Pre-season predictions revisited: Just how wrong were we on Liverpool, Arsenal, Villa, Sunderland? | OneFootball

As a Christmas treat we always like to revisit our pre-season predictions to get a sneak peek at who is on the way to looking utterly clueless.

The full pre-season predictions are here if you want to have a proper laugh, or we will pick out the highlights…

Starting – as is traditional – with the Premier League champions, this was bold from the boss (me): ‘Not Arsenal. Not having that.’ So guess who is very, very invested in the Gunners f***ing this up as they traditionally do from being top at Christmas.

Dave Tickner was the only F365-er who actually tipped Arsenal, while Matt Stead and Ian Watson also plumped for Manchester City. The rest are already out of the race by tipping Liverpool and Chelsea; this was back in the days when we were dreaming of a four-horse title race.

The top four, which nobody ever gets right? Every single one of us went for a combination of last season’s top four, with Lewis Oldham adding to his Liverpool title prediction with this beauty: ‘Chelsea. Arsenal. Manchester City. Not sold on City as title challengers yet. Arsenal third in the battle for first as real deal Chelsea (26/27 will be their year) to edge out their rivals to second and potentially seal Arteta sack.’

Let’s get relegation out of the way. Some of us absolutely f***ed it on Sunderland but Joe Williams, Jason Soutar and Lewis Oldham saw the Black Cats surprise coming. There were far too many Brentford shouts, but John Nicholson, Williams and Soutar nailed it on Wolves. Williams may yet still entirely nail it with Wolves, Burnley and Leeds, but that’s expecting a lot of West Ham.

The pleasant surprise of the season? There was a weird volume of excitement about Everton, but points go again to Williams for his Sunderland shout. It looked ridiculous at the time. What looks ridiculous now is Stead: ‘It has been an absolute delight to laugh at them all summer but Newcastle will rise from the cuck chair and excel on the pitch, if not the boardroom, with another top-five finish.’

Also ridiculous was Watson dreaming that Manchester United would sign a ‘midfielder with legs’. He is still waiting.

Who will win the Golden Boot? ‘This is dull but Erling Haaland. I can’t see Mo Salah coming even vaguely close,’ said Winterburn (me, this is weird). Taking that all day.

We’re still not sure if Johnny was being serious with his Liam Delap call, while Watson bought into the Viktor Gyokeres hype. But once again, we return to Stead: ‘Alexander Isak stays, quickly realises it might not be the best idea to entirely starve oneself of competitive football in a World Cup year and has his Luis Suarez season before getting that move.’

Which new signing will have the greatest positive impact? There were big shouts for Gyokeres and Joao Pedro, while Will Ford had an inkling for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall at Everton. I did say we were oddly excited about Everton. What’s the actual answer so far? Probably Granit Xhaka or Robin Roefs.

As for the massive flop…I was likely wrong on Hugo Ekitike, but Stead was right on the assorted Chelsea rejects. Williams might have nailed it again as he described Benjamin Sesko as ‘wildly overpriced’ while Tickner might be oddly prescient in suggesting that Gyokeres, Sesko and Ekitike would all struggle to reach double figures.

There were calls for Bryan Mbeumo, Rayan Cherki and Noni Madueke that could be a little wide of the mark, but Ford might have smashed it with Gyokeres. The predictions were written before the Alexander Isak signing so Floppy McFlopface did not get a mention.

Who will be the biggest bloody bargain? ‘Rayan Cherki feels like a steal at £34m…or a third of a Grealish,’ might be my finest hour. Stead’s Jhon Arias call might not be his, while the least said the better about mentions of Angus Gunn and Kyle Walker-Peters.

PFA Player of the Year will not be Rodri, Cole Palmer or Florian Wirtz. It might be Declan Rice, though. The Spurs fan among us what the only true believer in Arsenal.

The first Premier League manager to be sacked was Nuno Espirito Santo. Once again, we give you Tickner. He confidently wrote: ‘Mr Marinakis is on one right now, positively aglow with main character energy, and the off-field shenanigans cannot mask that Forest ended last season in pretty ropey fashion. And have been honking in pre-season. They only managed eight points from their final nine Premier League games last season – and it wasn’t that tough a run-in either. Start this season anything like the way they ended the last with Marinakis in his current mood to move fast and break things, and Nuno is very quickly in very big trouble.’ No notes.

We always end with ‘in five words, tell us what you are most excited about this season’.