Crystal ball time...

With expert timing I've waited until 3 hours before the season kicks off to appraise last year's football predictions and make some for this season.

So without further ado, here's last year's predictions with results:

1) The winners of the Premiership this season will be.....Chelsea. A brave shout, but I think that their squad is old and experienced and so is their coach. Ancelotti will bring the best tactically out of what is still a pretty strong group.

Correct - Chelsea won the double in fact.


2) Second in the league will be.......Manure. Yes they lost Ronaldo and haven't replaced him with anything approaching the same ability, but removing the diving tosser from their side gives them a better formation to suit the other players.

Correct - it was close at the top but a bigger gap back to 3rd.


3) Third will be.......Liverpool. Losing Alonso is a bad blow, and any injury to Torres of Gerrard will be curtains for any title bid.

Incredibly wrong as Liverpool imploded. Gerrard had a terrible season by his standards, and Torres played under half of their games and didn't look at all fit after Christmas. I thought that they'd struggle to challenge but not end up 7th like they did. I guess their squad players really were rubbish.


4) Fourth will be.......Arsenal. Sorry Man City, I just can't see your best side emerge until too late in the season to challenge the gooners. Having said that, if the scummer's injury list get any worse then even holding on to fourth could be problematic.

Wrong, although not by much as only Liverpool's shocking season meant they finished 3rd. They were never really in the title race, but better than all the sides listed below.


5) I can't see beyond Man City, though they'll be closer to 6th than 4th.

Correct, although there wasn't much between 4th and 7th in terms of points.


6) I'm fancying Everton for 6th. Unless Lescott moves, then they might swap with Villa.

Lescott did move, and they did finish below Villa. However they finished in 8th so I'll have to count it as a qualified failure.


7) Villa for 7th. I'd hoped we'd poach Young but that looks a non-starter, and though they've lost Laursen and Barry I don't see them dropping off that much.

Mainly wrong as Villa finished 6th but only by a fraction.


8) Time for realism. I just don't get the feeling that Spurs will push on this season. It's a stabilising year for us. Yes we'll beat the big teams but we'll crumble at times and lose stupid games when the big teams would close it out.

Well we did beat the big teams (Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal all losing at the Lane) and we did lose to the small teams as well (Wolves home and away for example). However we finished 4th :)

I must admit to having tried some reverse psychology here. I predicted them to come 4th for two years and they didn't, so I thought I'd be pessimistic this time. Might have to tip them for relegation this year!


9) The three relegated teams will be Portsmouth, Wigan and Birmingham

One out of three correct. Burnley and Hull were the ones I didn't get. Fail.


10) Top scorer in the league will be Jermaine Defoe (oh come on, allow me some Spurs bias!)

The top scorer was..........Didier Drogba on 29, with Jermaine Defoe coming in 6th with 18. Ah well, at least this one wasn't a serious prediction :)


11) Michael Owen will not score more than 15 league goals

He was 113th top scorer with 3 goals. Result.


12) But Darren Bent will

He was 3rd top scorer with 24. Kerching!


13) First Manager to be sacked will be Martinez of Wigan

Surprisingly not. I can't even remember who was sacked first. Possibly Jewell at Portsmouth after 42 minutes or something.


14) Spurs will be in the top four at Christmas

And they were! :)


15) A Premiership player will test positive for drugs (or will be penalised for not taking a test)

I'm going to keep repeating this one as it has to come true eventually!


16) England will qualify for the World Cup with the best record of any European country

They were one course until the final game, when having already qualified they drew away from home, handing the best record tag to Holland. Close but no cigar.


17) Spain will win the World Cup. They will meet Argentina in the final (after they beat England) and will win 2-1 with a goal from a winger in the 74th minute.

Spain did indeed win the World Cup, the other bits weren't true though. I'll claim a half point.


18) The squad that Capello picks for England at the World Cup finals will include Rooney, Heskey, Defoe and Owen, although Owen won't play a game.

The forwards picked were Rooney, Heskey, Defoe and Crouch. Although Owen was talked about by some quarters he was never in contention for a spot (quite rightly too).


19) Sunderland will finish in the top ten

Sunderland finished 13th, 6 points off 10th. They were up there for a while but had a disastrous February and lost every game. They never recovered from it.


20) Newcastle will not get promoted back to the Premiership this year.

My reasoning here was that their owner would have them up for sale all season, fail to get a buyer or put money in and they'd sell their few good players to make ends meet. However their owner had a change of heart and they didn't need to sell anyone, meaning that they won the league at a canter. I'll claim that as a near-miss ;)


So my final score was 6 and a half - possibly my lowest score. Senility must be playing its part :(