The Wildcard’s Premier League Predictions - Week 21
Last Week: 3/10
Overall: 103/200
Tottenham Hotspur vs West Bromwich Albion
Sunday 1.30am (NZT)
Old rotten Tottenham, folks. Where 13 other teams failed, it was Spurs who prevailed. Taking down the Blues so that they finally lose. Dele Alli filled his belly, Wanyama played harder and the rest of them weren’t half bad either.
It was the weirdest game, on the face of it you’d have thought it was Spurs who were the team gunning for a Premier League record for consecutive wins, such was how they picked them apart. They matched the formation with three at the back, did their best to make sure that they tired out the wingbacks, forced Chelsea to play through the middle where they had Victor Wanyama, Mousa Dembele and then unleashed Dele Alli on Victor Moses once he was exhausted and that was the trick. They made Chelsea look completely ordinary to the point where it was like: did we all just wake up from a dream? Some strange dream where Chelsea were running away with the league, completely unstoppable?
A word of praise for Dele Alli, who started the season pretty average but over the last month or so he’s arguably been playing better than he ever did last season. He’s got as many goals as Harry Kane now, between them they have 20 of Spurs’ 39 bangers. That’s three consecutive doubles for Dele, seven goals in four games. That’s some incredible form for a dude who isn’t even a striker. It’s crazy that he’s only 20 years old. So young he probably doesn’t even get this reference:
I happen to think that on current ability, West Brom are the seventh best team in the PL. Better than Southampton, better than Everton. Although those teams are easier to strengthen and a couple of players would make a big difference. Still, if you’re one of those jokers who looks at the Baggies and thinks long balls and slide tackles as always then wake ya’self up there, friend.
Wildcard’s Pick: 1-0 Spurs
Swansea City vs Arsenal
Sunday 4.00am (NZT)
Paul Clement, great get for the Swans. If you want pedigree it doesn’t come much better than Carlo Ancelotti’s right hand man, a fella who’s been with him at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich – a fella so grounded that he didn’t accept a spot on Fat Sam’s England staff. His first foray into full management with Derby County was decent but unspectacular and they’d planned on more than that so he didn’t last long (it’s tough with teams facing relegation, it’s just as tough with teams expecting promotion sometimes). So long as they don’t think he’s there to perform miracles and won’t freak out if they go down then he could really stabilise this club. They could damn sure use it.
Tell you what, they’re going nowhere until they fix up that defence.
The Gunners did what they had to do in the FA Cup but they’ve only won two of their last five games in the league. Give them back the eight points dropped and they’ve be tied for first, instead they’ve dropped out of the top four as things stand. You know what that means, time for a flyover banner calling for WENGER OUT. The team below them is Man Utd who are in hot form too, that could soon be sixth place… yikes.
So a pleasant time to be playing Swansea City. They have this one followed by home games against Burnley and Watford. Considering they’re then away at Chelsea, home to Hull (sweet reprieve) and then away to Bayern Munich, Southampton and Liverpool before the second leg against Bayern… they absolutely have to take nine points from the next nine or they risk slip slip sliding away from the high flyers above them. That ain’t right, the Gunners have a better squad than any of them. (Resist the urge to say TYPICAL ARSENAL, Resist the urge to say TYPICAL ARSENAL, Resist the urge to say TYPICAL ARSENAL…)
Wildcard’s Pick: Arsenal 3-1
West Ham United vs Crystal Palace
Sunday 4.00am (NZT)
Hmm, I seem to feel that these two have something in common… whatever could it be. I’m thinking… Stig Ham? No that’s not it. Fig lamb? Nope, still off. Ah… oh yeah! Big Sam!
Oh yeah… Big Sam…
It was never fully explored but I definitely got the feeling that Sam Allardyce and West Ham parted in less than happy circumstances. I’m always sceptical of how Winston Reid refused to sign a new contract and then as soon as they confirmed that Sam was leaving at the end of the season, suddenly there he goes signing on for like five or six more seasons. Allardyce always complains that he doesn’t get enough credit for what he does and that was surely true at West Ham, although he still gets jobs despite it all so he’s not entirely unloved. Though he is mostly tolerated by fans, I think.
