The Wildcard’s Premier League Predictions - Week 35
Last Week: 7/11
Overall: 142/335
Arsenal vs West Bromwich Albion
Friday 6.45am
Man, these midweekers got a little tricky to pick, especially with a game on a damn Friday. Don’t get too many of these outside of Europa League matches and, hey, neither of these teams for better or worse understand too much about that.
But the Thursday morning games snuck up and before I could get this written and published the bloody website crashed. Not our fault, blame the hosts. Took them four hours to sort it out too, the arseholes. Never mind, I found a way around it and check out the flippin’ success rate here:
Three outta three, baby.
Pretty confident that this’ll see the Gunners win another one – they sure need to after Man United closed the gap with that relatively routine win over Crystal Palace. You know, that team that Arsenal drew with the other day (to be fair, Palace rested a few dudes). It’s a fine line at this stage of the season with no time to recover footing. Man Utd just drew within a point of the Gunners, two points of City. Arsenal have a game in hand on the two of them but in this season that might not mean anything until the points are on the board. They should be against the Baggies, though we’ll come back to Arsenal later.
Wildcard’s Pick: 2-0 Gunners
Manchester City vs Stoke City
Saturday 11.45am
Disappointed in Stoke. That whole Stoke-alona thing is a long process, they weren’t gonna flip the script in one season, but it’s been rubbish lately. Gotta finish the season strong, man. Always. As for Manchester City, this is their warmup for the Real Madrid clash. No way they blow this.
Best player in the Premier League right here:
Wildcard’s Pick: Man City 3-1
Bournemouth vs Chelsea
Sunday 2.00am
I get the feeling that Chelsea are ready to phone this season in and that the Cherries maybe aren’t quite yet. Which about levels things out as far as I see it. It’ll be a big offseason for both of these clubs, Chelsea for obvious reasons but also Bournemouth, who need a couple sparks or injections into the squad if they wanna avoid the dreaded second-season slump. Loving that they’re looking into the Championship for those players, judging from things being reported. There’s so much talent there ready for the step up and this Bournemouth team is proof of that, plus if you’re really on your game you can get those players far cheaper than from European clubs who’ll hike the price for a PL team. Chucking names off the top of my head here, minimal research:
- Curtis Davies (Hull)
- Ollie Norwood (Reading)
- Andre Gray (Burnley)
- Moussa Dembele (Fulham)
- Daniel Ayala (Middlesbrough)
- Lewis Dunk (Brighton)
- Lewis Cook (Leeds)
- Henri Lansbury (Notts Forest)
Eight dudes right there.
Wildcard’s Pick: 1-1
Liverpool vs Newcastle
Sunday 2.00am
What are you up to, Krul son? Hey but Newcastle also stole a point of Man City so maybe there’s life in these muppets yet. There might be, actually. The Rafa Benitez Effect could be taking hold at the last possible moment, they definitely couldn’t have left it any later. Like, the point against City was a welcome bonus but it carries on from the sudden form they found in dispatching Swansea in what, with Sunderland’s win over Norwich, became almost a must-win.
This game will be extremely tough against a Liverpool side that is looking increasingly impressive. They bring in kids and still get results. They chase down unlikely European wins. The intensity of their recent games should be too much for Newcastle so other results may need to help them out – at least Norwich don’t play – though after this they host Crystal Palace and travel to Aston Villa. There are six genuine points there to claim even before they play Spurs in the final game – best case scenario there is that Spurs have already lost the title and they rest players. Leicester City play Chelsea on the same afternoon so Newcastle’s survival, if it even lasts that long, could get lost in the narratives.
How great would it be if Rafa Benitez stays on and manages in the Championship? The club are willing to beg him, apparently, so there you go. Quite a fall from managing Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid (in that order) at the beginning of this season.
Next managerial jobs after leaving Real Madrid:
- Rafa Benitez -> Newcastle
- Carlo Ancelotti -> Bayern Munich
- José Mourinho -> Chelsea
- Manuel Pellegrini -> Malaga
- Juande Ramos -> CSKA Moscow
- Bernd Schuster -> Besiktas
- Fabio Capello -> England (yikes!)
- Juan Ramón López Caro -> Racing Santander
- Vanderlei Luxemburgo -> Santos
- Mariano García Remón -> Cadiz
Speaking of a bunch of muppets, how about these ones:
The MVP there is Lucas Leiva’s scouser accent!
Wildcard’s Pick: 3-2 to Liverpool, could be fun
Aston Villa vs Southampton
Sunday 2.00am
So this is what it’s come to. Nine losses and counting for Villa, already relegated, and nutcase fans are calling out the captain for a few rounds in the ring.
Wildcard’s Pick: Saints 2-1
Sunderland vs Arsenal
Monday 1.05am
You know, it’s strange the way an entire season can swing. Sunderland had specialised in getting draws recently. Good performances but no clean sheets. Biggest game of the season and they come up against Norwich, there’s almost a fight in the first few minutes, and for the entire game the stat sheet will have you think that Sunderland were absolutely mauled. 19 shots to 8. 7 on target to 3. 69% pass success to 55%. 64% possession to 36%. Maybe worst of all was that Norwich had 14 corners and Sunderland not a single one. Zero, zip, nada. But Sunderland won 3-0.
