It could be quite a race!

With Liverpool suddenly finding a knack of winning ugly, Chelsea mixing style at home and strife on the road, and Man United – with Fletcher as leading scorer?! — still getting the engine started, this league race may yet match last season’s for nail-biting finales.

If nothing else, it will be fascinating to see how the ‘big four’ deal with the lesser lights of the Premier League. Arsenal have already shown that, without Fabregas, they struggle to cut up the likes of Fulham. A first loss to the Cottagers in goodness knows how long is not the start Wenger would have wanted, especially after speaking so confidently of his toddlers doing well without ‘panic buying’.

And panic is what this last week of transfer activity will be. Tottenham, with or without the sulky, silky Bulgarian are in desperate need of strikers. Liverpool seem intent on undermining Alonso’s class and buying an unnecessary midfielder instead of acquiring a first-rate winger — because Dirk “I will play wherever” Kuyt is just not good enough! And rest assured, the newly promoted trio will put blind faith in an over the hill striker desperate to stay in the top-flight, and suffer the consequences.

An even more enthralling race may well be the battle for best of the rest. Sunderland boss Roy Keane seems to be building a team of bloody-minded soldiers, intent on winning at all costs. Nothing like he was in his day, then …
The derbies with Newcastle should be highly competitive, because Kevin Keegan’s honeymoon is over and the Geordies are crying out for an end to the mediocrity at the most religiously supported club in the country.

Between those two, Blackburn, Villa, Everton and Harry Redknapp’s muggers down south, the ‘other race’ will surely be less predictable than the winner of the title itself.

And the craziest signing of the season has already been claimed by the giants of Milan. Phillipe Senderos, he of serial blunders – especially against Didier Drogba — has somehow been snapped up by AC Milan. Either his old buddy Mathieu Flamini sold him better than any Verimark advert ever would, or someone needs to very quickly check the water in the red half of Milan.

Jose Mourinho must be purring at the thought of his first Milan derby …