Our Predictions Place Team 1 Chelsea 2 Manchester United 3 Liverpool 4 Arsenal 5 Aston Villa 6 Everton 7 Tottenham Hotspur 8 Manchester City 9 Portsmouth 10 Newcastle United 11 West Ham United 12 Sunderland 13 Blackburn 14 Middlesbrough 15 Wigan Athletic 16 Fulham 17 Bolton Wanderers 18 West Bromwich Albion 19 Hull City 20 Stoke City Your Predictions Place Team 1 Manchester United 2 Chelsea 3 Liverpool 4 Arsenal 5 Aston Villa 6 Tottenham

With the English Premier League kicking off on Saturday, Team Limey took some time out to discuss the 2008-09 season with Arsenal and England legend Martin Keown.

15:15 hours, Friday. Location ... top secret bunker, London, England. Facilities ... 1960s high-tech computers calculating the EPL final finishing positions. Present ... Team Limey, Adam West and Burt Ward. Status ... holy miscalculations and malfunctions, Batman -- for all their silver coating and flashing lights, the super computers are less effective than the Stoke City strike force.

Gadzooks, Batfans! What can save your heroes from the confused conundrum and fiendish fate of predicting the L.A. Galaxy losing out to Liverpool, and New England finishing neck and neck with Newcastle in next year's EPL? And all this with only t-minus 19 hours until top-class soccer saves the world from a fate of watching Michael Phelps' 78,345th gold medal performance. If only we had the expert advice and opinion of former England and Arsenal legend Martin Keown.

"Martin, welcome to the Limey Lair."

Team Limey sees the EPL divided into six groups of teams. Like Bode Miller, we'll start from the top. Despite strong Arsenal and Liverpool sides, the title will be won by Manchester United or Chelsea. United, Chelsea; Chelsea, United, we pondered. "Chelsea is like a wounded animal after what happened at the end of last season, which makes for a very difficult opponent" says Keown. "Under Avram Grant, the Chelsea players were still subconsciously entrenched in the Mourinho way of playing. When the players adapt to Scolari's style, I think we'll see a much more pleasing on the eye and effective style of play."

Team Limey agrees with John Terry, who this week argued, "I don't think United have another level to go to ... they had a lot of players at the peak of their form for the last two years." With the arrival of Phil Scolari, and key additions such as Deco and Bosingwa, Chelsea should have an extra gear, and hence we're tipping them for the title. Even if United's attempted $60 million signing of Dimitar Berbatov from Spurs goes through, we still think Chelsea's strength in depth will lead to an EPL title.

"If you want to be an all-time great at Liverpool, you have to win the league" says Keown, and Martin sees a new "steely determination" amongst The Reds' senior players. Robbie Keane looks like he'll team well with Torres to provide what they lacked last season: goals. Meanwhile, a defense that last season allowed only 90 on-target shots against them has been strengthened by the arrivals of Philipp Degen and Andrea Dossena.

Arsenal: so mercurial, so unpredictable. It has a better chance of winning the EPL than Liverpool, and yet the club is destined for fourth. Fabregas, Nasri and Diaby are all injured in the short-term; Rosicky and Eduardo for longer. With such an inexperienced squad, massive opportunities exist for young starlets to shine. "It's incredible to think Theo Walcott's only 19" Keown noted. "He's the Arsenal youngster best equipped to fulfil his potential".

Aston Villa, Everton, Man City, Spurs: so little between them, if only we could predict them in alphabetical order.

That Tottenham have spent big is a reason to predict it will grab fifth, but Keown notes that "the same was said last summer, and last season they failed to fulfill their promise."

"The worry about Tottenham is that over 50 of their goals last season came from Berbatov, Keane and Defoe who are no longer there," Keown pointed out. So, if not Tottenham, then who? Frustrated in their efforts to lure Sporting Lisbon's Joao Moutinho to Merseyside, Everton haven't made any major signings this summer, while Andy Johnson has exited for Fulham.

Manchester City have a strong first XI, but until Jo returns from the Olympics, Benjani and Vassell recover from injury, and Bojinov becomes match fit, it lacks experienced strikers for the opening games. With chairman Thaksin Shinawatra skipping bail for corruption charges in Thailand in order to return to England, behind the scenes, the club could implode.