All three shots on target went in and they defended just well enough. It was the kind of pragmatic performance, reaping all kinds of benefits from stretching long balls to Jermaine Defoe on the run, that Big Sam Allardyce must have been begging of them all this time. Bet he slept like a baby that night, even with Newcastle’s win. I’ve never seen Lamine Kone play better than that – truth be told I’ve hardly ever seen him play at all but the sentiment still stands. And Duncan Watmore is a gun. That lad deserves to be playing Premier League.
You know, pragmatic performances tend to be kryptonite for Arsenal… and we all know how Mr Allardyce and Wenger get along.
Funny thing about that rivalry, Sam Allardyce actually isn’t very good against Arsene Wenger. He’s never beaten him away and hasn’t even gotten a point in North London vs Arsene for like a decade. At home, things are a little better. He had a few sneaky wins with Bolton, though he never beat them with West Ham, just the one home win with Blackburn. There isn’t really any reason to pick Sunderland at all… but they might sneak a point. Honestly, I’ve got a tingly feeling here, Man City responded to adversity by getting right back to their best (minus not beating Newcastle). Arsenal are now the team in trouble of slipping out of the four, the team in the more trouble anyway. When the Gunners are faced with adversity, they tend to stick their fingers in their ears and scream “lalalalalalalalala!”
Wildcard’s Pick: Going all in on a 1-1 here
Leicester City vs Swansea City
Monday 3.15am
Here’s the complete list of trophies that Leicester City has won in its 132 year history:
League Cup Winners: 1964, 1997, 2000
Second Tier/Championship Winners: 1924–25, 1936–37, 1953–54, 1956–57, 1970–71, 1979–80, 2013–14
Third Tier/League One Winners: 2008-09
FA Charity Shield: 1971
They’ve also four FA Cup final defeats (1949, 1961, 1963 & 1969), a pair of League Cup final defeats (1965 & 1999) and their best ever league finish was second place in 1928-29.
Quite the season, that 28-29 one. Sheffield Wednesday (then known as ‘The Wednesday’) pipped the Foxes by a single point on the league table as they each went undefeated at home yet were pretty rubbish on the road (Weds lost 11 of their 18 away games and LCFC lost 12). It was a surprisingly recognisable table, actually. Liverpool were fifth, Man City, Arsenal, Man Utd all there in the middle. Chelsea and Spurs were in the second division those days but there were 10 current Premier League clubs in the top flight that season. Dave Halliday of Sunderland was top scorer with 43 goals so Harry Kane had better finish strongly if he’s gonna catch that. Lots of goals in those days – there were two separate 10-0 wins, apparently travel must have been a bitch because even the relegated teams were winning as many at home as they lost. Leicester’s 10-0 over Portsmouth that year is still their record league victory.
Jamie Vardy, aye? What a dickhead. The dive was rubbish and the reaction to the ref has deservedly gotten him in more trouble. Funny how the narrative has swung a little. The Foxes are the darlings no matter how they go at this point but the fans are getting testy and their top striker is suspended. Reminds you of that time before the season when he racially abused a casino worker. Not exactly clean cut Harry Kane, who doesn’t drink or smoke and his idea of going out is walking the dogs. I’m enjoying this little freakout by those who’ve pinned the fairy tale tag on the Foxes – this is football and it’s never that simple. Players aren’t comic book heroes. I’ve got no problem like that but plenty of people do.
Leicester have a problem there too. Vardy’s pace and bombastic movement is crucial in how they play and they aren’t going to get that from Leonardo Ulloa, who is the natural replacement. He’ll hold the ball up and he’ll be an option in the box… though they don’t have to play him. Why not give Riyad Mahrez a run up top? He’s got the pace and he could benefit from the spotlight having not come up with so much magic the last couple weeks. Alternatively they have that young fella Joe Dodoo who scored a hatty in the League Cup a few months back or Demarai Gray who is just as quick as Vardy is, though both are very young. One other option is Jeffrey Schlupp comes in on the wing and Mahrez plays in the hole behind Okazaki in a single-striker gig. If you throw it forward against the Swans, eventually they will break. This is not a game they can take for granted. With a five point lead and four games to go, they cannot bank on Spurs dropping any more points. They need eight more to confirm this thing and that either three wins or two and two draws. After this they are away to Man United, home to Everton and away to Chelsea. None of those are simple games. This is a must win.
Wildcard’s Pick: 2-0 Leicester
Tottenham Hotspur vs West Bromwich Albion
Tuesday 7.00am
Once again Spurs get to wait and see how Leicester go before they get their turn. A bit like taking the second kicks in a penalty shootout. I mean, that’s not the usual approach. You want to kick first and keep putting the pressure on the other dudes and hope it eventually gets to them. So far that hasn’t happened to Tottenham. They were fantastic against Stoke, just so much better. They haven’t lost since West Ham beat them 1-0 early in in March – problem is Leicester haven’t lost Arsenal got them on the 15th of February. It got to crunch time and the two lesser heralded sides hit full speed while City, Arsenal and others all stalled. Football.
You can read a whole bunch of words I wrote here about Spurs. Tactical approaches, key players, things like that.
Hard to see West Brom doing much here other than staying compacted and giving away fouls. They can’t score enough goals to beat the best defence in the league – they maybe can hold them out by stacking the box as they usually do, which would be a frustration to a team like Spurs that prefer to overload attacking areas and can ignore the width at times. However WBA can’t hold the ball. They don’t have that much pace. They’re gonna get burnt if Spurs can counter attack and these guys are gonna find a way to get shots off regardless of the traffic. Here’s one: I’m picking Tottenham benefit from a deflected goal here.
Wildcard’s Pick: Spurs win it 3-0