Thank fucking god for no Martin Tyler on our screens any more at least, eh? Right then, let’s get started.

1st – Man City

Ho fucking hum. A combination of billions of pounds spent, plus the little goblin they’ve got up front, probably means another processional season of title winning for the boys from the Kippax (I’m guessing 90% of their fans now don’t even know what that is). A quality side, but completely fucking soulless and dull, and their march to the title, again, should prompt calls of how predictable the league is becoming, but almost certainly won’t. With the Champions League monkey now off Guardiola’s back as well (and a fairytale, if you believe BT Sport/TNT/whatever the fuck they’re called now), who knows what they might do.

2nd – Liverpool

Possibly hubris and optimism by me, given my noted Liverpool fandom, but I’m feeling pretty good about this season, even as we continue our childish playground fight with Chelsea over Moises Caicedo. With some deadwood off the books, and two quality signings in Szoboszlai and MacAllister made, hopefully we can finally get back to partying like it’s 2019. Outside bet? Darwin Nunez to become the new Divock Origi. The man with the incredibly inflating transfer fee (I was told yesterday we signed him for 90m!) is due to break out, and I think the Kop will take him into their hearts. I’m also looking forward to seeing Cody Gakpo continue to develop into the new Roberto Firmino, which probably means Jamie ‘Gobshite’ Carragher will be back to criticising him by midseason.

3rd – Arsenal

After spending more than a government department, I think Arsenal would actually be quite disappointed if this prediction came true. Nonetheless, despite some decent additions in Timber and Rice, I’m still sceptical of Arsenal being able to mentally maintain their momentum from what was a great effort last season. Both their and their manager’s mental fragility started to rear it’s head towards the end of the season, and I’m predicting something similar here. To improve on my prediction, they must improve in the bigger games, but it might be a year too early for that. Nonetheless, congrats to them for finally getting back to where Wenger had them before they hounded him out.

4th – Newcastle

I think I’m the only one who thinks they can do it again, but they almost fell in here by default, mostly due to their previous success in this area. Couple that with the basket cases behind them, and I think when all’s said and done, they’ll find themselves back here. I hear the concerns about the lack of transfer activity (dodgy sales notwithstanding), but I do believe their squad, without injuries, will hold up enough to do it all again.

5th – Manchester United

Yes, I’m talking about Manchester United. Manchester United! Manchester United Football Club! Having got themselves back into the top 4 at the expense of a flatlining Liverpool and Chelsea, this summer would have been a great point for them to have built on their prior success. Of course, after months of breathless takeover speculation and innuendo, the Glazers (not Glaziers, mancs, they don’t have anything to do with windows) remain in power, and the spending remains…well, odd. I’m struggling to see how Mason Mount (a player who shows up on camera but not in the statistics), Andre Onana (a worse De Gea but better on the ball), and a complete unknown in Hojlund actually make them net better than last season. Couple that with still not having a Casemiro rotator/replacement and I forsee a disappointing year.

6th – Chelsea

Football’s answer to the Harlem Globetrotters, if every player played the same position. I remain unconvinced by Chelsea, and their summer business. It all, to me, feels like someone gone mad with a credit card under the influence of alcohol – a bunch of disjointed signings with no real logic behind them. Most of the optimism for Chelsea’s season seems to be around the almighty ‘Poch’ somehow assembling chicken salad out of this particular brand of chicken shit, but I remain sceptical of his ability to do so, and his influence on the club hierarchy, who largely seem to be playing fantasy football sponsored by Clearlake. They can’t possibly be as bad as last season, not least because Pochettino at least looks vaguely capable of managing a football club, something not even his family could say about Frank Lampard. Still, a lack of proven goals up top and a strange unbalance at the back will, I think, cause them to fall short of their ambition.

7th – Aston Villa

It’s really hard to accurately predict Aston Villa, largely because I can’t quite work if Unai Emery is a genius or an idiot. I’m leaning towards ‘genius’ following his work with Villareal and how he managed to turn Aston Villa around following the nuclear crater that was Steven Gerrard’s reign. I’m impressed with the canny summer signings of Pau Torres and Youri Tielemans, and I’m intrigued to see what Moussa Diaby brings to the table. Hopefully he hits the ground running faster than Leon Bailey did, as I think a quick gelling of this squad, plus further development from players like Jacob Ramsey and Ollie Watkins, could see them mixing it up in the European places.

8th – Brighton

I’m backing Brighton to hold pretty much exactly where they now seem to have taken residence in the Premier League. I love the summer business to bring in Milner and Dahoud, two experienced heads who fit well into the Brighton style of football. Joao Pedro feels like a big risk to me, but if he can bring the part of Brighton’s play that’s been missing (regular goals!) then he could well prove to be the spark that bridges Brighton’s chasm between the edge of Europe and perennial European contenders. The losses of Macallister and Caicedo will hurt, but if there’s a team you’d trust to replace them adequately, it’d probably be Brighton. With De Zerbi, it certainly isn’t going to be dull, either.

