At the start of every season football fans locate their inner Mystic Meg and make a few predictions for the year ahead.
Some forecasts for the current season have panned out – with many expecting Manchester City to be the team to beat and thinking Chelsea could struggle to emulate their fantastic 2016/17 title winning campaign.
But not every popular prediction has some right…
It’s vital Arsenal keep Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil
Retaining the contract rebels was seen as the key to success for the Gunners this season. Even Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said keeping his team together was the most important thing during the summer transfer window.
But having held on to them, Arsenal find themselves 12 points off the top and Sanchez and Ozil have contributed little.
Sanchez has just one Premier League goal this season when at this stage last year he had six. Ozil’s contribution is no better and such a liability has the German become that Wenger has omitted the World Cup winner on occasion this season.
Allowing them to leave and investing in new talent could have had a galvanising affect on the mediocre Gunners.
Wembley will be the undoing of Tottenham
Having finished runners-up last season, many thought Tottenham would struggle to replicate that campaign with the move to Wembley cited as the top reason. Playing in the unfamiliar surroundings of the national stadium while their home next door to the old White Hart Lane is revamped would cost them points, or so everyone thought.
That looked to be coming true when they lost to Chelsea and drew with Burnley and Swansea early on.
But the odd bad result at home is nothing new for Spurs. They had dropped points at White Hart Lane to Liverpool and Leicester at this stage last term and to Stoke, Liverpool and Everton the year before that.
Maximum points against Liverpool, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace in their last three Premier League games – and of course that win over Real Madrid – are making a mockery of the Wembley woe predictions.
The promoted teams will go straight back down
How the Premier League regulars currently filling the relegation zone wish that prediction were true. But instead West Ham, Swansea and Crystal Palace fill the bottom three places that many predicted would be taken up by the promoted teams.
Remarkably, Brighton, Newcastle and Huddersfield aren’t even close, with the trio eighth, 11th and 10th respectively.
Along the way Huddersfield beat Manchester United for the first time since 1952, Brighton won 3-0 away against West Ham and Newcastle’s defensive record is bettered by just one side outside the top-three.
Everton are the dark horses
The argument went that with a huge outlay on new signings and Ronald Koeman at the helm, glory days were on their way back to Goodison Park.
Nearly £150million was spent bringing Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Wayne Rooney, Gylfi Sigurddson, Davy Klaassen, Nikola Vlasic, Henry Onyyekuru, Cuco Martina and Sandro Ramirez to the club.
But what those who predicted Everton would gatecrash the top four forgot to factor in was the impact of Romelu Lukaku’s departure and that virtually every new arrival would be a disappointment.
‘Future-Barcelona-manager’ Koeman has been sacked and rather than aiming for the top four, Everton will now be happy just to stay out of the bottom three this season.
Man City’s weakness is their defence
In retrospect, perhaps those predicting that goals would be flying in against Pep Guardiola’s side were just clutching at straws.
With one expensive summer signing following another at the Etihad over the summer, it was obvious that Manchester City were assembling a special squad. When they missed out on signing Alexis Sanchez it hardly mattered so impressive was the attacking talent already at the club.
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