The 2022-2023 Premier League season gets underway a week earlier than the last campaign due to the Fifa World Cup taking place in November and December.
Matchweek 16, the weekend of 12-13 November, will be the final one before the six-week World Cup break. The action will then resume on Boxing Day, just a week after the World Cup final in Qatar. The Premier League’s final round of matches are scheduled for 28 May.
Manchester City come into the new season looking to win the title for the third time in succession. Pep Guardiola’s side edged out rivals Liverpool by just one point on a wild final day of last season. Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United will aim to close the gap on the big two and challenge at the top of the table.
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Fulham, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest, the three clubs promoted from the Championship, will aim to stave off relegation as they return to the top-flight.
Here we pick out the pundit predictions for the Premier League champions and relegation candidates, plus the betting odds for title winners, relegation, golden boot and first manager to be sacked.
1. Title race predictions: who will finish top?
Man City won the 2021-2022 Premier League title
(Image credit: Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Given Manchester City have won four of the last five titles, “it’s hardly a bold prediction” they will win again, said Ben Gray on 101GreatGoals.com. Pep Guardiola has won ten league titles in 13 attempts and, “while he remains in place in Manchester, this tally is only likely to rise”.
The analysts from FiveThirtyEight have crunched the numbers ahead of the new top-flight campaign. According to the data, champions Man City have a 46% chance of winning the title ahead of Liverpool (30%) and Chelsea (11%).
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City “look in very good shape” to become the only team alongside neighbours United to win three Premier Leagues in a row and five in six seasons, said Dom Farrell on SportingNews.com. “It is hard once again to look past Guardiola’s champions.”
ESPN commentator Ian Darke has made his Premier League predictions for 2022-2023 and there’s “nothing that original” there. “It’s going to be another close race between Manchester City and Liverpool,” he said. “Tottenham you’d think with the way they’ve strengthened might put in a much stronger run than what we’ve seen from them. They could make third place.”
Football analyst Statman Dave has published his predictions. He probably has “a better shout at getting things right” compared to, say, “the bloke in the corner of your local crying into his pint, AKA, yours truly”, said Kobe Tong on GiveMeSport. In a YouTube video the statman predicts the entire Premier League table, with “frightening” Man City lifting the trophy ahead of Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal, who complete the top four.
2. Relegation predictions: which teams will go down?
Dom Farrell on SportingNews.com picks Bournemouth and Fulham, “two of the three newboys”, to go down. So, “who of the established names” will join them? “If Southampton get into a spiral this season, that might be allowed to go too far downward before corrective measures are applied, meaning the Championship beckons.”
FiveThirtyEight’s data revealed that Nottingham Forest have a 45% chance of being relegated this season. Bournemouth (44%) and Fulham (41%) are also expected to struggle.
Statman Dave predicts that Everton will join Fulham and Bournemouth in the drop zone at the end of the season. “Consistently bad decisions” have left Everton in “serious trouble”, he said. “Their squad doesn’t have an identity and is filled with players whose best days are behind them.”
3. Premier League betting odds
A look at the pre-season prices according to Oddschecker.com, as of 2 August 2022.
Mike Starling is the former digital features editor at The Week. He started his career in 2001 in Gloucestershire as a sports reporter and sub-editor and has held various roles as a writer and editor at news, travel and B2B publications. He has spoken at a number of sports business conferences and also worked as a consultant creating sports travel content for tourism boards. International experience includes spells living and working in Dubai, UAE; Brisbane, Australia; and Beirut, Lebanon.
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