Reacting to My 2025/26 Premier League Season Predictions

With another Premier League season in the books, it’s time for one of my absolute favourite articles: Predictions Reactions! I’m very excited to look back and react to my picks from back in August last year, with me firmly expecting it to go very wrong! If it does, I may end up doing even worse than last year, which is easier said than done, given I only scored 3 out of 20 twelve months ago!

Credit: Premier League

20th: Sunderland

When we get to 2,000 Articles, my Sunderland prediction is 100% going towards the very top of the worst I’ve ever made, as The Black Cats finished in a remarkable 7th! My big concern with Sunderland heading into the season was that it felt like their squad wasn’t strong enough, and that you have to remember that the gap between Sunderland and the other two Promoted teams was massive! However, what do I know, as Sunderland were arguably the team of the season – fair play! Also, this is the second-straight year that a team I’ve predicted to get Relegated has gone on to finish 7th, so that’s a new level of impressive, even for me!

19th: Leeds

Another team that I picked for Relegation, only to stay up, was Leeds United! My big concern for Leeds was Daniel Farke, a proven Championship specialist who couldn’t seem to hack it in the biggest league in the world! Once again, I was very wrong, with Farke leading Leeds to a strong 14th place, earning an impressive 47 points! Major kudos to The Whites; they’ve had a very successful season!

18th: Wolves

Perhaps not the team you were expecting, but it’s one I got semi-correct as Wolverhampton Wanderers had an abysmal season, finishing bottom of the league with just 20 points! My big concern with Wolves at the start of the season was that their two best players, Matheus Cunha and Rayan Ait Nouri, had both left to move to Manchester (United and City respectively)! However, in the season prior, Wolves were still mediocre, and that was with those two’s combined 32 goal contributions! The signings that Wolves made were unproven; they very much got found out as not being good enough, and this team didn’t win a Premier League game until January! What a terrible season!

17th: Burnley

It’s kind of impressive that the one newly-Promoted team that I had to stay up was the one newly-Promoted team that went straight back down! The reason that I had Burnley to stay up was due to the fact that this was a completely different outfit to the one that got Relegated under Vincent Kompany! Scott Parker’s team was a lot more defensively solid, so there was hope to be had that they wouldn’t struggle with the same issues as last time! However, this wasn’t the case at all, with The Clarets boasting the worst defensive record in the league, whilst they actually managed to earn fewer points this time around than they did with Kompany 2 years prior! Once again, a really disappointing Premier League campaign for Burnley!

16th: West Ham

If I were to remove Sunderland and Leeds from the equation, I actually got the bottom 3 right! I wasn’t convinced heading into the season that West Ham United weren’t going to find themselves in some sort of Relegation trouble, with Graham Potter giving me anything but hope and belief regarding this club's chances! The transfer business also didn’t come across as that strong, and that clearly proved to be the case, with West Ham ultimately getting Relegated on 39 points! There’s an irony to this that The Hammers probably ended up with more points than I anticipated, but yet they finished lower! Hence why I said we should just remove Sunderland and Leeds from these Predictions!

15th: Brentford

Brentford are another team that massively exceeded both mine and many others’ expectations, finishing 9th with a very impressive points tally of 53! There were definitely valid reasons to be concerned for Brentford, with Thomas Frank, Mark Flekken, Christian Norgaard, and Bryan Mbeumo all departing the club! Funnily enough, I said that Yoane Wissa was the only person who was keeping any faith alive for me, and yet, he left too! It ended up working out quite well for The Bees, with Keith Andrews majorly impressing to only miss out on Europe on the final day!

14th: Tottenham

Now I bet that I had Tottenham Hotspur an awful lot lower down than the vast majority of people at the start of this season, and yet, they actually did even worse than I anticipated! Tottenham only secured survival on the final day of the season, with Spurs spending multiple Gameweeks in the Relegation Zone! I never understood why everyone expected Tottenham to be so much better this year, yes Thomas Frank is a great manager, but that hasn’t helped this club in the past! Of course, I still ultimately got this prediction wrong, but it looks an awful lot better than most!

