The Case For The Defense

Firstly, thanks to Ryan for highlighting to you all my 'informed' preseason picks while I was away supporting Scotland in Dublin - it was great to be humiliated as soon as I got home.

Actually, I don't think that I have much to be embarassed about this year.

Did I get the top 4 correct? Yes I did. Fine, the order was completely different but I was able to see the flaws in all of the three teams fighting for the title, and sure enough they were all manifest to some extent throughout the year. Certainly, nobody thought that this years Man United side would be a vintage one and their success, in my view anyway, mostly comes down to a Chelsea collapse after the Blues had started so well.

All in all, the standard of this year's Premier League was poor. None of the eventual top four below Man U can be that happy with their performances. Manchester City at least got their cherished Champions League place, but at what cost? Oh yes, that's right; £160 million.

I had predicted Liverpool, Everton and Spurs being the only teams competing for the lesser European places; the fact that this was exactly what happened in spite of terrible form by Liverpool and Everton and injury crises at Spurs reinforces the fact that the teams that finished below this group were really pretty dire.

Aston Villa emphasise this, finishing as they did comfortably safe in spite of their travails, as do Newcastle, a team that would have been fighting relegation on the final day in a stronger season. Not this year.

I do admit that I let my personal dislike of Mark Hughes get the better of my common sense; of course Fulham were going to be a top half team. I was spot on with regards Sunderland; they finished tenth, and I have no idea how. They could easily have been 4 places higher or 6 places lower.

Nobody saw Blackpool's rollercoaster ride to relegation coming, and I at least got their demise correct. My worst picks were obviously Birmingham and West Ham to be safe when both were actually relegated. Again though, nobody saw those two teams down there at the season's start. Birmingham even won the Carling Cup on their way to spending next year visiting Barnsley. Hell, Ryan wrote a relegation prediction piece a mere two weeks before the season's end and didn't feel the need to mention Alex McLeish's men in it at all (further proof that bad predictions are a specialty at BtC). It just goes to show that any team which wins most of it's games 1-0 should be immediately distrusted the next year.

Overall, the jist of my predictions wasn't too shabby. I won't claim credit for obvious picks, like Wigan and Wolves being shit (although at least a handful of national press had Wolves as a 'new Birmingham' who would finish in the top half. Well, they'll certainly be much like Birmingham again next season...). Likewise, events like the random sacking of Big Sam really just screwed up everything we thought about certain teams.

I don't think I did that well in my predictions. However, to use a legal principle, I think that there is certainly reasonable doubt present and thus I really don't deserve to go to jail for my work. I certainly don't want to be there. I've only just found out what gay men think of me...

GM