Each season we take 5 of our favourite FFUKers, and get them to predict what is going to happen in the Premier League and in FPL in the forthcoming season.
Check out last season’s predictions click here
This season we are changing it up slightly and each day its a different predictor that will be telling you what they think is in store. 5 Premier League predictions and 6 for FPL. Let’s go.
First up its Paul Baker, former FFUK champ and Cup guru. Bakes is a West Ham fan with a best ever FPL finish of 6,974. Check out his predictions below.
Q1. What will the top 4 be at the end of this season?
1st Man City / 2nd Arsenal / 3rd Man Utd / 4th Liverpool
“Very similar to the season just gone I think. I expect Liverpool to improve but I think the top 3 will have just enough to keep them at bay. I can’t see anyone stopping City now until Pep’s decided he’s had enough and comes to manage England.”
Q2. What will the bottom 3 be at the end of the season?
20th Luton / 19th Sheff U / 18th Wolves
“Of the promoted teams I think Burnley will do best because of their manager. Luton and Sheff U don’t seem to be strengthening enough to have a chance of staying up. Of the remaining teams Wolves were poor last season, and I don’t see them improving. The likes of Everton, Forest and Bournemouth should just about have enough to stay in the division, although more because there are 3 worse sides than because they’re particularly good!”
Q3. Who wins the golden boot (top goal scorer) in the PL this season?
“The obvious answer is Haaland and I can’t back against him. If Kane stays in the PL he will, of course, run him close, but it has to be the Norwegian Meat Shield for me.”
Q4. Which team will do much better than expected this season?
“This depends what your expectations are! I could say Chelsea because general expectations are quite low – but this is Chelsea we’re talking about. In my view expectations can’t be lower than top 6, which is where I expect them to finish. So, I’m going to go with Crystal Palace. I think they’re going under the radar a bit. They had a cracking end to the season last term – Roy knows what he’s doing and has some fantastic talent in the squad. If Eze stays fit, I can see them challenging for Europe.”
Q5. Which team will do much worse than expected this season?
“I think four teams hugely over-achieved last season and I expect all of them to struggle by comparison this time around. Fulham I think will be relegation contenders. Brighton and Brentford I’d put in the bottom half if I were drawing up a predicted league table, but the one I’ll go for is Newcastle because when you look at their squad they’re nowhere near the big boys. They could do a huge amount of business between me writing this and the transfer deadline, or indeed in January, to make a mockery of this prediction, but from where they are now, I see them finishing no better than 8th which is probably the represents the least-strong performance vs expectations. I have Eddie Howe down as the favourite for first managerial casualty. I am prepared to admit though that this might just be wishful thinking, the sportswashing skunks!”
Q6. Who will be the top scoring GK this season?
“Top keeper is usually a bit random. If I could guarantee he’ll play the whole season I’d say Johnstone, but I can’t so instead I’ll say Emi Martinez because I think Villa will have a great season and the combination of cleanies and save points will see him top.”
Q7. Who will be the top scoring DEF this season?
“I don’t want to say it, because it’s boring and (as you’ve already seen) I like to be a little bit controversial, but it would be madness to say anything other than TAA.”
Q8. Who will be the top scoring MID this season?
“Salah. I’m amazed managers are even considering going into the season without him in their teams. I think he’ll be the top points scorer overall this season.”
Q9. Who will be the top scoring FWD this season?
“The aforementioned Haaland. Unless he misses a chunk of games through injury I can’t see past him.”
Q10. Which player will be the surprise package next season?
“The most obvious place to look for this has to be Chelsea. There is such a turnover in their squad, and they were so poor last season that anyone that performs well is going to be a surprise. I think whichever of their two new forwards gets the most game time will be the big surprise package, so I’m going to stick my neck out and go with Nicholas Jackson who I think could break into the first team and score 20+ goals.”
Q11. Which player will be the biggest disappointment next season?
“This, again, depends on your expectations. There are three midfielders being touted to have a big season and any one of them (or indeed all of them) could turn out to be disappointments. Foden will likely not get the minutes to live up to the hype, Rashford will depend on where he plays – if he’s out wide I don’t expect him to have the same impact as if he plays up front, however I’ll go with Saka just because I think the returns will be shared fairly evenly among Arsenal’s attacking players, so he may not get the returns we expect.”
Massive thanks to Bakes for taking the time to give us his predictions, we will be back soon with another FFUKer’s forecast.
Why don’t you give us your predictions in the comments below.
Cheers
Chris
FFUK 