13th: Everton

I’ve got one right! I never expected Everton to be in any sort of Relegation danger, but I definitely didn’t anticipate that they’d be challenging for Europe! In fact, they only finished this low down because of their terrible end to the season; otherwise, The Toffees were Top 7 bound! I was correct in my thoughts when it came to the new stadium, with me believing that Everton would struggle to begin life at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on a strong note and given that they earned more points on the road than they did in their own stadium, I’d say this was a good call! Also, funnily enough, this is now the second-straight year that I’ve correctly predicted Everton to finish 13th, so I guess we’re going for the hat-trick next season!

12th: Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace entered this year’s Premier League following their greatest-ever season, so the hopes were high for them! However, you had to take into account that Palace would be dealing with European Football for the first time in their history, something that had the potential to slow them down! There was also a ridiculous statistic that The Eagles had finished between 10th and 15th in all of their last 12 PL seasons, so that’s why I plonked them in at 12th! Unfortunately for me, at the time Eberechi Eze was still at the club, as was Marc Guehi, and their departures in the respective transfer windows meant that Crystal Palace had to settle for the worst possible position of 15th place, scoring 45 points across 38 games! Not the worst prediction ever; just incorrect!

11th: Bournemouth

One prediction that I very much got wrong this season was AFC Bournemouth, as The Cherries mastered their way to a club-record 6th place finish! I had no doubts whatsoever when it came to the ability of Andoni Iraola; he’s a fantastic coach, but I was concerned over the fact that Bournemouth’s excellent defence had basically been wiped out by the big clubs! In fact, just two days after I uploaded my Predictions article, the other star defender at the club, Illia Zabarnyi, also left to go to PSG, whilst Antoine Semenyo would eventually join Manchester City in the January Transfer Window! I don’t think it can ever be overstated just how brilliantly Bournemouth have performed this season; I’ve been majorly impressed with them, and this is a prediction that I have no issues with being wrong!

10th: Fulham

Fulham, the bane of my existence! Fulham are so incredibly good at being incredibly inconsistent that I had them to finish midtable exactly because of it! Unfortunately for me, whilst I was correct in that observation, Fulham finished 11th! I was even correct in my assumption that The Cottagers would be somewhere near the 50 points mark (they got 52), and once again, this is a club that really could’ve and probably should’ve qualified for Europe! Bloody Fulham!

9th: Nottingham Forest

Had I known that Nuno Espirito Santo was going to leave Nottingham Forest just 3 games into the new season, I would never have predicted them to finish 9th! Forest were always going to drop off a little bit this year; they overperformed in the previous season, and dealing with the added European fixture schedule always tends to make things difficult, especially for the smaller English sides! For a lot of the season, Nottingham Forest were in serious Relegation trouble, with Vitor Pereira, their 4th manager of the season, eventually able to guide them to a 16th-place finish! Not a good season or prediction, however!

8th: Manchester United

Before we delve into this prediction, it’s worth remembering just how bad Manchester United were in the 2024/25 season, finishing 15th and losing a total of 18 league games! So, putting Man United 8th was a risk at the start of the year, but I felt like the signings of Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo would prove to be a success! In fairness, they did, but United didn’t have the season I expected them to have as they finished all the way up in third! I especially didn’t expect it to come with Michael Carrick in charge, with me expecting Ruben Amorim to stick around after not getting sacked last season! Getting rid of Amorim was clearly the right decision, though, as Carrick has done a great job!

7th: Brighton

I was so damn close to getting this prediction right as Brighton and Hove Albion ultimately finished 8th with 54 points, 1 point off 7th! Brighton have always had the tools (in recent years) to be successful; they could’ve qualified for the Champions League last year, and yet they ended up missing out on Europe completely! Ironically, I nearly would’ve been saying the exact same thing again had Dango Ouattara headed home for Brentford in the 100th minute of their final game against Liverpool, but alas, The Seagulls managed to hold on to an 8th-place finish, which was enough for them to qualify for next season’s Conference League! I do like Brighton, but like Fulham, they drive me insane!

