Premier League
Winners: Manchester City - As much as I'd love to put someone here to rock the boat, I don't see any of the other teams having sufficient strength in depth to maintain a challenge for the title, whilst also aiming for European and domestic cup competitions.
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| Points deduction required for Lallana's awful trim. |
Champions League: Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham - Two of the three teams have already strengthened in the summer window, whilst Tottenham were already the second best team in the league. For me, Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal will be the order.
Europa League: Chelsea, Manchester United - They're the two remaining 'big 6' clubs, and I don't see anyone breaking that group up this season, although there are a number of teams who have made shrewd transfers this summer (looking at you, Mr. Pellegrini.)
Relegation: Cardiff, Southampton, Huddersfield - Two of the three promoted teams have invested heavily in their squads, whilst Cardiff seem to have stagnated almost entirely, and although Neil Warnock has a semi-proven track record of keeping teams safe, the quality of the Premier League only continues to stretch away from those teams who are promoted each season. As for Southampton and Huddersfield, neither club has made any eye-watering transfers, and both struggled towards the back end of last season. As a side note, Mark Hughes will be the first manager sacked this season. Book it.
Championship
Automatic Promotion: Stoke City and Aston Villa - No one team stands out to me at the moment as being miles ahead of the pack, but these two have done a good job of keeping hold of their best players as of writing (Butland/Allen for Stoke, Grealish for Villa), and I can see players of their quality making the difference in a very tight Championship this season.
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| Image may look foreign to fans of Karanka's sides. |
Might as well predict Forest's finish as well. They'll finish 8th, missing out on a playoff place on the last day of the season, making a nice change from escaping relegation on the last day.
Relegation: Rotherham, Reading, Bolton - As with the playoff race in the Championship, it was hard to determine which two teams would go down with Rotherham, who have surely become the Championship/League One definition of a yo-yo team. Bolton have been teetering on the precipice for years now, as have Birmingham City, who survive in my eyes on account of the fact that Reading is a boring club in a boring town who play boring football.
From here on, I will only be predicting teams who are promoted and related, because quite frankly I couldn't give two hoots about any of the teams in League One or Two outside of the mighty Pies.
League One
Promotion: Sunderland, Shrewsbury, Portsmouth - If Sunderland don't get promoted from league One at the first time of asking then they should honestly just cease to exist as a football club, and all their fans should be required to get a tattoo saying Newcastle United are, and always have been, superior on their foreheads. Shrewsbury and Portsmouth were both quite good last year, I think. Hence, they will also be quite good again this year, I think.
Relegation: Accrington Stanley, Coventry, Wycombe Wanderers - I might as well have thrown darts at a dartboard for this one, I think I'm in way too deep on my League One knowledge, but Accrington Stanley and Coventry both got promoted last season, and Wycombe Wanderers are still living off the fact that they have Adebayo Akinfenwa in their squad: a man who is known universally more for his enormous figure and ridiculous antics than his ability with a football, which infuriates me no end. Nobody who is idolised by 14-year old FIFA hype beasts should be able to ply his trade in League One. I'm sure he's a lovely fella, though.
Oh shit, four go down. Um, also Gillingham. Probably.
League Two
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| I don't like seeing Jorge Grant in a shirt that isn't from Nottingham. |
Promotion: Notts County, Exeter, Lincoln, MK Dons - I don't like putting MK Dons in there, because they franchised Wimbledon like some sort of centrally-controlled American sports team, and I don't think you should rip people's teams away from them for profit, but maybe I'm just old fashioned. Or maybe I'm right, let me know. Also going up with the franchise are Exeter, Lincoln, and the mighty Notts County, who are going to win the league with a record number of points, and Kevin Nolan will be granted the freedom of the city of Nottingham, and Andy Hoe will give the entire squad free entry to Ocean for the rest of their living days, on both Wednesday and Friday nights.
Relegation: Newport County, Crewe - Two teams who have hung on to league status for far longer than is reasonably acceptable finally face their fate. Newport didn't come up that long ago, but they've been embarrassingly bad ever since they came up and are taking up a spot that anyone in the National League could fill with ease (except Bromley, I still hate Bromley. Fuck Bromley.) As for Crewe, I just want to watch the weekly MathsJack meltdown on Facebook as he finally realises that he supports one of the two worst teams in the Football League.
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| Europa League winners. Book it. |
Ligue 1
Winner: PSG, obviously
La Liga
Winner: Real Madrid... or Barcelona. Barcelona. Let's go with Barcelona.
Serie A
Winner: Juventus, not because of Ronaldo, but because they are infinitely more talented than any of the other teams in the league. I think they'll lose a maximum of 3 games.
Bundesliga
Winner: Bayern, aka Hoffenheim II. Süle, Rudy, Wagner etc help Bayern win the league, as Nagelsmann's last season becomes an unmitigated disaster and Hoffe finish 7th, fail to qualify for Europe through the league, but win the Europa League and therefore make their way into the 2019/20 Champions League thanks to pure fluke.
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