Guts to Palace fans, from Pardew to Big Sam. God, imagine the egos those poor players have had to deal with.
Hey don’t you laugh either, Hammers faithful. There’s tragic news for you as well…
Both of these teams have flirted with it but neither should be in any serious relegation danger. Both showed last season, and with similar squads, that they are much better than this and over 38 games there are usually enough flashes of truth for teams like that to get away with it. Not always, though. Newcastle got relegated like that last year.
Anyway, expect heaps of crosses into the box and lots of defensive clearances. Two structured teams that’ll play fairly conservatively. It’s six games without a win for Palace and a couple defeats on the trot for the Hammers. Sounds like a close on to me, I wanna say that West Ham have a little more motivation here.
Wildcard’s Pick: Hammers 1-0
Watford vs Middlesbrough
Sunday 4.00am (NZT)
I’ll repeat my usual sentiment that the January transfer window is for desperate teams only and that very little good business gets done in it (at least not good business that pays off in the back half of the same season – it can be a nice extended welcome for some players though, who then get a complete offseason to fully assimilate). But it’s still interesting to see how ambitious some teams are, it’s a rare glimpse into the actual psyche of those clubs. Watford and Boro are two teams that ought to be fine with the players they’ve got. No reason to panic. Except that that’s never stopped some clubs in the past. We’ll see what they feel like doing – Watford need enormous quality or nothing, the player turnover there is so drastic it’s hard to keep up so unless it’s a genuine star they really don’t need to touch anything, though Boro could use a midfielder or two. In the meantime they’ll probably play out a safe draw and both teams will be happy enough with that.
Wildcard’s Pick: 0-0
Sunderland vs Stoke City
Sunday 4.00am (NZT)
I know he’s been in and out a bit, mostly due to injury but he’s also not always been fully motivated… but losing Lamine Kone to the African Cup of Nations is a horror for Sunderland, even if they weren’t also losing Wahbi Khazri and Didier Ndong. Which they are. Three guaranteed matchday players, two of them near certain starters. This is why Sunderland are going to be a buying team for the next few weeks.
Here’s the complete list of African Cup of Nations participants:
- Arsenal - Mohamed Elneny (Egypt)
- Bournemouth – Max Gradel (Cote D’Ivoire)
- Burnley – Nada
- Chelsea – Nada
- Crystal Palace – Bakary Sako (Mali), Wilfried Zaha (Cote D’Ivoire)
- Everton – Idrissa Gueye (Senegal)
- Hull City – Ahmed Elmohamady (Egypt), Dieumerci Mbokani (DR Congo)
- Leicester City – Daniel Amartey (Ghana), Riyad Mahrez (Algeria), Islam Slimani (Algeria)
- Liverpool – Sadio Mane (Senegal)
- Man City – Nada
- Man United – Eric Bailly (Cote D’Ivoire)
- Middlesbrough – Nada
- Southampton – Sofiane Boufal (Morocco)
- Stoke City – Wilfied Bony (Cote D’Ivoire), Mame Biram Diouf (Senegal), Ramadan Sobhi (Egypt)
- Sunderland – Wahbi Khazri (Egypt), Lamine Kone (Cote D’Ivoire), Didier Ndong (Gabon)
- Swansea – Nada
- Tottenham – Nada
- Watford – Nordin Amrabat (Morocco), Aldene Guedioura (Algeria)
- West Brom – Nada
- West Ham – Andre Ayew (Ghana), Cheikhou Kouyate (Senegal)
Imagine if Leicester City’s title race had fallen in an AfCoN season? No Mahrez for a few weeks, you never know what a difference that might have made. Arsenal are gonna miss Elneny a bit and same goes for Sadio Mane and Eric Bailly for Liverpool and Man United but they all have cover. Crystal Palace, Sunderland, Leicester and West Ham are all hit pretty hard. Stoke City would be too if any of the players they were losing had played above crap for them, Wilfried Bony’s been a big disappointment so far – maybe he’ll find some form away on international duty. Oh and talking of yet another stroke of fate for Leicester last season, notice how Nigeria didn’t make the comp this time around and that means Chelsea don’t lose Victor Moses. Also Spurs dodge having to lose Victor Wanyama thanks to Zimbabwe not being very good, while Liverpool’s Joel Matip is skipping the tourney himself.
