Chelsea’s Ruthless owner, Roman Abramovich, has sacked André Villas-Boas after a string of poor results that has left Chelsea fifth in the league table. Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion left Chelsea three points behind 4^th placed Arsenal, and a massive 20 points behind leaders Manchester City, with 11 games remaining in the season.

Villas-Boas’s assistant, Roberto Di Matteo, has been appointed the new first team manager for the remainder of the season.

The 2011/12 season is fast proving to be Chelsea’s least successful since Abramovich bought the club, with Chelsea having won less than 50 percent of the games played under AVB. Problems with senior players, a dry spell bigger than the Sahara for his supposed Star Striker and a lack of tactical know-how along with dreadful recent results sealed AVB’s fate.

However, Villas-Boas becomes the eighth Chelsea manager in nine years to lose his job, the list including some of the finest football managers available.

So is Abramovich blaming the right people?  Why not clear out the players that are clearly not cutting it at Chelsea – instead of chopping and changing managers? Was AVB really given enough time to build his new Chelsea team, shape what he believed was a successful system, and push Chelsea towards being major contenders again? Are Chelsea just too quick to cut their losses regardless of the costs involved?

The recent decline in the performance of the team would suggest that maybe they are. Stability is surely what is required at Stamford Bridge to bring back the success of the Mourinho era.

When you look at the big names that have left the Red Devils this year, you cannot help to wonder if Manchester United are going to be the same formidable force that we have all been used to in recent years.

Big names have either retired or left including Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Edwin van der Sar, Wes Brown, John O’Shea and Owen Hargreaves. Whilst these players were probably past their best, most were arguably world class in their time and would still have been able to offer many positive attributes to the united squad.

With the exception of Ashley Young, the new signings, goalkeeper David De Gea and England under 21 international, Phil Jones are both relatively untested at the highest level. Will their introduction really strengthen the united squad or are they just a small positive to a squad that is now very much weakened?

PENDLE VERDICT -  We were surprised that Wes Brown and John O’Shea both went to Sunderland, given that they are both very strong squad players and can be trusted to perform at the highest level. The departure of injury plagued, Owen Hargreaves makes no difference to the strength of the squad because he never played and it was probably the right time for Gary Neville to hang up his boots. Most people would agree that Paul Scholes is a player who’s retirement has to weaken the United squad in some capacity as he was arguably the greatest player that England have produced in recent times. Edwin van der Sar was still at the top of his game when he retired, so his departure has to be a blow.

 On conclusion, the answer is YES, we do think that United are weaker going into the new campaign.

YOUR VERDICT – What do you think?

Queens Park Rangers are finally back in the Premiership for the first time since 1996 thanks in part to Adel Taarabt, the Moroccan international helped QPR secure promotion to the Premier League with some very impressive performances last season. Scoring 19 goals and winning the football league player of the year award, his performances and awards have not gone unnoticed in the football world with a host of European clubs interested in signing him, fees of up to £13 million have been mentioned but will it be enough to persuade QPR to part with their star man?

Championship winners QPR are yet to make any new signings in the transfer window, are the club going to have to make some big signings to try and keep hold of Adel Taarabt? Or are they going to let him go and use the cash to sign replacements to try and stay in the Premiership? On the plus side for the club veteran keeper Radek Cerny, striker Heidar Helguson and defender Peter Ramage have all signed contract extensions.

Play-off  winners Swansea City will become the first Welsh team to play in the Barclays Premier League when they kick off on August 13th. After beating Reading in the final of the Championship Play-offs it will be interesting to see how the Welsh outfit fair in their first Premier League experience. After Dorus De Vries and Darren Pratley left the club to join Wolves and Bolton respectively, Swansea announced the signing of Danny Graham from Watford for a club record £3.5 million, the club also secured the services of 19 year old defender Steven Caulker from Tottenham on a year long loan deal.