6th: Newcastle

Newcastle United were without a doubt one of the flops of the season, with them finishing 6 places below my expectations in 12th! I said in my Predictions article that Newcastle should just keep getting better and better; that’s a fact, but it didn’t really work out that way, with the loss of Alexander Isak (and all that saga was) proving to be a lot more costly than I first anticipated! Newcastle have lost 17 games this season; that’s simply not good enough, and it means that my prediction for The Magpies, which felt slightly risky at the time, is one of my worst of this entire article!

5th: Aston Villa

I’m once again one place off as Aston Villa came home to finish in a very respectable 4th! I expected Aston Villa to be strong once again after 2 positive seasons, and I wasn’t worried about them having to combat the additional Europa League schedule, as they’d shown no signs of that slowing them down in the past! In fact, I picked Villa to win the Europa League this year, and they did just that! However, it’s worth remembering that Aston Villa didn’t even record a win in any of their first 5 games of the season, with them having to wait until the 21st of September for their first league goal of the campaign! It’s crazy to think just how up-and-down Villa’s season truly has been, but prediction-wise, I’m very happy with this!

4th: Manchester City

I had my doubts about Manchester City heading into the 2025/26 Season, and honestly, rightly so! Man City were coming off the back of their worst season under Pep Guardiola, Kevin De Bruyne had just left, their defence was incredibly inconsistent, and we didn’t even know who the starting Goalkeeper was going to be, with Gianluigi Donnarumma not even in the picture at that point! I also had a lot higher expectations in the 3 remaining teams we’re yet to speak about, and let’s be honest, two of them fumbled massively! In fact, the third team almost did, letting City in with a shout at winning back their Premier League crown, but ultimately, they just weren’t quite good enough! 2nd place and 2 Trophies; I very much didn’t expect that from Manchester City last Summer!

3rd: Chelsea

There was a genuine part of me that believed that Chelsea could win the league at the start of the season, and that’s exactly why this prediction sucks! Chelsea fooled me, with a strong first year under Enzo Maresca that resulted in not 1, but 2 trophies, including the FIFA Club World Cup! I also felt like The Blues had done some good business in the transfer window, but I proved to be wrong, as this team finished 10th, yes 10th overall! Remarkably, Chelsea lost as many league games as they won, and that’s simply not acceptable! I said that if Cole Palmer wins Player of the Year, Chelsea will win the league! Wouldn’t you know it, Palmer had a poor season, and it showed in their overall finishing position!

2nd: Arsenal

After multiple years of picking Arsenal to win the league, only for them to fall short, I opted to go against them this year, and that proved to be a Rookie error! There were many reasons to pick Arsenal to win the league; they already had the squad to do it, and the signing of Viktor Gyokeres stood out to me as a potential Title-decider! Funnily enough, it hasn’t exactly turned out that way, with the star of the show being Arsenal’s set-piece coach! Of course, Arsenal have also been very good defensively! Ultimately, I put Arsenal second out of habit, but also because of the team we’re about to get to, and I was wrong as a result!

1st: Liverpool

Now I know that I have a history of being well off when it comes to the overall winner, but in my defence, it’s not my fault that Liverpool dropped the ball so hard! Liverpool walked the league 12 months ago, everything was set up for them to keep winning it, and that was before they went out and splashed a ridiculous amount of money on the likes of Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez, and Hugo Ekitike! In fact, Alexander Isak hadn’t even signed for the club at the time of making these predictions, and that would’ve only furthered my beliefs that Liverpool were going to win this league comfortably! Instead, The Reds decided to have an absolute shocker, finishing just 5th with only 60 points, losing 12 games in total (in the PL)! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a worse performance from defending Champions than what I’ve witnessed watching Liverpool this year; they’ve been diabolical, and so I blame them for me once again guessing the Champions wrong!