The opening fixtures of the Premier League season will be reversed this midweek, so it feels as good a time as any to look at some kneejerk reactions.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Those kneejerk reactions can be reviewed in their full glory, but here follows a brief assessment of just how awful they were.
10) Erling Haaland to break his own scoring record
Another brace on the opening night suggested the goalbot had completed his updates over the summer, even if Pep Guardiola did do that thing of offering some pointed and furious post-match tactical advice to Haaland after Manchester City’s thrashing of Burnley in August.
The Norwegian maintained a decent pace thereafter, plundering 14 goals in 15 games and even adding another hat-trick to his burgeoning collection.
But Haaland has been out since early December through injury, missing five valuable Premier League fixtures in which Manchester City scored at least two goals each time. He still shares a grasp on the Golden Boot with the similarly sidelined Mo Salah, yet even if Haaland returns in midweek and plays every remaining match, he will need to score 22 goals in 18 games just to equal last season’s tally.
That was meant to make it sound impossible; viewed through the Haaland prism, it just seems vaguely difficult.
9) Dominic Solanke will make his England return
Boom. Really bizarrely specific prediction about the career upturn of a previously relatively unremarkable player. But boom. That you only have to scan immediately past the aforementioned Haaland and Salah to find Solanke’s name on at list of top Premier League goalscorers this season sums up his evolution. He has already doubled his best top-flight tally with just under half a season left.
Weird to foresee it after a single goal in a draw with West Ham. Stranger still that Gareth Southgate called up a 20-year-old Solanke with seven career Premier League appearances – all as a substitute – and no goals, but is yet to give the nod to the same player in his professional prime. Get him on the plane once Harry Kane’s metatarsal goes.
8) Bukayo Saka to win Player of the Year
Currently eighth favourite in the betting, behind Kevin de Bruyne and his 44 Premier League minutes this season. That is roughly as long as Mikel Arteta has benched Saka, which makes the line about how he ‘will hopefully be given an actually adequate amount of rest by club and country’ a little sad.
7) Sheffield United and Luton are going down
‘The Blades and Hatters both showed glimpses to suggest they will pose some problems this season, but they will ultimately fall far short,’ it was written. In the case of Luton at the very least, it’s technically a yes for now as they lie in the bottom three, but the idea they would be cut adrift has been exposed by their handy knack of both a) staying in games and b) scoring very late goals.
Sheffield United have rolled the managerial change dice but things do look bleak for the Blades, who are a further six points back from their promoted brethren, having played a game more.
6) Wolves will be fine
Gary O’Neil would have taken being level on points with Newcastle in late January when he accepted the Wolves post less than a week before the season began. He might have done so under the pretence of European qualification being a possibility, but mid-table serenity is a fine consolation for the Premier League’s foremost firefighter.
5) Manchester United will finish outside the top four
It does feel a bit like they might. Manchester United are 8th, an entire 11 points behind fourth-placed Aston Villa and in the sort of inconsistent, perennially-corner-turning form which ultimately did for both their two previous permanent managers, while their homegrown highest earner has joined the legion of players having their wrists slapped for apparent insubordination.
The nothingness of that first performance against Wolves has basically been repeated ad infinitum for the subsequent six months across four competitions. No amount of marginal gains will solve that so quickly.
4) Chelsea will finish above Liverpool
Oh good lord.
There’s always one particular shout in these which is made to look just laughably, pathetically embarrassing. Last season it was that Manchester United, eventual third-place finishers that they were, would place no higher than 8th. That would sound positively prophetic now but The Rules won’t allow it.
Anyway, the claim was made in the aftermath of a 1-1 draw in which Chelsea were arguably the better side, but more pertinently in the days after both Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia were amortised away from Liverpool’s desperate grasp. That apparent transfer victory very much gave things a misleadingly blue hue.
The points gap between the two teams is equal to the amount of games that are left: 17 each. Strap in for a gargantuan collapse to send Jurgen Klopp off into the sunset the same way he came in.
3) Spurs will be better off
It’s easy to forget just how much trepidation there was in certain quarters regarding a Spurs side that had sold its greatest goalscorer and perhaps best player ever, while pointedly shifting from the obsession with born winners and serial trophy hoarders to appoint a ‘mate’ merchant straight out of Scotland.
That mild anxiety took the life-affirming course of transforming into neutral admiration, sycophantic breath-of-fresh-air praise and then finally wider scorn and ridicule across a 10-game unbeaten start to the season, since which the ship has been steadied after a wobble to the extent that Harry Kane really might be regretting his choices.
2) Sean Dyche won’t last the season
Oh but he will. Dyche might well have seen the campaign out regardless but the Everton points deduction essentially guaranteed it, so entrenched was the Goodison Park siege mentality at that stage
“They had a slow start this season because I thought we were excellent against them. But they got a result,” Dyche said this week, reflecting upon both Everton’s opening defeat to Fulham and their Carabao exit to the Cottagers, both at home. A chance to atone awaits on the road, where Everton do by far their best work.
1) Newcastle will erect a statue of Sandro Tonali
Not aged well, that. It was the Daily Mail who called the Italian a ‘strutting alpha male’ after his ‘Hollywood-style debut’ against Aston Villa so blame them.
The actual prediction was not much better: that Newcastle would set a new club record for Premier League points in a single season. Good luck to Eddie Howe and his players in procuring the 50 points they need from a possible 51.
