Premier League Predictions

[Suspence]

For you football (soccer) fans out there, submit your predictions for the final standings for the English Premier League 2009/10 Season.

Predict the spot that each team will finish in. Scoring will be as follows:

5 points for each correct prediction
3 points for each prediction +/- 1 position away from a team's actual finishing position
1 point for each prediction +/- 2 positions away from a team's actual finishing position
-5 points for each prediction +/- 5 or more positions away from a team's actual finishing position

My predictions are as follows:

1 Chelsea
2 Liverpool
3 Manchester United
4 Arsenal
5 Manchester City
6 Everton
7 Tottenham Hotspur
8 Aston Villa
9 Fulham
10 Stoke City
11 West Ham United
12 Wigan Athletic
13 Sunderland
14 Blackburn Rovers
15 Bolton Wanderers
16 Burnley
17 Wolverhampton Wanderers
18 Portsmouth
19 Hull City
20 Birmingham
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[Dragon Phoenix]

1 Liverpool
2 Chelsea
3 Manchester United
4 Arsenal
5 Manchester City
6 Tottenham Hotspur
7 Aston Villa
8 Everton
9 West Ham United
10 Fulham
11 Stoke City
12 Wigan Athletic
13 Sunderland
14 Blackburn Rovers
15 Bolton Wanderers
16 Portsmouth
17 Hull City
18 Wolverhampton Wanderers
19 Birmingham
20 Burnley
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[Lepton]

1 Man U (Berbatov gets left to the side, Rooney steps up and teaches the kids how to score. We never hear from Macheda again.)
2 Arsenal (Nasri, Arshavin, Walcott, van Persie, and Eduardo will all surpass 10 goals)
3 Chelsea (same old formula, yet to be correctly managed; the African Cup will decimate their chances midseason)
4 Man City (won't really gel, but we should see enough professionalism that pure teamwork won't factor in)
5 Liverpool (Gerrard/Torres will both start in only about 60% of the BPL games, and the goals will thus be lacking)
6 Tottenham Hotspur (so much potential, so few goals...)
7 Everton (best defense in the league, and strikers hitting their strides)
8 Fulham (last year was a fairytale, this year they'll find themselves buoyed by a crap bottom half)
9 Aston Villa (had their shot/shots and couldn't make it; expect yet another winless March)
10 West Ham United (good coaching can only get them so far; they will ache for Zola to get off the bench and put his foot on the ball in some painful second halves)

14.5 All of the following (can I do this? )
Stoke City
Wigan Athletic
Sunderland
Blackburn Rovers
Bolton Wanderers
Portsmouth
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Birmingham
Burnley

20 Hull City (I'll root for them, but they don't stand a chance)

[Courk]

If I'm allowed to enter basing my predictions off you lot's predictions, here's my guess:

1. Chelsea (Kinda cool, I was going to either place them first since I love the Fratellis, or Manchester United, since that's the only other team I've heard of)
2. Liverpool
3. Arsenal
4. Manchester United
5. Manchester City
6. Tottenham
7. Everton
8. Aston Villa
9. Fulham
10. West Ham United
11. Stoke City
12. Wigan Athletic
13. Sunderland
14. Blackburn
15. Bolton
16. Portsmouth
17. Wolverhampton (Wolverhampton? Seriously? That's an awesome name)
18. Burnley
19. Birmingham
20. Hull City (Umm, boo, apparently.)

[Scurra]

[Courk]

[Suspence]

Lepton, nice try, but I'll take them in the order you've listed them from 11-19.

Here are the PL standings after Week 1. Tiebreakers are goal differential (Arsenal destroyed Everton 6-1, thus their relative positions - so much for Lepton's "best defense" comment), then goals scored, then alphabetical order at this point.

Pos Team Points
1 Arsenal 3
2 Manchester City 3
3 Stoke City 3
4 West Ham 3
5 Wigan 3
6 Chelsea 3
7 Tottenham 3
8 Fulham 3
9 Manchester United 3
10 Sunderland 3
11 Hull City 0
12 Liverpool 0
13 Birmingham 0
14 Bolton 0
15 Portsmouth 0
16 Aston Villa 0
17 Blackburn 0
18 Burnley 0
19 Wolverhampton 0
20 Everton 0
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[Aga*]

1 Arsenal
2 Man utd
3 Chelsea
4 Liverpool
5 Aston Vliia
6 Fulham
7 Man City
8 Spurs
9 Hammers
10 Wigan
11 Everton
12 Pompey
13 Stoke
14 Blackburn
15 Hull
16 Bolton
17 Hull
18 Birmingham
19 Wolves
20 Burnley

[Aga*]

[Suspence]

Gotta say that it was hard to decide what was worse on Saturday, Everton's play or their new kit. That shirt is just terrible. If I was Lescott, I'd want out too, just to avoid wearing that thing.

My fear for Fulham is that the small squad combined with the Europa League and both cup competitions might hurt their PL position.

