Premier League Season Starts Today

Manu will kick off the league by welcoming Swansea City at 15h45. They got a great new coach: Louis Van Gaal. Arsenal will meet Crystal Palace at Emirates Stadium at 20h30. The two best teams of last season will be in action tomorrow. Liverpool, post-Suarez, will play against Southampton -- a team where it bought a number of players -- at Anfield at 16h30. And City will travel to Newcastle for the 19h00 game. Finally Chelsea -- Drogba has returned and they now have Diego Costa -- will visit newly-promoted Burnley on Monday.

The fun resumes!

2013: The Year in Review (Q2)

April: Cellphone turns 40. Iron Lady dead at 87. Boston Marathon ends in carnage. Human computer dead at 73. Manu wins 20th, Ivanovic to be tested for rabies.

May: India welcomes friend back as Chinese Premier. Manraj report to cost an extra billion. One famous Himalayan hug turns 60.

June: Why Club M will miss World Cup in Brazil. Amazing ad gets 2013 WWDC started. Confederation cup offers sneak preview of next World Cup. How long things take. ACIM makes serious arguments to the MPC, the Financial Secretary a fool of himself, again. State flip flops on the CNT.

Read the review for Q1, Q3 and Q4.

Meet A Pele Fan

Everton Giant Delivers Bad Season Start to Manu

Marouane Fellaini scored a beautiful header in an exciting match last night. He's 1m94 tall -- one cm shorter than Usain Bolt -- and dominated most of his aerial contests at Goodison Park which sent Manu four spots from the bottom of the league table. Not the best possible scenario for Van Persie in the new jersey. But that's two places better than Liverpool which lost against West Brom on Saturday.

City managed to bag a dramatic home win against newly promoted Southampton -- in a bit like the nail-biting fashion it won the last season. They will play the Reds on Sunday at Anfield.

What a good start!

Manu Poach Big Gunner As League Start

Robin Van Persie will join (Bruce?)Wayne Rooney to form the soccer equivalent duo of the famous DC Comics hero in front for the Red Devils. When they play their season-opener at Everton on Monday. Van Persie leaving Arsenal sounds a lot more terrible than when Torres left Liverpool. Watch out for the fan reaction when Robin will play the team he's been such a big part of.

You would think Arsene Wenger is devastated. He probably is but being the great team-builder that he is he has already recruited Lukas Podolski and two other players to offset this important departure. Arsenal also believes they got a good price for their striker -- the most prolific last season.

Citizens Clinch Title in Fergie Time

City appeared a bit too complacent in the beginning compared to Manu. I thought they would need at least a two-goal margin to be on the safe side from QPR and given how many matches Sir Alex has won in the last few minutes of a game.

So the cup was heading to United when Rooney scored first. Then it was going back to Etihad Stadium when the Citizens put one in. But afterwards they looked toasted when QPR scored a double. And just when it seemed that the Red Devils had their 20th title in the bag, Manchester City scored two goals in two minutes -- with the last one by Aguero arguably one of the most nail-biting goal in EPL history -- and won the league after 44 years.

What a great season it was. Just hope the next one is as open.

Liverpool lost again. Unsurprisingly.

Manu Held To Home Draw As The Reds Try To Stop City

City has a chance to widen its lead by 7 points if it beats Liverpool. But that's not going to be easy after what the Reds showed us they were able to do at Stamford Bridge last week. Suarez, Kuyt and Johnson make a very intimidating trio that could hand City its first defeat of the season. And open up an already very interesting Premiership even more.

Let's see what unfolds at Anfield in an hour or so.

Why Alex Ferguson is Still on the Pitch

Because his wife Cathy didn't want a retired Scot in the kitchen bothering her. T Mag has an interesting portrait of Sir Alex this week. You don't want to miss it.

N.B: I am a Liverpool Fan.

Barca Win Offers Precious Lessons

They don't stop at putting great talent together. No, everybody sticks to the discipline of how they play football including that 1m69 fellow from outer space.

Humility is the way to go: that saves your head from swelling too much so that you can keep your eyes on the prize. And get better.

So much class and humanity: an injured Puyol, the usual captain, is sent on the pitch in the closing moments of the game when it was unlikely that Manu would come back. And then he gives the captain band to Abidal who had a tumor removed from his liver a mere two months ago.

Reminds me of a comment of Ilie Nastase about Bjorn Borg: We're playing tennis, he's playing something else.

Manu 1 Point Away From Premier League Record

Winning 19 titles that is or one more than current record-holder Liverpool. For sure money plays a role in winning titles but you still need an outstanding manager to assemble million-pound purchases into a great side. And a hungry Alex Ferguson has been doing this consistently over the past many years. There is a depth in United's bench that is simply amazing.

Another place where you can see this is in Apple's leadership: although there is a risk that Steve Jobs may not return from medical leave the company he built is unlikely to crash overnight. He has recruited enough obsessed talent to keep it going for a long time.

Here too we had someone with an extraordinary ability to build strong teams: Seewoosagur Ramgoolam.