Our final predictions for the final Premier League table

There was still room for a modicum of doubt last time around, but that’s basically gone. For Liverpool to not win the Premier League this season they would have to collapse and have another club surge. The Reds are comfortably ahead in points, have comfortably the best goal differential, and are just clearly the best team in England. Possibly the world.

Our feelings about Arsenal remain steady. The reason for the move up one spot is that Manchester City never got it in gear. This would be the third year in a row that the Gunners finished second in the table. That’s impressive, but of course it also puts more pressure on Mikel Arteta to get over the hump.

Okay, so City never got back to title contention. The club has had multiple tough losses since the last time around. However, talent can still win out, and the club added more of that during the winter transfer market. It is not a given that Man City will finish third, but owing to the skill level, and the presence of Pep Guardiola, we have the club ending up in third. For City, that qualifies as a crisis.

Having Cole Palmer get back in gear would help a ton. We have enough iffy feelings about Chelsea to not have them move up, but we also don’t see them finishing lower than our previous prediction. Again, the Blues have talent. Chelsea is also right there in terms of points on the table, so it really just needs to keep the pace to finish in the top four.

Clearly, we weren’t believing in Nottingham Forest last time around. As of this writing Forest is in third, so clearly we haven’t given the club our total buy-in. This is going to prove to be a fine season for the club, to be sure. Finishing fifth will likely get it into the Champions League. All that said, City and Chelsea are right behind Forest, and Forest’s goal differential is only seventh-best in the Premier League.

As with Arsenal, our feelings about Newcastle haven’t really changed. It’s our feelings about other teams that have changed more. Now, missing out on the Champions League again with all the money the club has would be a disappointment. Finishing sixth isn’t quite cutting it. Maybe Alexander Isak can push the club above Forest, but there may be too much ground to make up unless Newcastle is in great form down the stretch.

In terms of teams we were too low on, Bournemouth wins out. Our bad! We had the Cherries 12th in our preseason predictions, so we were slow to buy in. The transferring out of Dominic Solanke played a role as well, but Justin Kluivert has stepped in nicely. Bournemouth has had a couple poor results as of late, but it is sixth in goal differential so this is a legitimate team who will comfortably finish top of the table.

We went back and forth between Brighton and Bournemouth for seventh. As of now, they are even on points. However, Brighton has a worse goal differential. On top of that, before the season there was a sense of a quasi-rebuild, especially after the club hired 31-year-old manager Fabian Hurzeler. Marginal differences matter in circumstances like this.

Yes, we’ve moved Villa down one spot, but it is actually 8th in the table at present with most of the league having a game in hand on the Birmingham club. On the one hand, Villa has been good enough that it made the final 16 of the Champions League. On the other hand, this team doesn’t have the usual depth of a team juggling deep runs in the Champions League and the FA Cup. You take the talent, you take the fatigue, and it balances out to finishing ninth.

We have Villa jumping over Fulham, but what a rise for Fulham. Before the year we had it pegged for 18th, which would have meant relegation. Clearly, but midseason we felt differently, having lifted it up to 12th. Well, now we have Fulham going ever higher. Yeah, that relegation battle prediction didn’t pan out. This is a mid-table club with nothing to fear on the relegation front.

Basically we have Fulham jumping Brentford. The way the season has played out since our last predictions made that fairly easy to decide on. Brentford is four points behind Fulham, and because the clubs are neck-and-neck in goal differential it may need to pick up two wins on Fulham down the stretch.

Whoops! But also, cut us some slack. When we did our midseason rankings, Spurs was sixth in the table and was second in the league with a plus-14 goal differential. All these weeks later, Spurs still has a plus-14 goal differential. It is also 13th in the table. Spurs has 10 wins and 14 losses with only four draws. The Tottenham club has been all-or-nothing, and it is going to look weird when it finishes 12th with, like, the sixth-best goal differential in the Premier League.

Predicting Palace to finish 17th was not a bad notion back in November. The club was sitting in 19th with a single win on the season. Oliver Glasner finally got the club in gear and it now has double-digit wins. Palace doesn’t have to sweat relegation, but that hole it put itself in makes 13th feel like the ceiling.

West Ham fans didn’t even have a chance to turn “Lopetegui out!” into a rallying cry. David Moyes’ replacement didn’t even last a full season. Graham Potter is in charge now, which allows us to overlook the fact the Hammers are 16th in goal differential. Plus, there is the disaster that is…

Manchester United should be too talented to finish 15th. That’s why we had it finishing 11th in our last predictions. United is a mess, though. The vibes are terrible. Clubs with this much talent, and with so many guys on high salaries used to better results, can get into real funks. Man United is just playing out the string. It won’t get relegated, and beyond that, where’s the motivation?

Sean Dyche got sacked, but as Dyche has done in the past, David Moyes should manage to keep the Toffees from being relegated. Based on goal differential, Everton has been a bit unlucky, but it sits 16th in points. Once again only the teams primed to be relegated have been worse offensively. The Toffees need some goal scoring, because right now, once again, it barely has enough to stay in the Premier League.

Hey, the move from 18th to 17th in our predictions is huge. That’s the difference between relegation and staying in the Premier League. We’ll admit that our last prediction was partially based on the notion that the three newly-promoted clubs yo-yoing right back down felt unlikely. Spoiler alert: Turns out that is apparently what is going to happen. Wolves is a bad team, but it’s clearly better than the worst three teams.

It turns out that losing Enzo Maresca as manager was enough to make it too difficult for Leicester to stay up. Leicester had been in the Premier League for several seasons, and famously won the league title. It did so well in the Championship last year. We figured, somehow and some way, Leicester would do enough to avoid relegation. Now we don’t see that happening.

Ipswich went from League One to the Premier League in two seasons. That’s cool. It also made it quite likely Ipswich was going to go right back down. Credit where it’s due: We had Ipswich finishing 20th in our preseason predictions. Now, it is all the way up to 19th!

This was locked in even during our last predictions, and things have only calcified. The only question now is where Southampton finishes in the rankings of the all-time bad Premier League campaigns. Relegation felt likely when the season began. It is now inevitable.