This is not a preview. This is a record. Everything below is logged before the season starts and I cannot change a word of it once August fifteenth arrives.
Title winner: Arsenal. Confidence three. The squad is deeper than it has been. The manager has learned from the near-misses. Liverpool are in transition. City are rebuilding after two key departures. This is Arsenal's window. They will not get another one like it.
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Top four miss: Tottenham Hotspur. Confidence three. I have said this before and been wrong. I am saying it again. They have the individual quality and the collective habit of finding a way not to win things. Their summer business has been solid. None of it matters until they show they can close a season out. They have not done that in thirty years and I see no evidence they are about to start.
“I am not putting these here to sound brave. I am putting them here because I believe every word.”
Relegation picks: Hull City, Coventry City, and one of Burnley's direct replacements if any of them came up. Hull came through the playoffs. Playoff winners go down more often than not. I have the numbers. Coventry I respect more than most pundits do but they will need until Christmas to adjust and by then the points gap may be too large. The third relegation place will go to whoever loses their manager first.
Surprise package: Brentford in the top six before Christmas. They do this every two or three seasons. Brentford at their best in the autumn, when the data-driven recruitment clicks and the rest of the league has not adjusted, is the most entertaining thing in the Premier League. I am not backing it to last. I am backing it to happen.
Golden Boot: I am keeping this one in reserve. I will tell you at GW1 when I have seen the pre-season form and confirmed the lineups. Some things I need to see before I go on record.
Season total goals across all thirty-eight rounds: I am projecting two thousand nine hundred and sixty. That is my Golden Goal number. If you are playing the tiebreaker and you want to beat me, you need to be closer than that.
Everything above is logged. Published eighth of August, twenty-twenty-six. Come back at the end of May and tell me how I did.
“I am not putting these here to sound brave. I am putting them here because I believe every word.”
The Gaffer · beatthegaffer.com