Crystal Palace - Julian Speroni
The next of the clubs that have clambered into the Premier League is Crystal Palace, and their return to the top flight for the first time since 2005 will be Ian Holloway's second chance to lead a club to survival. If his Blackpool team are anything to judge Palace by this upcoming year, they will have a free-flowing attacking style, but will have as leaky a defence as it is possible to have. Blackpool and Holloway immediately seemed to take a shine to the division, until they were figured out and demolished in the second half of the campaign. The difference is that I don't believe the current crop of Palace players either have the surprise factor or the quality to mount a serious attempt to avoid the drop. The team is too full of players that are only used to the Football League system, rather than numerous players with experience of Premier League football. Of course, this could be said of a number of teams that were recently promoted, but they managed to save themselves with some excellent signings and tactics. Holloway, as charismatic and entertaining a manager as he is, has proven to be pretty one-dimensional tactically, and buys players to suit this style. And their biggest signings of the Summer so far are Dwight Gayle from Peterborough and Marouane Chamakh from Arsenal - one striker with no matches in the Premier League, and the other who has proven disappointingly impotent in front of goal. It is certainly a wonder then where the goals will come from, as it is unlikely they can rely of Kevin Phillips week in and week out. Consequently, they will certainly need to do a lot of defending against the entirety of the teams in the league in order to have any chance at survival. They are at least slightly fortunate that they have a competent and experienced goalkeeper as their last line of defence. Amazingly, Julian Speroni was a part of the Crystal Palace team that was last in the Premier League, but only played a few games as he found the transition difficult to manage. Now, he has been Palace's first-choice keeper for the last six seasons, and has regularly excelled in both Palace's battles against relegation to League One, and in the run-up to promotion this year. The Argentinian will have to be on top form as he will almost certainly be the busiest keeper in the league this season. Palace's points tally will almost certainly be intimately connected to the number of clean sheets that Palace are able to keep throughout the campaign, and Speroni is certainly carrying a great deal of the hopes of the Palace fans that their club can make more than a fleeting visit to the highest league. I can only wish him the best of luck, because he will certainly need it.
Where will they finish? - 20th