Championship runners up, Norwich City have already indicated their intentions in the transfer window  by signing a host of players. Two of which will have to make the step up to the top League from League 1 last season, Anthony Pilkington from Huddersfield Town has signed a three year contract with the club, also moving up two divisions will be former Brighton youngster Elliott Bennett. Bennett was one of Brighton’s best players last term scoring 8 goals and assisting over 20 more, he was named in the PFA Team of the Year for League One. Will the two of them manage to step up to the top level of English football? The other signings for the newly promoted club are defender Richie De Laet from Manchester United on a season long loan, James Vaughan has been signed from Everton and Welsh international striker Steve Morrison from Millwall, with all these new signings to add to the squad will Norwich be able to survive in the Premier League after back to back promotions?

PENDLE VERDICT – We think that out of the three newly promoted clubs QPR are the strongest and will stay up and if they can hold onto Adel Taarabt it will be interesting to see how he gets on. We also believe that with Norwich spending money and improving their current squad they could stay up with them, but we feel as though the Swansea squad isn’t quite good enough at the moment to fight against relegation, with the right investment on players to strengthen the squad they could survive but we think that it is unlikely.

YOUR VERDICT – What do you think?

Manchester United have been the first major movers in the summer transfer window so far this year. After Paul Scholes and Edwin Van Der Sar retired at the end of the year the champions needed to find replacements and they have done so in the signing of Ashley Young from Aston Villa, with also capturing young goalkeeper David De Gea from Atletico Madrid. However, the champions haven’t stopped there by bringing their total spending this summer to £50 million by signing  highly rated young English defender Phil Jones from Blackburn Rovers.

The only other team in the top 6 to make a big move for a player have been Liverpool after they signed Jordan Henderson from Sunderland for an undisclosed fee rumoured to be around £18 million. Is this going to be the first of many big signings for Kenny Dalglish as Liverpool aim to get back into the Champions League and maybe even challenge Man United to equal their record of 19 league titles?

With Manchester United buying some young fresh faces to try and help them win a record 20th league title, what is in store for last year’s runners up? Newly appointed manager Andre Villas-Boas will no doubt have a few ideas about who he would like to bring into the club and with Roman Abramovich backing him in the transfer window who knows? Chelsea had a bid of £22 million turned down by Tottenham for Luka Modric before Villas-Boas became the new Chelsea boss, will the new man in charge continue Chelsea’s pursuit of the Tottenham play-maker or will he turn his attention to highly rated Argentinian youngster Javier Pastore? Another player on the Chelsea bosses’ radar is Birmingham centre back Scott Dann as the new boss has stated strengthening his back four a priority.

Manchester City made their first move of the summer with the signing of Gael Clichy for a reported £7 million, not a massive transfer yet but with the endless amount of money Man City have and the lure of Champions League football this term they will be challenging the big teams to try and win everything no matter what it costs. The only problem for Man City is that despite the Champions League football this year skipper Carlos Tevez has once again announced his intention to leave the club stating that his potential departure is for family reasons.

Last year’s Champions League debutants and quarter finalists Tottenham will have a big fight on their hands this year to hold onto the players that brought White Hart Lane some of the best European nights in the club’s history, especially with both Chelsea and Manchester United interested in signing Luka Modric and other top European clubs interested in the likes of Welsh star Gareth Bale and Brazilian midfielder Sandro. With no Champions League football this year the club will have to try hard to keep hold of these players and also try to compete in the transfer market with the big spenders of Man City and Chelsea to get back into the top four and back amongst Europe’s elite. On the plus side for Tottenham they have secured the services of 40 year old Brad Friedel on a two year deal after leaving Aston Villa on a free transfer.

Arsenal have already started the summer transfer window by selling, Gael Clichy was the first out the door at the Emirates to join Man City, with Cesc Fabregas looking at a potential return to the Camp Nou and Samir Nasri looking to follow suit with only a year left on his current contract who is in line to replace them? Can young Jack Wilshere fill the boots of  the Arsenal skipper? Arsene Wenger needs to start signing replacements or risk falling out of the top four and who knows maybe futher.

PENDLE VERDICT – With Manchester United making the early signings you have got to say that they have got to be favourites for the league at this stage, but can Andre Villas-Boas do what Jose Mourinho did and win the title in his first season in charge, or can Roberto Mancini upset the flow and get his team to become only the fifth team to win the Premier League?

YOUR VERDICT – What do you think?