My 2024/25 Premier League predictions

Greetings, reader!

I know, I know, this is supposed to be a movie/TV blog, but then again, what is the English Premier League if not a dramatic reality television spectacle? Anyhow, as the 2024/25 Premier League season begins TOMORROW, here are my predictions for how each team will be placed on the table by the end of the season.

20. Wolverhampton Wanderers

Yep, starting with a hot take. Despite their uninterrupted Premier League run since 2018, not to menion that they finished 14th last season, I'm guessing that this will be season the Wolves crash and burn. Ever since they were hyped up as the next big thing and a potential challenger to the 'big six' some years ago, they seem to have peaked with those two consecutive 7th-place finishes, and haven't been able to remain relevant or rebuild themselves after that.

Their football has been a bit uninspiring the last few seasons, and their summer transfer window doesn't look very exciting so far. I'm guessing that this is the season where the amount of work a team has to do in order to stay competitive in the Premier League will hit them like a ton of bricks.

19. Southampton

Out of the three teams that were just promoted from the Championship, Southampton is the only one I'm betting to drop right back. While they were good enough to fight their way out (not with a top 2 finish, mind you, but a playoff victory), I reckon that their level of football in its current state won't quite be enough to keep in the pace of the Premier League greats. They'll get plenty of ties and a few wins, but it won't be enough to save them from relegation.

18. Nottingham Forest

I wouldn't want to see this happening to a club with such a rich history in British football lore, but I reckon it's time. Forest were lucky to escape relegation last season with their 17th-place finish, and their hasty and Chelsea-esque tactic of trying to fix their problems by buying a fuck-ton of players thanks to the rich owners hasn't improved their football half as much as hiring just the right coach would have. "Money doesn't fix everything" may be a cliché, but it is also something the Nottingham Forest board will have to reflect on when the club gears up to face Plymouth Argyle at home in 2025/26.

17. Ipswich Town

Now, while these are predictions and not hopes&dreams, it is hard to separate the two completely, as I always allow just a smidge of wishful thinking to dominate my football predictions - manifesting, I suppose. Trust me, a list only based on what I would want to happen would look very different.

But yeah, what I hope to see always plays a small part in the prediction recipe, and a part of it is always choosing to believe that the most romantic out of the fresh Championship graduates will just barely escape relegation and live to fight another day in the highest flight of English football. Last year, I predicted Luton Town to finish 17th, and alas, they were just a few points short. Maybe this year I'll have better luck - it's damn cool that a funky club like Ipswich Town is out there balling with the greats, and I do believe that good vibes and the power of friendship will be enough to just barely win them enough games that they'll stay in the league.

16. Bournemouth

Okay, I've finally learned my lesson with these motherf**kers. In quite a few of the last years, I've predicted this boring-ass club to be in the relegation zone (last year I put them at 20th) - they just don't seem like a Premier League -level team on paper. The Cherries always prove me wrong, however, proved especially last year - despite their no-name players and the fact that they always seem to struggle against even the weakest opponents, they somehow nabbed enough loose points to end up 12th?!

So, this year, I'm finally getting with the program and agreeing that somehow Bournemouth isn't a relegation-level team after all. I swear, if they do end up getting relegated now...

15. Brentford

After their wild journey into the League a few years ago, Brentford have enjoyed a delightful mid-table league run, steering fairly clear of the relegation zone for multiple years. They have enough of the same team skeleton and positive momentum to continue with that trend, I reckon, but I also don't see too much potential for improvement with their current transfer budget and standings. I think they peaked with that 9th-place finish two seasons ago, and will remain a mid-table club for a couple more seasons and then either be relegated or find a way to compete with the greats.

14. Brighton & Hove Albion

Last year, I predicted for the then-very-hyped Brighton to have a worse season than it had had in a while - although sometimes clubs are better off for selling a star player or two and spending the transfer money wisely, I felt that they had lost just those key players they needed for their momentum and hadn't done enough to replace them. I ended up being right, as they finished 11th, after their 9th- and 6th-place finishes in the previous seasons.

I'm predicting for this trend to continue - they still won't crash and burn like Wolverhampton because of their decent squad depth and proven bursts of greatness, but it's going to look worse and worse for them in the coming seasons unless they find a way to reverse course.

13. Fulham

I was going to predict Fulham lower, somewhere around the relegation battle, when I heard that my man Tim Ream of the U.S. national team was leaving. What is their defense without that warrior of a man?

But then I noticed that they had also sold Joao Palhinha, to Bayern Munich, for 51 million. And used that money for a bunch of strategic transfers. Also, Marco Silva is a tried-and-true manager, so I reckon their season will be alright after all.

