The hopes, fears and expectations for all the teams this season

Arsenal

Having been so spoilt by success at the start of Arsène’s tenure, it’s understandable that so many Gooners struggle to come to terms with reality. Aside from throwing us the occasional bone, with the likes of Arshavin, Wenger continues to unearth bargains, unable or unwilling to compete with the big spenders. Competition for a Champions League berth is tougher than ever so treading water is definitely no longer an option. Our young team needs to show they’ve matured and compete in the big games. However, without a match-winning goalie it’s going to be tough to improve on last season’s finish. Last season 3rd Prediction 3rd

The new boys The arrival of Chamakh and Koscielny was hardly the sort of statement of intent that most Gooners were hoping for. Wenger apparently admitted the limitations of our timid keepers, so why hasn’t he broken the bank to install an imposing personality between the sticks?

Men to watch If he spends half as much time on the training pitch as he appears to spend styling his sticky-up barnet, Chamakh could prove to be a big hit. Samir Nasri has looked sharp in pre-season and, having watched events in South Africa on the box, perhaps he and Theo Walcott will benefit from the fact that they’re both fresh and feel they have something to prove.

Best youngsters From Jack Wilshere, to JET (Jay Emmanuel-Thomas) and Emmanuel Frimpong, we wait with bated breath for our homegrown stars to prove their first XI credentials.

Target for the boo-boys Almunia and Fabianski are the most likely targets.

Hate figure Cashley Cole, Greedybayor and Harry Redknapp.

Title winner Chelsea

Going down Blackpool, West Brom, Wigan

Bernard Azulay, GoonersDiary.Blogspot.com

Aston Villa

O’Neill has always left much of his transfer activity until just before the deadline but, given so much is required, to have done nothing by the start of August is alarming. The manager’s lengthy honeymoon is definitely over. The Villa Park crowd is sometimes a little overdemanding, but the football has been very uninspiring at home of late and the squad he refuses to rotate is of his own creation. A poor start to the season could easily see these murmurings of discontent get much louder. We need 100% focus on the cups, including the Europa League, and I’d be delighted with a semi, a bit of a European tour and some real gung-ho tactics against the big clubs at home. Last season 6th Prediction 8th

The new boys We should crack on and sell Milner: £24m is way over the top and, while I respect the club’s stance in holding out for more, we shouldn’t be so principled that we miss out on a crazy offer. One side issue: our scouting system must be awful. During O’Neill’s reign, we’ve made just one major signing from a non-UK club.

Men to watch Ashley Young is top-class, while if we play to Gabby’s strengths then he can star. We need big seasons from Dunne, Collins and Friedel again.

Best youngsters The manager seems to have soft spots for Delfouneso and Albrighton, but Barry Bannan in midfield and Ciaran Clark at the back could come through this season.

Target for the boo-boys For me, Downing is absolutely hopeless. Totally overrated, limp in the challenge and shuts his eyes when he heads it.

Hate figure Blues and their feral fans have always been a source of amusement and animosity. Arsène Wenger seems to delight in winding us up.

Title winner Chelsea

Going down Blackpool, Newcastle, Wigan

Jonathan Pritchard, Observer reader

Birmingham City

There’s a feeling of restrained optimism as we approach the opening game – the feelgood factor is balanced by the weight of history and the knowledge that last season’s ninth place, although deserved, was well above expectation. The core of the team remains and, given that Big Eck is not one for radical changes, expect more of the same this season. We’ll be hard to beat – especially at home – but to make progress, we need to improve in front of goal (only 38 goals last season). We need to break with more pace, show more guile in our approach play and better composure in finishing. We’re better than more than half the teams so there should be no need to worry about matters at the bottom of the table. Last season 9th Prediction 12th

The new boys McLeish acted quickly to replace two departing loan players: Foster in for Hart and Zigic in for Benítez. The only other signing to date is Vallés. Everyone – fans, management, board – agrees we need to strengthen the squad: some pace up front and out wide. And a left-back.

Men to watch Barry Ferguson was superb last season and will be again this year. I’d expect Foster to show the kind of form that will see him push for a place in the England squad.

Best youngsters Jordon Mutch is the most likely to feature on the periphery of the first team; Fraser Kerr made the pre-season tour to China.

Target for the boo-boys More moaners than boo-boys really. But I won’t name somebody before the start of the season. I’ll keep an open mind until at least half-time on the opening day.

Hate figure A couple of players managed to con referees and get soft penalties last year – I’m sure they’ll be deservedly reminded of that.