The latest any of them could be away for is the Premier League fixtures on the 4-5 of February.
Umm, Sunderland vs Stoke… to be honest I think that an embarrassing loss in the FA Cup to Wolves (and at home too) is enough of a wakeup call for Stoke for them to get on up. They tested Chelsea a little a few games back and while the win over Watford was pretty straightforward they still did what they had to do. And really I just can’t pick Sunderland to win anything at the moment. They could well get all three points here and fair play if they do but nah, can’t pick it.
Wildcard’s Pick: Stoke 1-0
Burnley vs Southampton
Sunday 4.00am (NZT)
You know, Southampton had to play three games in six days over New Years. They lost 4-1 to Spurs with a red card in there, lost 2-1 to West Brom with a red card in there and were then pumped 3-0 by Everton. Everybody complains about the fixture congestion at this time but no team had it worse than the Saints. Give them a few days of break and they almost beat Norwich before tiring and conceding a late equaliser in that FA Cup tie (not at full strength, it must be said). Give them a few more days and they went and beat Liverpool. Give them a few more on top of that and they might even beat Burnley. Although Burnley have taken the fifth most points in home games this season, which is incredible. Even more incredible than their horrid away form. They’ve played one game more than anyone else at this stage (due to playing Liverpool early on while Anfield was getting touched up) but 22 points in 11 games is no small matter. That’s more than either Manchester team.
Wildcard’s Pick: 1-1
Hull City vs Bournemouth
Sunday 4.00am (NZT)
Ah look, a happy ending for Oumar Niasse. Or at least a six month reprieve, he’s off to Hull on loan for the rest of the season with a £10m option to buy at the end of it. Now, I’d imagine they don’t take that option up, if only because they’re almost a dead cert to get relegated and with that the purse strings will be tight. But finally, how great to see the poor lad released from his prison cell.
Roberto Martinez bought him for £13.5m from Lokomotiv Moscow on deadline day last January, whereupon Niasse played a total of 152 minutes across the rest of the season. That fee suggests they at least hoped he could be a bench option but nope. It only got worse once Ronald Koeman came in too. The Dutchman pretty much immediately dropped him to the U23s, taking away his club number and his locker, even. He was in limbo waiting for a transfer away but it never happened… so he’s had to stay with the kids, training and playing with that lot at the age of 26.
Oumar Niasse: “[Koeman] took my shirt number and he told me I wasn’t allowed to be in the dressing room for the first team; that I wasn’t going to train with them. I had to go with the second team. I said: ‘OK, no problem.’ When you say you don’t need a player, you don’t have to see him. I’ve just kept working in training. Even if I’m training with the under-23s, I give them the respect.”
Mark it down, Everton vs Hull City, 4.00am on March 19. Niasse seems like he’s not the type to hold a grudge but it things are fair then he’ll score a 90th minute winner.
Although Hull hardly deserve it. What the hell have they sacked Mike Phelan for!? What did he do wrong other than agreeing to manage this pathetic and hopeless team, that can barely muster 11 fit players? Ridiculous, I hope he finds his way to another head management gig somewhere and somewhere more forgiving as well. I don’t hate the signing of Marco Silva though, they’ve done their research there.
Mike Phelan: “13 fit senior players and five kids, that's what we took away with us on tour and started the season with. I certainly thought we could get results and I thought the group was mentally strong enough to take on the Premier League which is an extremely difficult league and really it all boiled down to the transfer window in August. We did all the deals on the last day, in the last minutes really and just added numbers to the squad.”