12. Leicester City

Straight out of the Championship and into mid-table glory! Every football fan who followed the miraculous 2015/16 season must have a place in their heart for the Foxes, no matter what their favorite team is, and it was devastating to see them relegated at the end of the 2022/23 season. However, a glorious victory in the Championship earned them a promotion back to where they belong, and I anticipate a smashing season!

I'm not daring to put them any higher than this, because newly promoted clubs always have some degree of growing pains, no matter how big their momentum. But, it's Leicester, and their squad still has several players who have top four battles and FA Cup finals in their DNA (not to mention Jamie Vardy, the last man remaining of that unforgettable 2015/16 season, still chugging Red Bulls and scoring goals at the age of 37).

11. Everton

And here is one of my boldest predictions, one that I'm not proud to make as a Liverpool fan: Everton, *sighs*, are back.

Every year, I hope for them to finish exactly 17th, as I'm not supposed to wish anything good upon my favorite club's sworn rivals, but I don't want to see them relegated either as they're such a fun enemy to have. And, while I remember them being the next-best club after the 'big six' in my childhood, they have now enjoyed multiple consecutive seasons of horror, upset, and barely escaping relegation. However, that can't last forever for a club so big, and I'm guessing that their journey back to the big stuff begins this year. These processes take time, however, so I'm guessing 2024/25 will be a mid-table bridge between their low point and eventual glories, and the few next seasons might see the always-inferior Liverpool-based team fighting for Europa League spots and such.

10. Crystal Palace

Oh man, these dudes are the Real Madrid of finishing midtable. No, seriously, if there was a Ballon d'Or for the most consistently midtable football, it would be given to Crystal Palace every year. Of the eleven last Premier League seasons, ten have ended with Palace being between 10th and 14th place (the only exception is 2015/16, when they finished fifteenth - I guess they felt dramatic and dangerous that year).

For as long as I've made my annual Premier League predictions (I've made them forever, although this is my first time posting them on my blog), I always start by smacking Crystal Palace at 10th as a given, and then begin to analyze which 9 teams will be ahead of them and which 10 will be below. It's nice to have traditions.

9. Manchester United

Yeah, I still have no faith in Erik Ten Hag's trust-the-process system with the ruins of a once-great football team. Naturally, I could be completely wrong and the Red Devils might be in for a great season - you never really know with football. But my money is yet another flop season - the team has seen so many big-money transfers turned flops, leading positions turned into embarrassing losses and hot streaks turned into ruts in the last few years that you almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

8. Newcastle United

Newcastle have grown into one of the most difficult teams to predict - ever since they got bought by Big Oil, they've had the potential to be up there with the greats (see: their 4th-place finish in 2022/23 and the ensuing Champions League run), yet they haven't quite found the consistency and level of a true world class team (see: barely missing out on the top 6 in 2023/24).

I reckon they'll play decent football this season, beating most of the smaller teams with ease and giving even the biggest clubs a hard time, but as you have to be the best of the best to make it in the Premier League, they won't quite have what it takes. I'm anticipating an intense battle for the Europa League spots, now that so many teams have grown to challenge the 'big six', and while Newcastle will be a major player in the battle, they will end up losing out.

7. Chelsea FC

Speaking of wild cards, I never know what to do these days with the active circus fire that shares a name with the class act that used to win the Champions League and multiple Premier Leagues in the days of my youth.

As has been proven time and again, money alone doesn't buy success in football. But it does help, annoyingly much, especially when you have so much money that you can buy 20 new players each transfer window to make sure that you have a 10-million left wingback to put in the opening lineup even if the seven better and more expensive left wingbacks in your squad all come up injured.

A club with arguably more behind-the-scenes chaos than any other in the last few years, they seem to have gotten their act together at least to some degree, improving on their 12th-place finish two seasons ago with a barely fought 6th in 2023/24. Oddly enough, the saving grace of their season was English youngster Cole Palmer, who was their top scorer and top assister, and man-of-the-match for almost every match especially in the tail end of the season. I don't expect Chelsea to be in the title race, as things still seem too frantic and it's hard to imagine the tens and tens of multi-million-dollar buys immediately clicking as a team (not to mention the lack of stability from Todd Boehly firing any manager who loses two games in a row). But it's also hard to imagine them being back outside the top 10 again, as Cole Palmer is such an engine and the rotating wheel of semi-stars each have their good days.

6. Aston Villa

I have been hyping Aston Villa up for quite a while, and last season, Unai Emery's genius coaching and the squad's beautiful teamwork finally earned them a top four spot. I anticipate this season to be significantly rockier for them - the players aren't used to balancing league ties with the pressure of European football, Emery's tactics will be more familiar to various opponents, and Douglas Luiz, one of the key players in last season's triumph, was sold to Juventus.