Title winner Chelsea

Going down Blackpool, West Brom, Wigan

Kevin Cummins, Observer reader

Blackburn Rovers

I am expecting another season of progress, but nothing too earth-shattering with the budget as it is. A good cup run similar to last year’s Carling Cup adventure would be a bonus. We haven’t had the best of summers so there’s no reason to go overboard about our chances of making an impact, but I’m not too worried as we have a young, vibrant and underrated squad. Last season 10th Prediction 10th

The new boys We’ve done nothing of note other than release Steven “hospital patient” Reid to WBA. We haven’t signed anyone, we haven’t really threatened to sign anyone and we have very little money. We badly need a new striker, mainly as we have only two recognised hit

James Milner has no agent, doesn’t drink and trains harder than anyone – no wonder the Aston Villa midfielder is being talked of as a future leader of his country

Monday mornings in the staff room at Horsforth school in Leeds invariably involve animated analysis of an old boy’s latest weekend television appearance.

“We love talking about James Milner,” Steven Weeks, the head of maths, says. “Everybody’s thrilled by his achievements with Aston Villa and England; some of my colleagues have even kept bits of his old work.”

It is nearly eight years since Milner swapped the classroom for the local football team where, almost immediately, Terry Venables catapulted the 16-year-old into the Leeds United first team – the manager later described it as a rare high point of his spell at Elland Road. At the time Milner’s father, Peter, a quantity surveyor, and his mother, Lesley, an estate agent, feared the boy might be wasting 11 GCSEs while Weeks lamented the loss of one of Horsforth’s brighter mathematical brains. “I’d have loved James to stay on and do A level, he was extremely able,” he says. “But I accept his football taking him a little further than maths might have done.”

Indeed Milner’s mastery of the game’s most intricately advanced geometry promises to carry the versatile Villa midfielder to South Africa for this summer’s World Cup finals. Fabio Capello is not known for adopting favourites but all the indications are that a 24-year-old whose immaculate middle-class manners conceal a zealous inner drive is the Italian’s star pupil.

The first clue arrived in December 2008, eight months before he won his first senior cap in a friendly against Holland. “The player I like is Milner,” Capello said. “He is the future, my future.” Milner has another chance to impress Capello in today’s Carling Cup final, and can expect to be back on the Wembley pitch for Wednesday’s international against Egypt. He has featured in the past six England matches.

Weeks is not surprised Milner is doing so well. “James is still exactly the same really nice, calm, quiet, totally unassuming, popular lad he was at school but I always thought that, inside, he had the sort of controlled aggression that takes people to the very top.”

Significantly, England’s approving coach deflected some of the rather sordid unpleasantness surrounding John Terry’s loss of the national captaincy by offering journalists an ode to a genuine role model. “Milner is a fantastic player,” Capello said. “He has improved more than any other player in the squad. He is intelligent on the pitch, can make good passes, assists for goals and score himself.”

He can also play a variety of roles, a point emphasised by Martin O’Neill after Milner’s man-of-the-match performance in Villa’s 3-0 win over Hull in December. He set up Villa’s first goal with a sublime pass to Richard Dunne, then scored the second with a delightful lob. Afterwards O’Neill reminded Capello that the versatile Milner was outstanding in several positions and was just what England need in South Africa. The two-footed prodigy can not only operate in central midfield, on both wings and behind a main striker, but as a full-back. It has even been suggested that, in the wake of Ashley Cole’s broken ankle, Milner might yet make a World Cup left-back.

If that seems a waste of the former England Under-21 winger’s attacking gifts, all-rounders rarely come more spherical. As good at arts as sciences at school, he also excelled in cross country running, 100m sprints and cricket.

“James’s really is Mr Perfect, he’s an A-star person,” says Glenn Roeder, one of his managers during a turbulent spell at Newcastle where, tellingly, Milner ignored an 11-year age gap to strike up a friendship with the goalkeeper Steve Harper, a former Open University student.

“He said ‘no thanks’ to Newcastle’s brat pack,” Roeder recalls. “James can seem a goody two shoes but he deserves every bit of success going. Unlike the vast majority of professional footballers he works to his maximum and extracts every last ounce of ability.

“Most professional footballers, England internationals included, know they could have worked harder and been better but not James. Frank Lampard is the only other player I’ve managed who does as much extra training.”

During Milner’s Tyneside days he frequently crossed paths with Jonny Wilkinson. The England rugby union star, then with Newcastle Falcons, used to borrow United’s indoor training facility and, sometimes watched admiringly by the young winger, would spend hours fine-tuning his kicking.

At first glance the similarities between the pair are striking. Milner seems touched with the young Wilkinson’s obsessive perfectionism and almost romantic idealism about his chosen path. He grew up dreaming of playing in a World Cup finals and regards remaining strictly teetotal while spending numerous early nights watching DVDs of Friends as a worthwhile sacrifice at glory’s altar.

Typically, when Peter Taylor managed Milner at England Under-21 level his principal problem was dragging him out of the gym. “James would be in there all hours,” Taylor says. “I’d tell the fitness coach, ‘He’ll be too exhausted to play’.”