I'm hoping big things for Spurs this season, and beating Liverpool soundly was a slightly better start than the past two seasons.
_________________
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[Lepton*]

Everton's two golden boys -- Arteta and Jagielka -- are out to injury, but both should return some time this autumn. Don't write them off based on one leaky performance. I was especially impressed by Wigan this week, and they are the only team I'd want to change on my list.

[Lepton*]

I have to agree about the kits. Everton's is awful, and some other squads' are almost as bad. Won't someone take a hint from Blackburn?

[Courk]

Really?

[Lepton*]

Note the fake V-neck.

[Courk]

I'd rather wear that than the away uniform.

You like Blackburn's uniform? The left-side-blue, right-side-white thing?

[Courk]

Bolton Wanderers and Wolverhampton Wanderers? How lost can you get on a soccer field?

[Suspence]

Agreed that there are lots of bad kits this year actually.

Chelsea has a built in sports bra:



Tottenham has added totally unneeded yellow lines, and gotten rid of last years cool socks:



ManU has an ugly black chevron:



Bolton went with this for some unknown reason:



And it's a good thing that Newcastle is no longer in the Prem, or we'd be seeing this beaty:


_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Suspence]

Also, Aga, it looks like you've listed Hull twice and neglected Sunderland.
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Agamemnon]

Agh! Sorry, my bad.

1 Arsenal
2 Man utd
3 Chelsea
4 Liverpool
5 Aston Vliia
6 Fulham
7 Man City
8 Spurs
9 Hammers
10 Wigan
11 Everton
12 Pompey
13 Stoke
14 Blackburn
15 Sunderland
16 Bolton
17 Hull
18 Birmingham
19 Wolves
20 Burnley

Leppy: I'm not entirely writing Everton off, just think that the time of lucky top ten finishes has ended for them this year.

[Lepton*]

Blackburn's jersey is brilliant because it is simple in design and combines good colours (black/red or blue/white).

I'm getting upset that so many people are calling Fulham as the dark horse this year. They won't be the dark horse much longer.

[Courk]

How often are these games played?

[Scurra]

Basically what happens is that all the fixtures are put into a hat, and then whenever Rupert Murdoch (or one of his close family) fancies watching a match, they pull one out at random and that one is played live on Sky television.

Well, that's what it feels like sometimes. In general each team will play an average of one match a week (excluding knock-out trophy competitions.) Until the advent of satellite television, almost all matches were played at the same time (3pm on a Saturday afternoon.)
Now, however, there are league matches on Friday and Monday nights, as well as Saturday afternoons (the midweek games are typically reserved for European and cup matches) and sometimes kick-offs are staggered so that two live matches can be shown the same day.

Hopefully, you are now more confused than ever.


(Meanwhile I think my prediction can be written off already. Ye Gods we were terrible tonight. Thank goodness I only watched the "highlights".)
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Lepton*]

Imagine the NFL, with a 38-week season and no playoffs. Instead of the playoffs, the best teams get to participate in extra tournaments that give them an additional game a week. So the top teams play twice a week pretty much straight until June, while the weaker sides get one game a week. And league games can be either on the weekend or during the week.

This weekend: Arsenal and Manchester United. This game will probably set the tone of the season for both teams.

[Lepton*]

...and I don't think a single statement from my predictions will turn out to be correct.

[Courk]

[mith]

They added a third recently (last year or the year before?)... one is only on NFL Network. (And of course there is pretty much always a college football game on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and high school games on Friday and Saturday... Wednesday is really the only day of the week you can't be sure of finding a game on during football season, now.)

The weirdness of the European schedules for me is not that there are games on different days, but that the schedule isn't set in stone. There's a league schedule you can look at right now, but league matches get rescheduled to fit in games from the various Cup competitions... which is why late in the season you tend to have at least one or two of the top four (if not all of them) a game or two behind the rest of the League.

[mith]

In other news, I was in Denton this weekend and was flipping through channels while Michelle was in the other room checking the internet, and noticed that the ManU game was on. It was scoreless. Within 5 minutes, it was 2-0 (and Wigan had nearly scored in between the goals). Then we left it on muted while we started a game of Race for the Galaxy, and I kept looking up to see that they had scored again.

Of course, I was happy with the result, but it's especially nice when the non-fans in the room are entertained (I feel like my dad has never seen a goal scored, because it's pretty much always 0-0 when he walks in the room and I'm watching football).

[Aga*]

It always made me chuckle when in Yankeeland and talking about Blighty Footie, especially explaining that if a league games ends in a draw there is no added time to get a winner........its just a drawn game and both teams share the minor spoils.

Explaining a draw in cricket was just mind boggling
"What, so you play for three days and there is no winner? Huh! Jeez, whats the point of that!"

[Courk]

Is there a place I can go to see how my teams are doing?

