Twenty Teams. My Final Word.

Three days to the season. One sentence per club. On the record.

Arsenal: they win the title this year or they never will, and I think they will.

Manchester City: twenty points from the last available twenty-four last season, which is why no one writes them off, which is correct.

“Twenty clubs. One sentence each. I am not interested in being diplomatic. I am interested in being right.”

Liverpool: in transition, still dangerous, will not be where the title is decided but will decide where it goes.

Chelsea: eight managers in ten years and a squad assembled by committee; they will finish seventh and spend December suggesting this counts as progress.

Tottenham: genuinely good players, genuinely dysfunctional club, I am picking against them every time the pressure is high and I will be right more than I am wrong.

Manchester United: I have said everything I have to say about Manchester United for three years running and I am tired of saying it; they will finish eighth.

Newcastle: well-run, well-coached, quietly building something that could be very interesting in two seasons; back them at home.

Aston Villa: last season was not a fluke but the step up to Champions League football cost them six points they needed for the top four; watching closely.

West Ham: new stadium energy is real but the squad is thinner than it was two windows ago; mid-table, probably eighth, possibly tenth.

Brighton: the best-coached unfashionable club in the country; do not write them off before you have watched them in September.

Everton: I keep saying they will be fine and they keep not being fine; I am giving them one more season before I revise my entire assessment of their squad depth.

Brentford: I will back them against any top-six side at home in the first ten gameweeks; they always overperform in that window and the value is real.

Crystal Palace: solid defensive structure, honest effort, will finish twelfth and no one will talk about them after November.

Fulham: Marco Silva deserves a better club and is building one anyway; they are the most interesting mid-table side to pick in tight gameweeks.

Wolves: back from the Championship, changed squad, no memory of what went wrong before; I am giving them three months before I decide if they have fixed it.

Coventry City: ninety-five points in the Championship, functional system, will not go straight back down as long as they keep their manager; I respect them more than the pundit consensus does.

Hull City: came through the playoffs, which is always a warning sign; I think they go back but I am keeping it at confidence two because I have been wrong about promoted sides before.

Ipswich Town: the big signing will not integrate until November and they are going to feel that in September; more than the others though they have Premier League quality in their spine.

Nottingham Forest: I am not going to tell you what I think here because my Forest bias is documented and I am aware of it; ask me in February when I have some distance from it.

Leicester City: if I said three weeks ago I wanted them to be promoted and now I have to pick against them in October I will handle that professionally; I have done harder things.

That is twenty. Some of them I am confident about. Some of them I am guessing. That is football. GW1 picks Friday fourteenth August. Early access Thursday for Directors Box. Come and beat me.