Premier League predictions: how accurate were ` Sport’s pundits?

32 minutes ago

In the past, the Premier League was considered too predictable – but not this season.

Sure, Manchester City did what many people expected as they secured their third consecutive title win, but it’s safe to say nobody has been able to complete the rest of the top four like they have.

That goes for the 23 ` pundits who tried to figure out who would finish in the Champions League spots, in the right order, before a ball was thrown back in August – and for our readers, who actually have yet to perform worse have the same task.

Thirteen pundits were correct that City finished top of the table, but ten believed Liverpool would become champions and their challenge was essentially over before the season was suspended for the World Cup in November.

While eight pundits rightly believed Arsenal would finish in the top four for the first time since 2016, none believed they would finish higher than fourth. No one saw Newcastle make it and only three backed Manchester United.

The plentiful coaching of Tottenham and Chelsea and even more unexpected defeats meant that two out of four teams were the best team among all Experts, and only five of the 11 teams that did so also chose City as the front runners.

Rob Green, who had City first and United third, performs best here, while ‘professional’ tipster Chris Sutton – who picks Premier League results weekly for ` Sport – is backing Liverpool to win… and therewith only one of his four selections was right.

Below you can see all participants’ full predictions for the top 4 ahead of the season.

Six teams were in the predicted top four, but only Manchester City and Liverpool featured in all 23 teams.

Overall predicted ranking using all 23 ` predictions

(using the system of 4 points for 1st place, 3 points for 2nd place, 2 points for 3rd place and 1 point for 4th place)

Some of you may be reading this and wondering, “How could you have gotten it so wrong?” Unfortunately, I have to say that many of you were even further off the mark and also got a lot more wrong.

Thousands of you voted for the Premier League final table on the ` website back in August and although 54% chose City as champions the rest of your top four were (in order): Liverpool. Leicester and Arsenal.

In case you missed it, the Foxes finished 18th, 41 points behind third-placed United and will play in the Championship rather than the Champions League next season.

However, on the same predictions page, more of you thought Mohamed Salah (26%) would be the top-flight goalscorer, rather than Erling Haaland (25%), while Bournemouth, Fulham and Nottingham Forest were your favorites to sink. and England won the vote on who will win the World Cup.

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