A slightly trimmed down version, in some ways, from previous close seasons; this time just featuring the top-6 finishers, bottom 3 sides, our cup runs and a look at any surprise packages from the 2025-26 season.
The top-6 finishers
Arsenal - Predicted 2nd, finished 1st. One out.
Manchester City - Predicted 4th, finished 2nd. Two out.
Manyoo - Predicted 5th, finished 3rd. Two out.
Aston Villa - Predicted 10th, finished 4th. Six out!
Liverpool - Predicted 1st, finished 5th. Four out.
AFC Bournemouth - Predicted 9th, finished 6th. Three out.
Bottom 3
West Ham United - Predicted 15th, finished 18th. Three out.
Burnley - Predicted 19th, finished 19th. Spot on!
Wolverhampton Wanderers - Predicted 18th, finished 20th. Two out.
Apart from Villa and perhaps Liverpool too, I don’t think I did too badly there, although I did only hit the bullseye🎯 once from nine teams.
Us and the cups
League Cup- Predicted the semis, reached the final and won! One out.
F.A. Cup- Predicted the final, got to the final and won! Spot on!
Champions League- Predicted round of 16 exit and got that spot on!
I think I did rather well with those, if I do say so myself…🙂
Surprise packages of the season?
I think there were quite a lot last season and I’m actually gonna start with us.
Hands up if you thought we’d be challenging for the league title this season right up to the penultimate game of the season. I don’t think I’m seeing any hands there.
Hands up if you thought we’d win one trophy; likely a domestic one. Yep, I agree, me too. I had us down for Pep wanting the F.A. Cup badly this season and that he’d get it as well.
Hands up if you thought we’d win two cups. Yep, not nearly as many hands there as I expected.
To say that we had a surprisingly good season is absolutely the case. I think we did terrific and far better than most expected; City and non-City fans alike.
Sunderland were surprising most footy fans and certainly many pundits a good number of weeks into the season. They were flying at the start and maintained it for a good while; playing really good football with a high tempo. They were hard to break down too.
AFCON put the brakes on their season for a while when they sawsix of their players head to the airport and it took quite some time for them to regain momentum. They begun to slide down the table towards, what some might say, was a far more anticipated position.
However, they picked themselves up and with the help of 2 wins and 2 draws in their last 4 fixtures of the season, they finished 7th and will be playing Europa League football next season.Wow and👏👏👏👏👏…
I’ve got the say Bournemouth too. Although I had ‘em down for finishing 9th and, therefore, “only” three places out; they had a terrific season by finishing a very creditable 6th. Their manager, and players too of course, did a terrific job.It pains me to say that I think Liverpool have managed to grab a cracking manager there…😠
Leeds for me as well. I had them as absolute relegation fodder and I predicted rock bottom finish. I honestly believed that Daniel Farke’s management level ceiling in this country was the Championship.
It wasn’t plain sailing and they did look in trouble for a while but as the season end began to appear on the horizon, The Whites got stronger and stronger; pulling themselves away from the dotted line to a very respectful 14th place and 8 points above ‘the drop’.
I was shocked just how much Tottenham struggled this season. Maybe seasoned Spurs fans could secretly see a season like last season coming for a while but as an outsider, I had them down as finishing 6th and couldn’t possibly have predicted that they would havethree managers in one season.😮
However, and despite Sunderland’s terrific, highly unexpected season and achievement, Brentford just get the surprise package prize from me.
Having lost their highly respected and successful manager in the summer of 2025, ironically to Spurs who then sacked him, The Bees also lost backroom staff and some very good, key players. When they appointed Keith Andrews, a former Republic of Ireland international midfielder with no managerial experience whatsoever, I feared the worse for a team who had slowly gathered some non-Brentford fans admirers over the seasons.
In my predictions, I didn’t have them down as relegated but I think that was largely down to three other teams I predicted would do far worse. Instead, I put Brentford down as just about surviving with a 17th-place finish.
They were really hard to beat for a good chunk of the season and then learnt how to punish sides who switched off. In fact, if their end of season form hadn’t wobbled like it did, they too would have been playing European football of some kind next season. They missed out (finishing 9th) by just goal difference to Brighton who will be playing in the Europa Conference League next season.
I think that’s an amazing job their manager has done and definitely tops my surprise package list.
Another surprise, which may also come under the category of ‘Biggest farce’ BUT well done to those sides for getting there because it’s nothing they’ve done wrong, is that nine clubs out of twenty in the Premier League will be playing some sort of European football next season.I mean, come on FFS!
I think what that will result in next season, is they’ll be a fair few teams who will profit from other sides being involved in European football. As some teams expend their energies and resources elsewhere, the likes of Brentford, Chelsea, Newcastle, Everton, Leeds and Spurs could take advantage in the league; making next season’s predictions even harder.
Thanks once again for ‘tuning in’ to Blue chews-daze.