In our defence, this was a mental Premier League season. There were 40 managers, a Big Six side in mid-table, three promoted sides surviving the drop and the return of Sam Allardyce. Who could have predicted that? Not us, clearly.
The full predictions are here but we will now bring you the very sorry highlights.
As is traditional, tell me who will win the league.
Six of us got this one right and I am kicking myself because I believed Man City but wrote Liverpool, like an absolute dick. Of those that got it wrong, we are duty-bound to highlight Ian King falling firmly on the side of Darwin Nunez in the Haaland v Nunez chat that raged after the Community Shield but then looked ludicrous as early as late September.
Ian Watson claimed points for saying Manchester City but then lost them all for citing Kalvin Phillips as a factor. We’re joking of course; there are no points.
And the rest of the top four, in order. Which nobody ever gets right.
Nobody gets this right, but we’re not sure we have ever been so wrong. Nobody called more than two of the top four, with EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US including Tottenham (who, in our defence, has ended last season strongly and had supposedly ‘bought well’ in the summer) in our predictions.
Enjoy such quotes as Spurs being ‘further down the ‘reinvention’ path than Arsenal’ (King) and ‘not sure there will be such a fight for the top four this season. Arsenal don’t have the depth’ (Will Ford, who included Chelsea, the poor love). Nobody even mentioned Newcastle and only Dave Tickner and John Nicholson backed Manchester United. It was a sh*t-show.
Three picks for relegation please.
First, let’s address what we got right: John Nich did finger Southampton, King laughed all the way to the virtual bank by foreseeing Leicester’s demise (which was backed up by Watto), there were three solid shouts for Leeds and Lewis Oldham got none right but did at least mention the Foxes and the Saints.
What we got wrong: There’s the usual blindness about anybody but the promoted clubs but a particularly slow hand clap is due to those who cited Brentford (Matt Stead, Tickers). It’s little wonder that Steady has since made Thomas Frank his manager of the season.
Which club will be a pleasant surprise?
We start with a self-own. I wrote: ‘Kills me to say it but Leeds. Not in the sense that they will finish top half but in the sense that they will stay well clear of relegation and play some quite entertaining football.’
FFS. But I wasn’t alone in this.
‘West Ham qualifying for Europe again seems both pleasant and surprising. They will be the only club separating the Big Six’ – Steady.
It turns out that predicting a surprise is as difficult as it sounds, with King, Ford and Jason Soutar all claiming Palace would push for European places under Patrick Vieira and Watto and Oldham both climbing on board the Leeds bandwagon.
Emerging with credit are Joe Williams and John Nicholson for Brentford and Nottingham Forest respectively, but Tickers pretty much nailed it: ‘Up to readers to decide if Manchester United not being a hot mess is pleasant or indeed surprising. Don’t think Forest will be quite first-season Sheffield United or Leeds as Big Club Back Where They Belong but confident they will survive with a bit to spare to the delight of all the Proper Premier League Club heads.’
The actual answer? Probably Bournemouth under Gary O’Neil. But in our defence, we were looking at a shambolic team managed by Scott E Parker.
Who will win the Golden Boot?
‘City will have to screw up quite spectacularly for it to be anyone other than Erling Haaland’ said Watto, while John Nich and King joined him in that prediction. The rest of us?
I said Harry Kane and predicted that ‘while the media obsess about Haaland v Nunez, he will quietly score 26 goals’. Wrong. He quietly scored 30 goals and it still wasn’t enough. There were three more shouts for Kane as we naively thought 30 goals might be really quite a lot.
What’s funnier? Steady hedging his bets with Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling and still coming up halfway to Haaland if you added both together, or Joe Williams climbing on board the chaos train with Darwin Nunez?
Which new signing will have the greatest positive impact?
The caveat here is that the predictions were made long before the closure of the transfer window. But that caveat does not excuse quite how carried away everybody got about Gabriel Jesus (who eventually scored 11 Premier League goals). Joe Williams did not go with the crowd and picked Yves Bissouma. Silly Joe Williams.
The real answer is probably something drab like Sven Botman or Nick Pope. Newcastle’s defending last season v Newcastle’s defending this season is probably the single biggest positive shift anywhere in the league. Boo.
And which one will turn out to be a massive flop?
Some much better answers here.
‘West Ham’s record with strikers is so pathetic that this almost feels like a trick question. Of course they have spent £30m on a dud’ – Winty.
‘Fabio Vieira has a peripheral and forgettable first season at Arsenal before exploding in 2023/24 as Mikel Arteta deliberately starts to copy the ‘it takes every new signing time to adapt to Guardiola’s methods’ thing’ – Steady.
‘Given West Ham bought Seb Haller for £40million, made him useless and sold him for £20million, at which point he went to Ajax, scored 47 in 66 and looked brilliant, I can see Gianluca Scamacca, the 6ft 5ins £35m new arrival going the same way’ – John Nich.
‘I have deep reservations over Nottingham Forest’s decision to bring in Jesse Lingard, reservations which I felt were justified by him tweeting almost immediately after the signing about whether he should have ‘Lingard’ or ‘JLingz’ on the back of his shirt. For God’s sake, man, you’re 30 years old. Steve Cooper is a really good coach and Lingard’s previous spell away from Old Trafford at West Ham was very successful, but I can still see how this could explode in everyone’s faces’ – King.
‘For reasons I can neither explain nor fathom, I have a feeling that Kalidou Koulibaly might struggle’ – Watto.
‘Not sure he’ll be a flop per se, but I can’t see Richarlison having all that much of an impact at Tottenham, mainly because he won’t play all that much as he’s certainly not as good as Harry Kane and Heung-min Son, and will be below Dejan Kulusevski in the reckoning after a few weeks (if he’s not already) after an inevitable training ground bust-up with Antonio Conte’ – Will Ford.
‘Richarlison. It might just be me, but I’ve never really rated him. £60m is excessive. He’ll struggle to play regularly ahead of Kane, Son or Kulusevski’ – Oldham.
And then there’s Tickers saying Haaland. The f***ing idiot.
Who will be the biggest bloody bargain?
Excellent shouts here for Eriksen, Bernd Leno and Nick Pope. Not-so-excellent shouts for Marc Roca and Bissouma. ‘Hard to see anywhere that £25m has been better spent by anyone,’ said Tickers. We have some suggestions.
Who will be named the PFA Player of the Year?
You know by now that none of us even mentioned Haaland, who will be claiming it ahead of Thiago, Heung-min Son, Kevin De Bruyne, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jack Grealish, Riyad Mahrez, Harry Kane and Luis Diaz.
First manager to leave their Premier League job?
Little did we know that almost everybody would leave their Premier League job in the end, so those who said Brendan Rodgers, Jesse Marsch, Bruno Lage, Ralph Hasenhuttl, Thomas Tuchel and Steven Gerrard can take some solace. But full points go to Williams for citing Parker, which was the actual answer.
Pick the Champions League winner.
Five of us still have a horse in the race. Soutar does not.
In five words, tell us what you are most excited about this season.
We will just include these in all their glory:
SW: Big Six within 15 points.
MS: Winty doing the December rota.
JN: Lower league Scottish football. WSL.
IK: Son and Kane, together again.
IW: United with a proper coach.
WF: Not watching Romelu Lukaku Bolingoli.
DT: Antonio Conte’s inevitable resignation meltdown.
JW: Gabriel Jesus outscoring Erling Haaland.
JS: Arsenal not terminating contracts anymore.
LO: Rotherham staying in the Championship.
Oh Tickers. How can you get some things so very right and others so very wrong?