Therefore, it's maestro Martin O'Neill's Aston Villa that we're tabbing for fifth. A small squad has been strengthened with a number of astute purchases, such as Reading's Nicky Shorey, Chelsea's Steve Sidwell, Middlesbrough's Luke Young, and Glasgow Rangers' Carlos Cuellar -- players who will complement the youthful talents of the likes of Gabriel Abonglahor and Ashley Young. That Gareth Barry looks to be staying is a huge boost.

We see Portsmouth and Newcastle occupying ninth and 10th, respectively. Younes Kaboul and Peter Crouch should be useful signings for a Pompey side buoyed by their FA Cup winning heroics. Newcastle will be looking to the reinvigorated Damien Duff for creativity, and will hope that Michael Owen can remain injury-free and Joey Barton can stay out of jail.

Like loft insulation, a group of six teams will fill space above the danger zone: Blackburn, Fulham, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Wigan and West Ham.

Many will be surprised to see Blackburn in this group, but with the loss of David Bentley for Tottenham, and manager Mark Hughes, and possibly Roque Santa Cruz to Manchester City, rookie boss Paul Ince faces a tough challenge. With rumors of squad disharmony, Ince, the self-styled "guvnor," may find it hard to live up to the moniker.

Fulham scarcely survived last year, but Andy Johnson is a goal-getting striker who will move the club into this group of teams, especially if Jimmy Bullard can continue the exceptional form he showed last spring. Sunderland have also bought wisely, with Malbranque, Tanio, Diouf and Chimbonda blinking at the doors of the Stadium of Light. West Ham will be relying on the goals of newly slim Dean Ashton, who has been dieting all summer following advice from England coach Fabio Capello. Wigan will be relying on goals from Emile Heskey who has been on less diets than William "The Refrigerator" Perry. Middlesbrough has a plethora of talented strike options: last year's big money buy, Alfonso Alves, will be looking to build on a reasonable start to his EPL career, and could be partnered by any from: Marvin Emnes, its talented new Dutch signing, Tuncay Sanli, Jeremie Aliadiere and Mido.

We think four teams will battle it out to avoid the three berth relegation zone: Bolton, along with newly promoted Hull, Stoke and West Bromwich. Like a burst of methane gas, let's start from the bottom. Over to Keown: "Stoke City will be bottom, they're going to try a physical long ball game and hope they can ruffle enough feathers to stay up in the Premiership, but I don't think they're strong enough.

"Hull City does play a bit more football, and have added to their squad, but it'll be a big shock to the system when they start to play EPL heavyweights in the space of three days, it'll start to take its toll. Of the three promoted teams, West Brom are the best by some distance, and their manager is a big fan of developing play from the back. However, I'm not sure on some of their signings."

"Bolton is the team I feel could come into the mix, and they struggled at the end of last season. I'm not sure where their goals are going to come from."

"West Brom looked like it has a chance to bridge the gap to Bolton, but with Zolton Gera going to Fulham, they have lost the one of the players that offered a bit extra."

$20M striker Johan Elmander was brought in by Bolton to score the goals that they have missed since Nicolas Anelka left for Chelsea last January. If he does so, Keown's prediction for the bottom three looks astute.

Letter to America

So that's our prediction table. And in the past few weeks Team Limey's Excel skills have been tested to the limit in collating your top six predictions. You agree with us in that nobody will break the "Big Four" hold at the top of the EPL, with Manchester United your firm favorites, ahead of our predicted champions. Third, fourth, and fifth match our predictions with you predicting Tottenham will have slightly more EPL success than we expect them to.

There were some noteworthy surprises amongst your predictions that are worth a mention. Hunter Andrews of Chicago expects big things from last season's FA Cup winners, Portsmouth, whom he places fourth. Zac Moore of New York, offered the prediction most out of kilter with ours, putting Paul Ince's Blackburn in sixth. Stephen Kuanda from Zambia, showed his creative side by tipping Newcastle for sixth and providing an elaborate colour coding system for his personal prediction league.

Fire your news and views about the new EPL season over to thelimey@hotmail.co.uk