The former Arsenal man made good calls regarding Chelsea and Leicester, but was some way off when it came to Tottenham, West Ham, West Brom, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Bournemouth.
Yesterday we looked at Ian Holloway’s pre-season Championship predictions which involved a mixed bag of decent shouts and one or two shockers. Whilst Holloway could be forgiven for some of his mishaps, the Premier League is a significantly ‘easier’ division to predict than the Championship. Before a ball had been kicked, you could say with some confidence that the top six would consist of Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool, although the order may admittedly involve some disagreements.
Paul Merson is not a man renowned for his incredible powers of prediction, to put it kindly. Nostradamus he is not. However, with the Premier League season drawing to a close, we thought we’d take a look at the Sky Sports pundits pre-season predictions and how they are faring with just a few games to go. The predictions were originally published here for Sky Sports.
Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson
Best Predictions
Credit must go to Paul Merson for predicting Chelsea to win the title. Whilst Antonio Conte’s men have not yet got the division wrapped up, they have led the table for months now, and are still heavy favourites to see off the challenge of Tottenham Hotspur. In his pre-season prediction, Merson cited the arrival of Conte and re-emergence of Eden Hazard as the two main factors for backing the Blues for a second title in three years.
Merson is also unlikely to be too far wrong with his predictions for Manchester City, who he predicted to come second, Liverpool, who he predicted to come fifth, and Arsenal, who he predicted to come fourth. Having said that, as pointed out earlier, the Premier League top six was always likely to be something of a closed shop this season, and it would take a catastrophic prediction to be too wide of the mark with the aforementioned trio.
Merson made accurate predictions about Chelsea and Leicester City
One slightly less predictable prediction (so to speak) by Merson which looks set to come true was predicting an 11th place finish for reigning champions Leicester City. Merson said he expected a hard season for the Foxes due to Champions League football, where they would fail to challenge at the top of the league but face no relegation concerns. Of course, prior to the sacking of Claudio Ranieri, there were some relegation concerns at the King Power, but with three games to go, Craig Shakespeare’s men sit 11th.
Other decent shouts by Merson include Stoke City, who consistently finish in the middle of the table and will do so once more this season, as the former Gunner predicted. Meanwhile relegation threatened Hull City currently find themselves 17th in the Premier League, not far off the 19th placed finish Merson predicted, although Marco Silva has certainly performed better than the Englishman anticipated.
Merson wasn’t far off the mark when it came to Stoke City and Hull City
Worst Predictions
Arguably Merson’s worst prediction was AFC Bournemouth, who the pundit predicted to be relegated this season. Instead, the Cherries find themselves sat comfortably in the middle of the table (10th) ahead of reigning champions Leicester. West Ham are another team Merson was considerably wide of the mark when predicting. The retired midfielder predicted a new stadium boost would see the Hammers finish 7th, ahead of Everton. How has that turned out again? Oh…
As for Everton themselves, Merson may only be one place out (8th), but the Toffees are a whopping 14 points clear of 8th place and just two points behind 6th placed Arsenal, showing he significantly underestimated their capabilities under Ronald Koeman. Merson also stated that should the Merseysiders sell Romelu Lukaku and John Stones, he’d expect them to finish 12th, one of whom they did of course go on to sell.
The former Gunners worst predictions were of West Ham and Bournemouth
Predicting West Brom to finish 17th, just one place above the relegation zone, also appears fairly wide of the mark now. Despite being winless in five and losing their last four on the bounce, the Baggies sit 8th, having had no relegation concerns all season and still look set to win the ‘best of the rest’ title. The fact that Merson called Middlesbrough and Sunderland to finish above Tony Pulis’ men is also a little odd.
Sunderland have looked doomed almost the entirety of the season, and Middlesbrough always looked like they’d be in a serious scrap, even if they did manage to somehow stay up, yet Merson backed the Black Cats to finish 14th and Boro to finish 13th.
Sunderland and Middlesbrough have performed below Merson’s expectations
All Predictions (Actual Position in Brackets)
1. Chelsea (1)
2. Manchester City (4)
3. Manchester United (5)
4. Arsenal (6)
5. Liverpool (3)
6. Tottenham Hotspur (2)
7. West Ham United (15)
8. Everton (7)
9. Southampton (9)
10. Stoke City (12)
11. Leicester City (11)
12. Crystal Palace (16)
13. Middlesbrough (19)
14. Sunderland (20)
15. Swansea City (18)
16. Watford (13)
17. West Brom (8)
18. AFC Bournemouth (10)
19. Hull City (17)
20. Burnley (14)
The predictions were originally published here for Sky Sports.
Paul Merson during his time as a player at Arsenal
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