While other Under-21s compared designer watches, Milner regularly toiled alone on the training field. “I couldn’t find a vice,” says Taylor, who gave him many of his record 46 under-21 caps. “The only area where he may have defied me was when I’d tell him to just work with light weights in the gym but I’m pretty sure he used the heavy ones.”

Back at the Sutton Coldfield home he shares with his girlfriend, Milner’s existence is not, however, quite as reclusive as Wilkinson’s once was and definitely encompasses more of a hinterland. “I do leave my house and go out sometimes,” he says. “I like a round of golf, and a quiet Italian or Chinese meal out.” Milner was recently photographed looking slightly out of place during a rare post-midnight visit to London’s Whisky Mist nightclub on a team jolly.

“You can paint parallels with Jonny Wilkinson but they aren’t quite right,” says Mick McGuire, Milner’s long-standing friend and former representative. “James is not your standard young lad and he is a perfectionist in training but, off the field, he’s nowhere near as fanatical or meticulous about things. Where James is different from a lot of footballers is that, although he understands the importance of money, he’s not that interested in developing commercial opportunities. He doesn’t want to be distracted from playing.”

Milner is also extraordinarily loyal. Despite an enduring closeness to McGuire, when the Professional Footballers’ Association’s former deputy chief executive left the players’ union last year – amid considerable acrimony – he felt it would somehow be “not right” to drop the PFA as his representatives in order to follow a key mentor.

“James was always a bit unusual,” explains Eddie Gray, who coached him at Leeds. “His background was slightly different to a lot of players and he never got distracted by the usual temptations. He always loved the game more than anything that went with it. Even as a teenager James knew he was very fortunate to have natural talent.”

Like Weeks, Gray noted Milner’s “inner hunger” and laughed off suggestions he was too nice, or too middle-class. “James will always listen but he’s a strong character who knows his own mind,” he says. “His one aim in life has always been to be the best footballer he can. His right foot was initially stronger but he just worked hard on his left and made himself two-footed.

“Apart from being naturally talented, he was also very tough. He’s extremely brave, he’d constantly throw himself into challenges and he could run for ever. Knowing James, he won’t just be content with being in England’s World Cup squad, he’ll want to shake things up and get in the first XI. He’s got great self-belief.”

It all seems light years since Graeme Souness – one of his 11 club managers – sneeringly opined that Newcastle would “not win anything with a team of James Milners”. The Scot underestimated a startling capacity for self-improvement. “James is my all-time favourite Under-21,” Taylor says. “Blimey, if all players were like him the job would be pure joy. Coaching James was a pleasure but, at first, there was a problem with his end product, his crossing wasn’t quite right.

“Unlike a lot of players, though, James really listened to advice and acted on it – he was a very serious boy, old for his age. His crossing improved immensely but I moved him to central midfield, albeit in a 4-3-3 formation where he could hurt teams with his excellent passing range and shooting.”

McGuire suspects the centre will prove his best position. “People have consistently written James off, they’ve said he wasn’t quick enough to go past people and his final ball wasn’t good enough but he’s kept proving them wrong,” he says.

“In central midfield he’s spotting openings people thought he didn’t have the vision to see but a lot of his development in the last year or so has been down to playing for Martin O’Neill at Aston Villa. A few clubs were interested in James but I was desperate to get him into Villa, I knew Martin would give him extraordinary confidence.”

Recent comments from O’Neill confirm McGuire’s hunch has paid off. In spades. “James is getting into little areas outside the box and giving us passes which weren’t part of our game – or his – a year ago,” Villa’s manager said. “James is a character and a half who has grown greatly in confidence with the ball since arriving here. He’s moved his game on to a new level. He’s seeing the pass now and moving into better positions.

“James could play in central midfield for England – absolutely. Playing there for us in the Premier League you’d think he owned the place.”

Certainly if Milner, whose goals tend to be of the spectacular variety, does not yet make late Lampard-esque dashes into the box before scoring from 10 yards, he has thoroughly eclipsed Villa’s previously much vaunted Ashley Young.

The only regret is that he joined in 2008 rather than in 2006 when, thinking he was on the brink of signing for O’Neill the then winger drove to Birmingham only to be turned back at the gates of Villa’s training ground after Mark Viduka’s mooted move to St James’ Park collapsed.

“It was Freddy Shepherd’s [Newcastle's then chairman] decision to sell him, I always wanted to keep James but I don’t think he believed me,” Roeder recalls. “A lot of players would have mentally gone under in similar circumstances but he simply got on with it.”

Such deceptively understated determination forms a recurring theme. “We sometimes see James when he visits his family,” Weeks says. “He’ll go down to the local park and watch the kids enjoy a kickabout, then he’ll have keepy-uppy contests with them.”

The resultant image is of a young man still deeply in love with football, reassuringly nice – and, above all, achingly competitive. “I’ve told James he’ll end up as England captain,” McGuire says. “He just laughs at me but I’m convinced it will happen.”

Aston VillaEnglandCarling CupLouise Taylorguardian.co.uk