Nothing is worse than the first international break of the Premier League season, after a long couple of months of waiting the opening three weeks of the season hit us like a flash, igniting the excitement and passion in the hearts of millions of fans, only for it to be snatched away for a series of (utterly pointless) international friendlies.

I spent enough column space last year on the fact that I, and many players, managers and journalists within the football industry, find international friendlies to be one of the most archaic, useless practices existing within the industry, so I’m going to take a bright side approach and reflect on the goings on in the young 2014-2015 Premier League season.

Starting at the top and surprising nobody is Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, who’s astute summer business has seen them to a perfect record after three matches, although with two of those matches coming against newly promoted sides (Burnley and Leicster City) any other set of results would have been seen as a disappointment to the billionaire side. What is surprising, however, is that the only other team joining them on a perfect nine points is Swansea City, who kicked off their season with a first ever away day victory at Manchester United, and followed up with two impressive performances against Burnley and fellow midtable contenders West Bromwich Albion.

On the note of the fallen giants, Manchester United began the season with high hopes under new manager Louis van Gaal, yet they find themselves sitting in 14th place after only managing to scrape two draws after the aforementioned Swansea loss. What is most concerning to all involved with the club is that they have yet to meet any high level competition, dropping points to Sunderland and Burnley, who even two years ago, would not have dreamed of such a scalp in the league.

Last years’ runners up Liverpool may have lost their star player after Luis Suarez gnawed a path to Spain, but the club has shown a huge spark of life in his wake, accruing six out of nine points, suffering a defeat at the home of the defending champions Manchester City, a stadium that most clubs find it hard to get any sort of result at. Media talk after the game suggested that The Reds would not be able to compete at the highest level this season, talk that was quelled as soon as they swept aside fellow Top Four contenders Tottenham, a club that suffered a collapse in the wake of a stars’ loss and attempted rebuild, and one that many felt Liverpool and their 10 new signings may emulate.

While it is foolish to make judgments so early in the season, and based on so few performances, there are certain patterns that I can definitely use in another round of season predictions. Firstly, I think that Chelsea will take home the league this year, they have far too much money, conducted amazing business, and have been playing out of this world in the early days of the league, only Manchester City can fight them to the end. The top four will consist of Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham, in that order, it may be the lack of firepower upfront, but I feel that this year will be when we finally see Arsenal’s luck run out and them fall out of the Champions League places for the first time in over a decade, they just don’t look like scoring enough goals. Lastly, the three relegated teams this season will be Burnley, Crystal Palace and potentially West Bromwich Albion, which are the three that are currently occupying the bottom places. While this may be a foolish thing to call, as the bottom three invariably changes over the year, but none of these teams inspire any confidence, especially a post-Tony Pulis Crystal Palace, who would likely have gone down if it wasn’t for their departed manager. As for Burnley, one of the newly promoted teams general goes down and they are certainly the weakest looking of the three, despite the point gained versus Man U, and West Brom have been gutted of their best players and their manager has left, leaving a shell of the exciting team of the last two seasons.