTTON: Kyle Walker is a big loss, Jamie. I don’t care about how much Manchester City have paid for him — Spurs have sold him to one of their rivals. You don’t do that if you have aspirations to win the title. They’ve handed City an advantage, he’s the best full back in the league.
KEOWN: You can’t tell me Spurs should have turned down that money? You can’t! Although, there is something to be said about a settled XI.
SUTTON: What if Harry Kane gets injured?
REDKNAPP: Nobody wants to come to Spurs to be second string to Harry, that’s why they’ve struggled to attract another forward. But Daniel will still do some business. And they trust their manager. I wonder if we are losing the art of management in this league. The transfer market is like a computer game of Football Manager — spend, spend, spend as if it’s not real money. Pochettino can coach, I like him the most. He knows what he is doing. I can see the comparisons with Sir Alex Ferguson. Now can he win a trophy?
SUTTON: OK, but they are worse off than last season. Look at Spurs compared to Manchester City, who have plenty of goals in their team, different options. City might not even find a place for Sergio Aguero in their first pick.
KEOWN: The pace in that team… Pep Guardiola won’t finish potless again. They’ll win something.
REDKNAPP: They’ve got an outstanding player in Kevin De Bruyne, quality goals and assists but I can’t take them seriously until they sort out their defence. Go and get Van Dijk from Southampton! John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi is not a partnership to win the Premier League.
KEOWN: Van Dijk has been injured, he hasn’t played for six months. Is he ready? Is he a £50million player?
REDKNAPP: City should pay £60m. Today. The new goalkeeper, Ederson, has a kick like a missile with a side-volley clearance, but they’ve still got a hole in the centre of their defence.
KEOWN: But the full backs are frightening, they will take the game to opponents. City are in a different league. I’m not worried about them, but I am worried about Chelsea. There is a risk they do not make the top four this season. They’ve lost Diego Costa. He has to be in their team! What a loss he is to them. Why have they allowed the rift to happen between the player and manager? On top of that, Eden Hazard is injured.
REDKNAPP: Imagine you against Costa, Martin. That would be some rumble. KEOWN: But it would be an honest rumble… SUTTON: You used to pinch me. That was your thing. REDKNAPP: He used to tread on my toes.
SUTTON: …then he’d say ‘there is plenty more of that to come…’
KEOWN: (looking a bit sheepish) I liked to try to see how much you could take and if you would come back for more. I wouldn’t play Costa the same way. You wouldn’t want to rile him. I’d be nice to him!
REDKNAPP: Exiling Costa and bringing in Alvaro Morata is one of the biggest Premier League trades I can remember. Nobody really knows how Morata is going to play. It could go wrong quite quickly.
SUTTON: I can see Antonio Conte, the manager, walking.
KEOWN: He’s a fighter, a winner. That won’t happen. He’s just signed a new contract.
REDKNAPP: Jose Mourinho is building another Chelsea at United. They have that look. Big strong players. When you played against his Chelsea team, you’d look at them in the tunnel and think ‘these are a strong team’.
KEOWN: Romelu Lukaku is key to all that. Their home form has been embarrassing — 26 goals at home last season and 10 draws. Too often he’s a pussy cat, but can Mourinho — the man who sold him at Chelsea and saw him as not good enough, don’t forget — turn him into a raging lion?
REDKNAPP: United’s home record last season was criminal. He’s got to change the style of football, but he doesn’t care about tradition, he cares about winning. There was not a lot of joy in Manchester United’s play.
SUTTON: They came sixth in the table! Not good enough. They won trophies nobody else wanted. If that had been Louis van Gaal playing that style of football…
REDKNAPP: Mourinho’s got to have credit for what he did last year, but now this is it. They have to fight for the title. Lukaku has to be his Didier Drogba. He said in a Sky interview he’s been watching videos of Messi and Ronaldo. Good luck with that. He should be watching videos of Drogba. He needs to get fitter. I’ve seen times when he’s looked sluggish.
SUTTON: With Zlatan Ibrahimovic, you had to hit him with the ball. Lukaku will run into the channels. He gives them a different dimension and if it works, he gets them into the top four. I see it finishing: Man City, United, Chelsea, Liverpool.
REDKNAPP: Mine is Man City, if they sort out the defence, Tottenham, Man Utd, Liverpool.
KEOWN: So no Chelsea? You’ve copied me!
SUTTON: Just choose your own Martin and let us choose ours…
KEOWN: Man City will win it. No question. Gabriel Jesus will be a star in this league, a superstar. We’ve seen a glimpse but there’s more. Then Tottenham, Man Utd, Arsenal.
REDKNAPP: You always say Arsenal! No Liverpool? I am nervous about them because of Coutinho. We don’t want him to go, not just because of the club but because of the league. He’s a talisman, a superstar.
SUTTON: He’s got to stay. Jurgen Klopp has to dig his heels in.
KEOWN: I think he goes. The money is huge. SUTTON: But if you sell him, you’re giving up the league. Having £100m means nothing. Money talks for Southampton, but not Liverpool. Money or title? It HAS to be the title challenge.
REDKNAPP: The Liverpool players I talk to call him ‘the little genius’. Keep Coutinho, get Van Dijk. That’s a title bid right there.
SUTTON: I really like Van Dijk, he’s a top player, a Rolls-Royce of a defender. But if he goes to Liverpool, after all the fuss, that makes Southampton look spineless. He’s got five years left on his contract, Southampton could dig in. He’s such a good player, long-range passing, he can head it. The only thing he needs is someone to get him up against a wall from time to time. He has that languid Dutch way about him, fancies himself. But it has mostly been shaken out of him, so he has the lot.
REDKNAPP: Talking of good signings, Asmir Begovic is a very good buy for Bournemouth. And Nathan Ake, Jermain Defoe too. They’ve put themselves under pressure to get into the top 10. A relegation battle is not good enough for them.
SUTTON: I can see Newcastle struggling. They haven’t bought enough quality.
REDKNAPP: I can see them going down, but Huddersfield doing ‘a Bournemouth’ and staying up.
KEOWN: My three for the drop: Watford, Huddersfield and Brighton. SUTTON: That’s what I told you I was going to say… you’ve copied me. KEOWN: I came up with my list last Wednesday. REDKNAPP: Watford, Newcastle and Brighton, although they have a gem in Anthony Knockaert. I hope he keeps them up. KEOWN: We haven’t mentioned Everton. Their fans are rightly enthused by their transfer activity. The club have been cute. Their net outlay is £2m because they’ve used the Lukaku money to invest. They went early, they brought back Wayne Rooney, they’ve created a bit of a buzz. If they get Gylfi Sigurdsson, they get his goals from midfield, his clever free- kicks. Even if it will cost £50m!
REDKNAPP: We are back to talking about money again. I can see why Everton will take him. He will score at least 10 goals, but if Sigurdsson is £50m then Liverpool can’t sell Coutinho for £100m. He’s got to be worth more than that. They can’t allow Barcelona to bully them into this. We are at a crucial point, not just for Liverpool, but for the league. They have to resist. They have to.