Still, I have faith in the Villa lads putting in plenty of class performances - they've got one of the league's best strikers in Ollie Watkins, one of the league's best centre-back duos in Ezri Konsa and Pau Torres, and one of the world's best goalkeepers in Argentina's Emiliano Martinez. If Emery plays his cards right, they'll gain a Europa League spot despite the challenges of balancing their league run with the Champions League.

5. Tottenham Hotspur

Yet another wild card, Tottenham always have the on-paper potential to finish as high as 2nd, as well as the well-documented chaos that might land them at 8th, or anything in between. However, they did alright last season, and then-new manager Ange Postecoglou looked like he's only getting started and will likely improve.

I'm guessing they'll start out strong and even look like possible title contenders for a while, but then they'll Tottenham all over the place and end up barely bottling a Champions League spot. It'll be a typical Tottenham season, meaning that we'll see plenty of cases where they manage to beat Manchester City 5-1 and somehow the exact same lineup will lose 0-4 to Nottingham a week later. Chiellini said it best: "It's ze history of ze Tottenham"

4. West Ham United

And here comes yet another hot take!

I often end up predicting West Ham to finish a notch or two higher than what ends up being the case, as they've looked like they have the potential to be 'big six' challengers for years now, yet they often end up falling just a tad short. And no, I have *not* learned from my mistakes, but am instead stubbornly insisting that they need just one season more to really prove themselves.

Last season, they were still getting used to re-inventing the team dynamic after Declan Rice, their best player by a long shot for multiple consecutive seasons, had left the club. After a full season of rebuilding while strategically using the mountain of Rice money on strategic transfers, I think the Hammers have a lot to prove and have the players to back it up. I especially have faith because what they've missed for years is a good-enough clinical striker - don't get me wrong, they seem to buy a new striker every 6 months, but they've all taken turns falling short of the standard. This summer, they bought Niclas Füllkrug from Borussia Dortmund - and while any transfer can turn out to be a flop, I have a strong positive intuition about this one, as it seems like just what the team needed. I'm anticipating a soaring Hammers performance this season, culminating with a spot in the Champions League.

3. Liverpool FC

Like I said - while what I hope for does play a part in the recipe for my predictions, I can't base it entirely on that. While I would love to see my favorite team winning the league, and even though their squad is certainly good enough for them to have a chance, I'm doing the gritty thing here and hoping they prove me wrong.

I mean, Jürgen Klopp just left after years with the club, so you can't expect new manager Arne Slot to immediately find the perfect rhythm for his new team and win the world's most prestigious national football league in his first season. Sure, it could be done, but that can't be the expectation. I'll be happy with a 3rd-place finish, leaving the Slot era room to grow. I'm already saying this now - after getting the experience of a full season with Liverpool under his belt, Slot will really start cooking, and Liverpool will win the league in 2025/26. You heard it here first!

2. Manchester City

I know, I know - Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, containing many of the world's best players thanks to some of the football world's shadiest oil money, have won the Premier League six times in the last seven seasons, and the odds are on their side. But, even though these are my bets and not my hopes, I cannot put them at #1 - accepting that City is just going to win every season from now on would be accepting defeat, and even worse, accepting that money can buy you everything in football, and I'm not cynical enough to accept that just yet. Someone will end their reign of terror, I'm choosing to believe.

Whether it will be due to point deductions as per financial violations (it is outrageous that smaller teams like Everton were fined but City, the biggest white-collar criminals in football, have thus far escaped by being rich enough to have better lawyers), the difficulty of any winning-streak team to keep their level at a competitive sport, or simply some team being even better, my hot take is that Manchester City will not win the league this season. A guy's gotta dream, right?

1. Arsenal

Yeah, this is the sweet spot between idealism and pragmatism - it would feel like hoping too much to put Liverpool at #1, but it would feel bleak and defeatist to put Man City there. Arsenal is just the right balance - I want to believe that someone could end City's winning streak, and I do believe that Mikel Arteta's Arsenal have it in them. Having finished 2nd in the two last seasons, struggling to keep their heads cool as the pressure of the title race heats up towards the end has been a big problem for the Gunners, but I'm guessing that the more and more experience of playing at that level they have, the easier it gets (Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice may be young, but they also just played in their 2nd European Championship final, so high-stakes pressure ain't new to them).

Buying Riccardo Calafiori from Bologna is a hellishly promising transfer, and his addition to Arteta's squad might just be the missing infinity stone they need to perfect their defense. I want to believe that someone else than Man City can win the league despite the odds, so I will believe - and honestly, I have a big soft spot for Arteta's Arsenal, and I would enjoy seeing them win one deserved league title before the Arne Slot era gets to a point where Liverpool keeps kicking everyone's ass.

Thank you for reading! This week's post was originally supposed to be 'Top 10 TV shows that jumped the shark', which I had to postpone when realizing that this was the last possible Thursday to post my PL predictions before the season begins. So, see you next week for the post about the worst shark-jumping shows in TV history!