You'll Never Walk Alone...

...but you may find yourself defending your Champion's League crown in the UEFA Cup next season. Congratulations to Liverpool on beating down the evil empire of the EPL and proving that no matter how good you are down the middle, if you've got no width, things will not go well for you. The absence of Duff and Robben (for most of the game) and the movement of Joe Cole into a more central role led Chelsea to try to generate offense in the middle of the park, Liverpool packed themselves in got a quick goal and that was that.

Now, on to this week in the Prem...

Chelsea, ManYoo, Arsenal & Everton are all playing double games giving managers lots of obvious choices for doubling up. The biggest question of the week will be who Jose plays now that they've won the Prem and are out of the Champion's League. Will he stop Lampard's consecutive games streak? Will he rest his first team and trot out the second team for the beginning of next year's try-out camp? ManYoo and Arsenal are still fighting for 2nd place so the chances are that they'll be playing their full line-ups. Really, I can't see any reason to include anyone who doesn't play for one of the big 3 so we'll limit the conversation to them. Hopefully, the cosmic balance will forgive me for excluding Dean Ashton last week and these will be the right choices:

Strikers
Reyes, Rooney & Ronaldo - given ManYoo's need to get as many points as possible, it's unlikely they'll rest either of their best offensive players. Reyes is really the only Arsenal guy labeled a striker to include. Drogba has been terrible the last few weeks and I just can't get excited about Eidur.

Midfielders
Pires - up and down but seems like he should be due for a 1 goal, 1 assist sort of game
van Persie - been playing great, still pissed I didn't put him in last week
Lampard - risk management - can't leave him out and Jose will probably indulge his streak now that there's no risk of it impacting the outcome of the Champion's League (HAHAHAHAHAHA)
Scholes - its either him or Giggs depending on who seems likely to play

Defenders
Lauren - Of all things, the Arsenal defense has been the tightest of the big 3 in recent weeks
Cole - See above
Terry - Some portfolio diversification as well as adding in his offensive potential as opposed to going with an all-Arsenal back line - neither Toure nor Senderos seem likely to do much on offense.

Keeper
Lehman -Haven't given up a goal since Senderos started in place of the injured Sol, not sure why this isn't a bigger story. Does this make Sol available over the summer? Will another Englishman ever play for Arsene? Is Campbell slipping into the "overrated" category? Do you partner Sol and Senderos next year and have Toure as a utility defender (remember he was a wing midfielder before being pressed into action in central defense)? Enquiring minds want to know...(plus, enquiring minds need to set up some storylines for the off-season)...