[Aga*]

If you just want the Premier league then looky here:
http://www.premierleague.com/page/Home/0,,12306,00.html

If you want other teams from the lower Blighty leagues then looky here:
http://www.thefa.com/
[/url]

[Suspence]

Current standings after 4 matches (though only 3 for certain teams):

Chelsea
Tottenham
Manchester United
Manchester City
Stoke City
Arsenal
Liverpool
Aston Villa
Sunderland
Burnley
West Ham
Birmingham City
Wolverhampton
Hull City
Fulham
Everton
Wigan
Blackburn
Bolton
Portsmouth

If I've written my formula correctly, that would result in the following points if the season ended today:
Me - 25
Courk - 19
DP - 16
Scurra - 14
Lepton - 14
Aga - 4

Expect these to change between now and mid-May.
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I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Lepton]

[Scurra]

Well I've pretty much abandoned my chances, since Liverpool have had their worst run for, well about as long as I can remember. I still think they will finish in the top four, but frankly the title is completely out of their grasp.

On the other hand, I also appear to have given the kiss of death to Portsmouth. They've just been rubbish so far this year.
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[Lepton*]

Speaking of runs, though, Pompey is +8 in their last two games, against Wigan and Stoke. With the revolving-door installed at the locker room and the huge instability over finances, the start of the season was always going to be rough. I think, though, that they're starting to turn around.

Sunderland and, to a lesser extent, Aston Villa have impressed me this year; West Ham's had too much going on behind the scenes to do well, but they seem poised for a good run this month. Predictably, Liverpool haven't tied yet this year and Hull have been poor. Lastly, with the squad nearly fit, Arsenal is really hitting their stride: the 4-3-3 is really what works best for them and their game.

[Suspence]

Current Standings:

Suspence - 36
Courk - 35
Scurra - 31
DP - 29
Lepton - 27
Aga - 24

Unfortunately, the number of games each team has played isn't even at this point - some have 20, while others only 18 - so the following rankings are adjusted based on rankings of points earned per game played:

Suspence - 40
Courk - 35
DP - 33
Scurra - 30
Lepton - 27
Aga - 19

Here's the actual order of the teams, followed by their PPG ranking.

1 Chelsea (1)
2 Manchester United (3)
3 Arsenal (2)
4 Tottenham Hotspur (4)
5 Manchester City (5)
6 Aston Villa (6)
7 Liverpool (7)
8 Birmingham (8)
9 Fulham (9)
10 Sunderland (11)
11 Everton (12)
12 Stoke City (10)
13 Blackburn Rovers (16)
14 Burnley (14)
15 Wigan Athletic (15)
16 Wolverhampton Wanderers (18)
17 West Ham United (17)
18 Bolton Wanderers (13)
19 Hull City (19)
20 Portsmouth (20)
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[Suspence]

Congrats to Courk, whose superior football knowledge (as demonstrated throughout this thread) has put the rest of us to shame.

As a Spurs fan, getting into the top 4 was awesome, especially doing it by beating Chelsea, Arsenal and City. Great EPL season all around (unless you support Liverpool). Looking forward to next year.
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[Scurra]

I am more depressed about getting the bottom three exactly correct than getting the top four so horribly wrong! Still, there's always next year. Right?
_________________
_{still Quiz Olympiad champion. Must get a life.
New definitions: COFFEE - someone who is coughed upon}

[The Doctor]

Are we doing this again this year?

[Suspence]

The 2011-12 Premier League season kicks off on 8/13, and I can't wait.

Submit your predictions for the final standings for EPL 2011/12 season here, and we'll figure out who wins in May 2012.

Here are the rules. Predict the spot that each team will finish in. Scoring will be as follows:

5 points for each correct prediction
3 points for each prediction +/- 1 position away from a team's actual finishing position
1 point for each prediction +/- 2 positions away from a team's actual finishing position
-5 points for each prediction +/- 3 or more positions away from a team's actual finishing position (Slight change from last time, reducing the +/- penalty to 3 positions, down from 5)

I'll submit my predictions a little closer to the 13th. The below are in alphabetical order (though it still pains me to put Arsenal top of the league), to demonstrate the format you should submit your predictions in.

1) Arsenal
2) Aston Villa
3) Blackburn Rovers
4) Bolton Wanderers
5) Chelsea
6) Everton
7) Fulham
8) Liverpool
9) Manchester City
10) Manchester United
11) Newcastle United
12) Norwich City
13) Queens Park Rangers
14) Stoke City
15) Sunderland
16) Swansea City
17) Tottenham Hotspur
18) West Bromwich Albion
19) Wigan Athletic
20) Wolverhampton Wanderers
_________________
I hate people who try to write interesting things in their signature.

[MatthewV]

I know nothing about this sport. Someone has to lose...

1) Chelsea
2) Aston Villa
3) Wigan Athletic
4) Newcastle United
5) Manchester United
6) Sunderland
7) Arsenal
8) Liverpool
9) Fulham
10) West Bromwich Albion
11) Everton
12) Tottenham Hotspur
13) Queens Park Rangers
14) Bolton Wanderers
15) Wolverhampton Wanderers
16) Blackburn Rovers
17) Swansea City
18) Stoke City
19) Manchester City
20) Norwich City