F365’s pre-season predictions revisited
Date published: Monday 26th December 2016 11:30
It’s that time of year when we look at our pre-season predictions and tentatively point at laugh…
The traditional starter: Who will win the league?
We had a couple of shouts for Manchester City, one for Manchester United and one for, erm, West Ham. Johnny took a f***-tonne of drugs in the 1970s and it shows. Early indications are that Winty has struck prediction gold. She tipped Chelsea, backing ‘a group of largely world-class players under an impressive manager, away from the circus in Manchester’. Mind you, she was cocky confident about City this time last year.
Rest of the top four, in order please.
Points to Johnny and Nick Miller for suggesting that Liverpool will finish top four, but points lost for Johnny because we suspect he forgot about the existence of Manchester City, and points also lost for Miller for including Tottenham in his top four with this explanation: ‘This is the year that Arsenal drop out (possibly) and I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that Conte could be rubbish at Chelsea. Although I’m not sure quite why.’ Expert.
Which three clubs are going down, down, down, down, down, down, down (wooh!)?
Everybody agreed on Hull and Burnley barring Matt Stead, who’s a little bit scared of Sean Dyche. He – along with Johnny and Nick – predicted Swansea’s troubles, and he was one of a trio to predict that Watford would falter. Nobody picked Sunderland, oddly enough. And no idiot picked Leicester this time.
And the most difficult of all, where will Leicester finish?
Oh Johnny. Again. As he wrote: ‘This whole ‘they’ve been found out’ business is obviously silly, and only a footballer could postulate the idea that it might have taken a season of in-depth study to discover what on earth was going on with the fast lad up front and meat mountains at the back. I still think their tactics will work and work well. It’s hard to play against.’ Everybody else bar Steady (who said seventh) went for mid-table security for themselves as well as Leicester.
Which club will do surprisingly lovely things?
Is any club actually doing surprisingly lovely things? The top six looks very much like the top six, which destroys Winty’s ‘inkling’ that Everton would break in. Daniel said Liverpool, which looks suspiciously like hedging his bets because he didn’t have the balls to tip them for a top-four place. ‘Do Liverpool count?’ asked Miller. In hindsight, we should have said no, they sodding do not.
Top scorer?
Of course Daniel suggested we lump on Romelu Lukaku each-way at 12/1 and hoped we didn’t notice that he didn’t answer the question. Three of us (who actually answered the question) went for Sergio Aguero and one for Zlatan so we are all around and about. Nobody saw the Diego Costa machine coming.
Who will be the best signing?
Is Winty on for a treble? She said ‘Henrikh Mkhitaryan will look like a bargain but N’Golo Kante will help win Chelsea the league. I also think Alvaro Negredo will get 15 goals for Boro’. For the sake of everybody else, we have to hope she is wrong on at least two points. She is insufferable when right.
Daniel’s answer is worth enjoying in full: ‘Always get excited by this question. I think Viktor Fischer could be good at ‘Boro, and Nathan Redmond at Southampton too. But the one I’m looking forward to watching is Henrikh Mkhitaryan. He can make this kitty purr.’
And that’s why he won an award.
Nick Miller was bob on with ‘Pogba will do some remarkable things but we’ll all be weighed down by the bullsh*t about whether he’s worth the money’, but we think Andros Townsend may fail in his mission to prove him right/wrong/whatever.
And which big-money buy will stink the place out?
Nampalys Mendy, John Stones, Granit Xhaka (brave Daniel), Marten de Roon, Yannick Bolasie, Michy Batshuayi and Ilkay Gundogan all got a mention but the flashing blue light will be placed next to Johnny’s claim that Sadio Mane would be a ‘big miss’. He could yet be right. Ish. Eventually.
Who will be this season’s Marcus Rashford, the kid who comes out of nowhere (nobody said this would be easy)?
What a stinker of a question. So far Tom Davies (Winty) has played 40 minutes, Ola Aina (Daniel) has played eight, Tosin Adarabioyo (Matt) has played none and Mason Holgate (Johnny) has played 293 minutes. None is Marcus Rashford. But then Marcus Rashford was not Marcus Rashford a year ago.
Nick Miller wrote this: ‘Can I slightly change the premise of the question? I can? Cool. It’s not ‘from nowhere’, but one of the things Southampton fans seemed miffed about under Ronald Koeman was that he didn’t use any of their kids, so hopefully that will change under Puel and if it does, I reckon James Ward-Prowse will have a breakthrough season.’
a) Why did we let him keep answering different questions?
b) JWP has started five PL games. As he’s 22, we’re not counting that as a ‘breakthrough season’.
First manager to leave their job (not necessarily sacked)?
Winty and Nick got it way wrong on Tony Pulis while Matt and Daniel nailed it on Francesco Guidolin and Johnny gets half a point for saying ‘Chunky Pards has a 14-game run without winning most seasons, so he’s got to be likely candidate for whacking if this season’s barren spell happens early enough’.
Finally, who would you most like to see fail, and why?
We almost all went for Jose, Manchester United, Zlatan or a combination of all three. Except Daniel, who wanted to see Arsene Wenger ‘taught a lesson for this transfer market inertia’. Is he learning that lesson or a completely different one?
We’ll be back at the end of the season when we will know for certain whether West Ham won the title…
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