Chelsea and Manchester City should be ashamed of their friendly-based predicted Premier League table cheating. Brighton are flying but Forest are not.
The Premier League campaign is almost upon us, with every side having completed their pre-season schedules and packed away the various poxy trinkets collected along the way.
It would be stupid to use those friendly results to form many coherent, worthwhile projections for the months ahead, and frankly insane to just extrapolate the points-per-game record of each club in these preparatory matches over 38 games for a final points total. An awful pre-season can be the preamble to something historic; Manchester United were once held by Norwegian part-timers before winning the Treble.
But we have so shut up. And no, the Club World Cup isn’t included. Which brings us to a couple of clubs who have clearly gamed this specific system to top a hilariously meaningless table.
1) Chelsea P2 W2 D0 L0 PPG 3 Pts 114
Yet more disgraceful gaming of the system sees Todd Boehly’s amortisation of pre-season friendlies over an entire league campaign crown Chelsea as champions.
2) Manchester City P1 W1 D0 L0 PPG 3 Pts 114
And they would still have more charges than points even with a perfect record.
3) Brighton P8 W7 D1 L0 PPG 2.75 Pts 105
A full season of experience for Fabian Hurzeler and a similarly callow squad with few obvious glaring holes left by another summer of expert player trading should have the Seagulls flying high.
Eight friendlies have been navigated without defeat with 20 goals scored, including four in one game from a player Manchester United never should have let go.
4) Fulham P6 W5 D0 L1 PPG 2.5 Pts 95
Marco Silva seems less than pleased at a summer of curious transfer stagnation but Fulham have lost no-one and slipped up only against a sharper Sheffield United side further ahead in their preparations.
5) Liverpool P6 W5 D0 L1 PPG 2.5 Pts 95
A sack-worthy finish for Arne Slot, who will know spending £260m on the champions and finishing fifth – even with the club’s third-highest points tally ever – is incompatible with a vision geared towards total domination.
6) West Ham
P5 W3 D1 L1 PPG 2 Pts 76
Graham Potter will take that, presumably with a Callum Wilson Golden Boot to further compound Newcastle’s misery.
7) Arsenal
P5 W3 D0 L2 PPG 1.8 Pts 68
There has been some concern that not enough has changed at Arsenal this summer – before a 3-0 win over Champions League side Athletic Bilbao in which their expensive new centre-forward scored – but a seventh-placed finish would be exceptional to watch unfold.
8) Leeds P5 W2 D3 L0 PPG 1.8 Pts 68
Daniel Farke’s road to The Invincibles has already been laid.
9) Manchester United P5 W2 D3 L0 PPG 1.8 Pts 68
It feels like such a thoroughly mid-table placing should probably trigger more job cuts, not least in the dugout, but would absolutely be excused as a planned part of the process.
10) Crystal Palace P6 W3 D1 L2 PPG 1.66 Pts 63
Oliver Glasner would take that – and probably run into the sunset for a better job – after a wildly distracted pre-season.
11) Brentford P3 W1 D2 L0 PPG 1.66 Pts 63
Perhaps we need not fear for Keith Andrews and whatever remains of Brentford when the vultures sod off.
12) Bournemouth
P7 W3 D2 L2 PPG 1.57 Pts 60
It started so well with three consecutive wins before the wheels came off with a couple of defeats and draws each in a row. It is the history of the streaky Bournemouth.
13) Spurs P6 W2 D3 L1 PPG 1.5 Pts 57
That Bayern Munich defeat really was quite humbling even before the Paris Saint-Germain Super Cup chaser.
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14) Burnley P6 W2 D2 L2 PPG 1.33 Pts 51
The two wins were against Fleetwood and Huddersfield; the two defeats finished 1-0. Scott Parker will sort it.
15) Aston Villa P7 W2 D2 L3 PPG 1.14 Pts 43
The outlook will be healthier once those 100 bonus points are meted out for Tyrone Mings chucking Mason Greenwood around.
16) Sunderland P9 W2 D2 L5 PPG 0.88 Pts 34
Regis Le Bris has described high-spending Sunderland as “a work in progress” but they did hammer South Shields 4-0.
17) Everton P7 W1 D2 L4 PPG 0.71 Pts 27
The new stadium optimism has collapsed under the weight of a slow transfer window and really quite underwhelming pre-season. Jack Grealish will sort it.
18) Newcastle P7 W1 D2 L4 PPG 0.71 Pts 27
It turns out an Isak-less Newcastle are relegation candidates. They have lost more transfer targets than they have games and even High Performance-adjacent Eddie Howe has struggled to paint things in a positive light. He’s uncomfortably high in the Sack Race.
19) Nottingham Forest P7 W0 D5 L2 PPG 0.71 Pts 27
A generational pre-season from Nuno. Forest’s only goal was a Chris Wood consolation header in a 3-1 defeat, with five games ending 0-0 to ensure expectations are tempered.
20) Wolves P6 W0 D2 L4 PPG 0.33 Pts 13
In a surprising turn of events, Wolves are going into a season with a manager not long in the role, having sold crucial players and replaced them with relative unknown quantities, while building precisely zero momentum in their friendly performances and results.