It's All To Play For - Part 1

With the second half of the 2022/2023 Premier League season now underway, it feels like a natural time to revise my initial Premier League predictions. Although there's still lots of football left between now and May, we’re starting to get a clearer picture as to how the season is going to play out. This campaign has once again proven the Premier League is the greatest league in the world filled with drama, controversy, and nonstop action. Before a ball had even been kicked, I tried predicting where teams would finish and in this week’s post, we’ll see if my predictions have changed.

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Title winners: Arsenal

After watching Arsenal play United, I now believe Arsenal will are champions in waiting. They are a juggernaut right now. They play with such directness, aggression, and intensity that they end up suffocating their opponents and almost pummelling them into submission. Only 19 games in and they’ve got 50 points. Four teams prior to this Arsenal team have recorded 50+ points after 19 games. Only one failed to win the league (Liverpool in 2018/19). After the opening weekend, I had Arsenal finishing fifth. At the time I thought that was a fair prediction which made sense. Now I look like a fool! The thing that makes their place at the summit all the more impressive is that they’re doing with panache and one of the youngest squads in the league. Ramsdale has been great, Saliba has been a rock at the back, Ødegaard & Saka have been next-level and Nketiah has stepped up in the absence in a big way. It will take something special to stop Arsenal becoming champions.

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Champions League: City, United, Spurs

City have a striker that is breaking all sorts of records, yet they’re 5 points off the pace having played a game more. I thought that Haaland was City’s missing piece that City needed. Turns out they’ve been worse with him this season compared to last year. The issue is Haaland is best when he has space in behind, but teams sit deep again City which means that space isn’t always there. As a United fan, I think Erik Ten Hag has done a really good job in bring discipline to the United dressing room. He’s not been afraid to make the tough decisions and he’s garnered the respect of all the players. He’s also got Rashford playing his best football in a while which has been great to say. I didn’t have us in the top 4 before the season, but I think we’ll make it. My main reason for including Spurs is Harry Kane. Despite how sluggish Spurs have looked in some matches, they’ve got a world class striker that guarantees goals. Along with him, Son and Kulusevski I think they’ll just about enough to make top 4.

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Europa and Europa Conference League: Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea,

I was so close to putting Newcastle in my top 4. Their defence has been fantastic and they’ve more than held their own against the top teams. The main thing that worries me with this side is their attack. The goals have seemingly started to dry up a bit and it makes me think that they won’t be able to sustain their performances in the second half of the campaign. Right now, their goal difference is in their favour, but we’ll have to still wait and see how this team copes with the pressure later on. Liverpool have been all over the place, from defence to attack. They have the capacity to go on a winning streak but I feel they’ve left themselves with too much to do. Chelsea have been very unfortunate with injuries and Potter is still trying to figure out what his best XI is. It still doesn’t excuse the fact that the performances have been lacklustre. Potter has too many players and doesn’t know what to do with them. I think they’ll get better as the year goes on when they get players fit and healthy but it most likely won’t be enough.

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Best of the Rest: Brighton

This pick was one out of Brighton or Brentford. In truth, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these two. There isn’t one clear reason why I’ve gone for Brighton, just the fact that I feel they are the team most likely to keep up their good form. They’ve got a coach in Roberto De Zerbi who is arguably an upgrade on who they had before. They also have this ability to sell their best players and find replacements either within the club or from other clubs for almost a fraction of the price. They sold Leandro Trossard to Arsenal after he had a bust-up with the De Zerbi, but this has led to the rise of Kaoru Mitoma who has balled out over the last few games. I think it’s a testament to their recruitment team that they are consistently able to sell their best players but still be highly competitive.

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Relegation: Everton, Southampton, Bournemouth

I’m confident in two of these three picks: Southampton and Bournemouth. Simply put I think they are the worse two teams in the league and they both struggle massively to do the basics right: score goals and defend well. Both have appointed new managers since the campaign began but it’s clear they’ve got fighting a losing battle. With Southampton, they have good players (Ward-Prowse, Adams, Walker-Peters to name a few) but it just feels like it’s their time to get relegated. Bournemouth simply look like a Championship team still as they didn’t really improve on their squad. My last pick is Everton. I remember saying before that they are too big a club to go down. However, it seems inevitable. They’ve sacked Frank Lampard but even Harry Houdini wouldn’t be able to save this Everton side. It doesn’t help that they are one of the worst run clubs in England. Any coach under that regime would be fighting an uphill battle.

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This Week’s Hot Take

Arsenal could emerge as City’s main title rivals for the new few years if they continue in their current vein of form and win the league. All their key players are still in the early twenties and are sure to improve under the guidance and leadership of Mikel Arteta. We’ve seen the progression from this Arsenal team since his arrival. If you couple this with the uncertainty and period of transition that their other rivals are going through, we may soon see an Arsenal-City rival take over the Premier League.