9th – Spurs

Life without Kane begins, and in all honesty, it probably won’t be that much different. This is a hard prediction to make for multiple reasons:

– Where will the Kane money go? (Hopefully not Joe Lewis’s back pocket as he fights insider trading charges)

– Is Ange really the messiah?

If I was looking at this at the end of the transfer window, when I’ve got some idea what Spurs are up to in the market and have a few games to see if Ange’s ‘charge of the light brigade’ style might actually cause some damage in the Premier League, I’d probably move them up or down as appropriate, but as it is, as I write with an hour til the season kicks off, I’ll put them in this middling position and see what happens.

10th – West Ham

Ah, purgatory. I’m not super confident in this prediction given the talk of friction between Moyes and his sporting director, to say nothing of the slow transfer activity, but somehow, this is a team that always rises above all kinds of shite going on. I’m sure Moyes will be on his ‘final warning’ about 60 times, but I think they’ve just enough about them to keep their heads above water. What might sink them is the extra games in Europe, but there’s no guarantee they’ll stay there long enough for it to affect anything.

11th – Wolves

I’d actually finalised this before Lopetegui upped and left. I like Wolves’s squad, although their FFP troubles have undoubtedly crippled further expansion and improvement of it. I thought Lopetegui did an excellent job last year of turning their form around and giving them a defined style of play that had been utterly missing since Nuno’s departure. Unfortunately, he’s gone now, and this task falls to Gary O’Neil. While he did a decent job at Bournemouth, the underlying numbers weren’t great, and whether this prediction stands or falls will depend on how he can get them playing.

12th – Brentford

With hindsight, is this too low? I’m inclined to stick with it, although I love their style of play, recruitment, and Thomas Frank as a coach (why a larger club isn’t in for him, I’m not at all sure). The loss of Ivan Toney will have a major impact in my opinion, and while they’ve often pulled off recruiting miracles, replacing that many goals at that consistency would have the feel of a tall order. I think they tail off a bit, but will fight their way to enough results to stay out of trouble.

13th – Crystal Palace

Meh. Roy Hodgson. Ray Lewington. Crystal Palace. As John Peel said about The Fall, ‘they are always different, and they are always the same’. Perfectly fine and safe, a stable PL club, but about as exciting as a muesli addiction.

14th – Fulham

Another one I have tailing off, mostly down to a combination of second-season syndrome and poor recruitment (trying to draw the last juice out of Raul Jimenez feels like a fools errand, although Calvin Bassey has pretty good talent, even if he is somewhat limited), as well as a couple of injuries. I really enjoyed watching Fulham last season, and they were a genuine surprise package in the league, which is never a negative, but I predict a slight drop off this year – a drop off that could get larger if Marco Silva is either tempted away or forced out.

15th – Bournemouth

This is a rocky one for me – replacing O’Neil, limitations or otherwise, with Iraola feels like a risk, and possibly too big of one at that. There’ll be an adaptation period while they acclimatise to his style, and hopefully they’re not in deep trouble by the time it clicks. There has been some exciting recruitment too, with the likes of Kluivert, Aarons, and Alex Scott heading to the Cherries, but it feels like a lot of moving parts for a team that likely needs points on the board early. That said, I like any team that wants to play good football in an increasingly ‘results-at-all-costs’ league.

16th – Nottingham Forest

Currently 2-0 down to Arsenal as I type, I’ve got Forest having another season-long struggle with the drop, but I do think there’s enough quality to get out, or more likely, just three or four worse teams than them. I hope Steve Cooper keeps the job there and continues to develop them and keep them away from trouble – it’s nice to have a football club with genuine history in the Premier League, especially in the era of sportswashing.

17th – Burnley

Another team playing good football, who were badly done to by the scoreline last night against Man City. I’m not sure they have the quality to be definitively and completely safe, but when it comes down to it, I think they’ll do enough. I look forward to watching them play and hope for Kompany’s development as a manager to continue. This is probably the first time ever that Burnley have players who could actually be asked the question as to whether they can indeed ‘do it on a wet Wednesday night in Burnley’, and it might just be those games against their fellow strugglers that determine where they finish up.

18th – Everton

This just has a whiff of Southampton about it – long-term decay, mixed with not much transfer activity after just avoiding relegation, coupled with a manager who may not be there long term…look, ultimately Everton have been the Premier League’s ultimate survivors over the last few years, but eventually, as with Coventry, West Brom, Portsmouth, Southampton et al, your luck runs out. Barring Dyche finding some talent and goals that didn’t seem to exist last season, I think they’re in dire straights.

19th – Sheff Utd

Given their off pitch shenanigans, it’s honestly a miracle they’re even here. They’ll have some good days and it’ll be a great experience, but they don’t have and can’t recruit the quality needed to stay up in my opinion.

20th – Luton

It’s an amazing story, but it’s not going to get much bigger. Luton are hamstrung by their size as a club and lack of ability to generate revenue. Their best bet is to chip some points off some established Premier League sides, have some fun, and invest the money they receive for doing so wisely. There’s a real opportunity to build something long-lasting here, and after a great effort to get this far, I hope they take full advantage of it.

All that remains to say is good luck, fare thee well, and ignore this post from about November onwards.

Until next time. x

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