Ryan Mason, Markus Henriksen, David Marshall, Will Keane, James Weir and Dieumerci Mbokani were their summer arrivals. Well, Mason might have been a club record signing but he’s been average when he’s played and hasn’t even started half their games. James Weir is a kid, only 21, and hasn’t played a second yet in the PL while Will Keane is out for the season with an ACL done for. David Marshall is a sub keeper and Markus Henriksen has gotten into the team in recent weeks but he injured himself against Man United and that looks like it could be a long one. Then there’s Mbokani… he just got on a place for the African up of Nations. Plus there are current injuries to Curtis Davies, Alex Bruce, Michael Dawson, Allan McGregor, Jake Livermore and Harry Maguire. Only Davies is a major doubt but none of that is a good sign.
Wildcard’s Pick: Bournemouth 2-1
Leicester City vs Chelsea
Sunday 6.30am (NZT)
Oh wow, a SUPERCOMPUTER! … and it’s picking the same top six as we already have, except for Spurs getting over Liverpool. Even SUPERCOMPUTERS suffer recency bias, apparently.
Coming back to Chelsea after their long overdue defeat, it wouldn’t be a shocker if they slip straight back into the team they used to be now. They’re still five points clear remember. This will be a tough game, it’s the fixture that got Mourinho sacked last week and Leicester are way better at home than away from it. No Mahrez or Slimani for the near future though, not a fan of that I’ll tell ya. Only two home defeats in 25 games for the Foxes.
The pondering is if the Spurs defeat has written the manuscript for How To Beat Chelsea and we’re probably gonna see a few others copy that now. Or at least peek over their arm and take notes. Leicester aren’t suited to a back three but they do have the speed and width to stretch the Blues and potentially expose that Moses/Azpilicueta link just as Spurs did. It’d be easier with Dele Alli though. Hell, Riyad Mahrez would be handy and they won’t even have him. Time for my boy Ahmed Musa to do some damage… or maybe they lose instead. Yeah, that seems more likely.
One to watch out for: Nathan Ake has been recalled from loan and with Marcos Alonso playing through injury already and there not being any real cover behind him. Willian might be an option on the right, there’s not much else though. Granted few thought Victor Moses could be the answer there either. Ake had a really good season with Watford last time and he’s been a regular for Bournemouth. Really good young player, suddenly Chelsea seems to have a lot of them.
On the subject of win streaks since Chelsea failed to beat Arsenal’s Premier League record, it didn’t really matter anyway. The real winners are the New Saints from Wales, who’ve gone 27 wins in a row. Eat it, all of y’all.
Wildcard’s Pick: Chelsea 2-1
Everton vs Manchester City
Monday 2.30am (NZT)
Morgan Schneiderlin, aye? Defensive midfield wouldn’t be the first area I looked to strengthen if I was Everton manager but whatever, he’s a very good player who deserves better than he was getting at Man United. Not so much that Jose Mourinho ruined him, more that with Carrick, Pogba and Herrera all playing so well there wasn’t much use for him so long as Mou was still infatuated with Fellaini. Makes sense to leave. In his last season with Southampton he was amongst the best defensive mids in the Premier League but given all of Louis Van Gaal’s players were told to play defensive anyway, that took away the thing that put him above his comrades and he never got close to overcoming that. He had a few good games in MUFC red. He ought to have a few more in Everton blue. £22m is a good price for ManYoo to bag for a player they weren’t even playing too, although presumably Everton’s owners can afford it. They’ve been making promises after all.
(Also Gueye is off to the AfCoN so they needed a replacement if nothing else).
