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That time of the year is finally upon us. Come Saturday and the most popular football league in the World will finally return to action. In a special build-up, we have an exclusive interview with Andrew Leci, who most of our Asian readers would instantly recognise. Andrew is a regular host of Sportscenter Asia on ESPN and also hosts Football Forecast, another show on ESPN which builds up to the fixtures for the upcoming weekend.

Q: The Barclays Premier League begins after an excruciatingly long break (it feels longer each year). We at TheSportsCampus.com can't wait for it to get started, what about you?

Andrew: No. Although I do enjoy my summers. It's a time for quiet contemplation, the rechargin g of batteries, getting my suits dry-cleaned, playing with the cats and trying to teach them the rules of cricket.

Q: The return of the Premier League also means the return of Football Forecast. Steve McMahon will undoubtedly say that Liverpool will go on to win the League this year, but who's your bet on?

Andrew: I don't bet, but I see most of the usual suspects emerging to contest the title come season's end. All eyes will, of course, be on Manchester City to see whether their huge spending can almost instantly turn them into prospective champions, and I think most people will be expecting Arsenal to endure another difficult (and possibly trophy-less) season.

I believe that Chelsea will be very strong contenders, while Manchester United may have to go through a period of transition as they try to adapt to life without the world's best footballer.

Q: Will Steve be joining you on the show right from the start of the season? Or is he planning to take a break after the problems he and the Profitable Group faced with Newcastle this summer?

Andrew: Steve will be there from the start and is a vital part of all our support programming on the network. He's had his break, just like the rest of us, and I'm sure he's raring to go. I don't know anything about ‘the ‘problems'. The Profitable Group were in negotiations to buy a football club; it didn't work out; end of story; what's the problem? It happens all the time.

People don't always agree with Steve's opinions, but that's life. There's no denying his passion for the game, and his occasionally strident views. But he's a man who has played the game at the very highest level and was one of the most influential players of his day, and whatever he has to say is worth listening to

Q: With three of the Big 4 from the Premier League losing some important players, do you think it's going to be harder than ever to make an accurate prediction this season?

Andrew: It's always hard to make predictions, which is why, generally speaking, I try to find a comfortable fence to sit on, and leave the soothsaying to the pundits. Clubs lose (and acquire) players all the time, but it's true to say that some will be missed more than others. As mentioned earlier, Cristiano Ronaldo's departure from Manchester United will probably be the hardest to cope with, although were I a Man Utd supporter, I'd be pretty miffed about Carlos Tevez's cross town ‘defection'. I think this season will illustrate how important he was for the club and how much he influenced games.

Arsenal have lost Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure, and they won't be easy to replace, while, significantly perhaps, Chelsea have retained all their big names (tying a couple of them down to longer contracts) despite much speculation that the likes of John Terry and Didier Drogba would be heading out the door. This fact may well give The Blues an edge this season, and let's not forget that Liverpool are going to have to find another creative midfield spark after Xabi Alonso's move to Spain.

Q: You fill in for John Dykes during the Live broadcasting of the matches on the occasions he visits the UK to cover the match from the pitch side. Don't you feel jealous that you're in the studio doing his work while he gets to watch the matches from the press boxes at the grounds?

Andrew: Absolutely not. For a start, I've done my fair share of ‘on-site' coverage, interviewing the likes of Sir Alex and Rafa in tunnels up and down England, and attending all the UEFA Champions League finals while John has been in the studio ‘filling in' for me.

Besides, John is much better at it than I am, and we're both aware of how tough these assignments are. It seems as though John just pitches up, pitch side, talks to a few people and goes home, but viewers don't see the work that goes on behind the scenes. Attending press conferences, organising interviews, making sure that you know what to say when the cameras roll (because you don't get a second chance when you cross ‘live'), having to deal with crowd noise when you're trying to hear instructions (and your guests' responses) in your earpiece, technical difficulties involved with lines of communication that can be 13,000 miles long, etc. etc. John makes it all look so easy, and it's not.

Q: Your first novel, Once Removed, is described as "funny; shocking; sexy; provocative and evocative, and will have the reader looking at expatriates and Malaysians in a completely different light ... or maybe not." How much of it is based, even if only loosely, from your own experiences?

Andrew: It's a work of fiction, but most of the characters are based on amalgams of people I know or have known. Only one incident in ‘Once Removed' actually happened to me, and is related almost word for word, but it's one of the dullest.

Writers always write from experience, but it doesn't have to be the writer's own. I hear stories, and I embellish. Writing to me is all about imagination, but the starting point is invariably a point of fact or something quite mundane.

Q: Any new book in the pipeline?

Andrew: A couple actually. I'm compiling a stack of the articles I wrote for Tatler in the 90s and early 2000s, and hoping to turn that into a book, and I'm in the process of writing about two cats who go in search of a missing necklace on a housing estate in Singapore. Or did I dream that?

Q: You often quiz the pundits on your show with some of the craziest facts, so I'm going to take this opportunity present you with a teaser. How many times has the holder of the FIFA World Player of the Year crown been sold? Also, how many times has the player gone on to win the National League title in the first season with his new club?

Andrew: Off the top of my head, I would say 10. Some of the recipients ended their careers at the team with which they won the award, but many went to other clubs in the twilight of their playing days - does that constitute being ‘sold'?

Ronaldo won La Liga in his first season at Real Madrid having won the award in 2002, and Fabio Cannavro won La Liga (also with Real Madrid) the year after receiving the award and transferring from Juventus. George Weah won the Serie A with AC Milan the year after his award - he transferred from PSG to AC Milan in 1995.

Players who have been sold: Matthaus, Baggio, Romario, George Weah, Ronaldo, Zidane (won it twice with Juve, once with Real Madrid), Luis Figo, Cannavaro, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo.

 

Well, we got him there. Actually we managed to stump ourselves too with this one. We had earlier said 3, but the correct answer is 4 (Lothar Matthaus, Romario, the Brazilian Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane) with only Zidane winning in his first season with his new club (Real Madrid, of course). George Weah and Cannavaro won the award after having completed the transfer, which meant they played for two different clubs in the calendar year for which they were named the World's Best Player. Ronaldo's first award was also after he had been sold by his club (PSV sold him to Barcelona in 1996), but he was again sold the next year to Inter Milan, where he became the first person to successfuly defend the title.