Pretty much, Everton are one of a few teams in the league who actively need to buy players and while Hull and Sunderland need them because their squads are so short on talent, Everton have to buy because they have to show a bit of ambition. They’ve talked things up and not quite matched that on the park despite a hit start and having been knocked out of the FA Cup by Leicester in the third round, a bit of flexing would go down well. And don’t forget that their number one purchase in the summer wasn’t Idrissa Gueye (who was a close second, with Ashley Williams in third) but Steve Cook, the mastermind scout who helped build Leicester City, discovering Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kante. So Schneiderlin makes one, word is they’re out for Atalanta’s Ivorian winger Franck Kessié as well. Oh and obviously Memphis Depay because the Man Utd – Everton link is a strong one after all. Seriously it is, here’s a team made up of Premier Leaguers who’ve been transferred between the two…
Managed of course by David Moyes, none other. They gotta start selling a few defenders between them so I can finish this. Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman were once rumoured pretty strongly, came to nothing. Sometime soon, surely, these two teams share some common enemies so it’s only natural they team up a little.
If they’re at their best then City will destroy Everton. When things click for them they move the ball so quickly that the old men at the back for Everton won’t even have a chance to take the dentures out. But City have been so up and down, they’re a weird team to watch. Probably a few too many flaky players in attack and Sergio Aguero coming in and out hasn’t helped. I wonder if they’ll make a few moves. Up to Pep, really. There was nothing wrong with them as they humiliated West Ham on the weekend in the FA Cup.
Speaking of, here’s the full fourth round draw:
Wildcard’s Pick: City 3-1
Manchester United vs Liverpool
Monday 5.00am (NZT)
At first the FA Cup result for Liverpool gave me a bit of a start. I head it second hand down at the beach, took me a bit of convincing that they couldn’t beat Plymouth at home. Even more convincing that it had been a 3-3 draw. As it turns out, my instincts on the second clause were fine because it was actually 0-0 but still, Liverpool. Really?
Turns out there was nothing to it, you could have picked a team with the average age of each player’s household pets and it would have been older than the side Jurgen Klopp put out there. There was barely a player among them who would have been allowed to drive themselves to the game unsupervised. Lucas Leiva looked like a schoolteacher taking his class on a field trip as he walked out onto the pitch. So no, it wasn’t such a bad result. The defeat against Southampton was a lot worse.
To be fair, Klopp’s lads should be able to overturn that deficit at home, although they do run the risk of getting away goaled. They also run the risk of blowing a classic Wembley matchup between English football’s two most storied sides… who happen to be meeting here too.
Last time they played it was a full-on bus parking by Mourinho, settling for a 0-0 draw before the game had even kicked off. But believe it or not (and you should coz it’s true) Man United haven’t lost since. Six straight wins and 11 games without defeat in the league, you can extend that to nine wins in all competitions and 15 games since they last tasted the bitter nectar of a loss. If you look closely, Mourinho almost seems content sometimes now… at least until he gets bear hugged by a tree, however that mixed metaphor is supposed to work.
Now, clearly the focus will be on Wayne Rooney’s goal tally if he plays. Which is why he might not. Ah, maybe Mourinho’s more romantic than we give him credit for though? There’s no more perfect moment for him to set the mark than at Old Trafford against Liverpool, plus he was subbed off after an hour against Hull which adds fuel to the fire. Zlatan will start up top, Rooney might get a gig out wide or in deeper, we’ll wait and see. Hard to leave out Martial, Mkhitaryan, Rashford or Mata too though, this sudden depth is kinda crazy with all of those players having had star showings in the last few weeks.
It’s the opposite of Liverpool who have lost Mane to AfCoN duty and Coutinho’s only just back and a bit rusty while their strikers haven’t really clicked at all. The problem for the Reds is that their first XI is superb, good enough to justify being second in the league… but it’s a cobbled together thing already and when a few players are missing they don’t look so flash. Their last three games have seen draws with Sunderland and Plymouth and defeat to Southampton. They’re still undefeated in the league since over a month ago but it’s no fluke that when fixtures have gotten tighter the results have gotten sloppier. They don’t have the depth, and what’s there is still a few years away from pushing regular selection based on that Cup game.
All of this leads me around in a circle to saying that United are the form team, the home team and the ore confident team. Sounds like a winning team to me.
Wildcard’s Pick: MUFC 2-1