Premier League predictions: How accurate were BBC Sport pundits?

In the past, the Premier League has been panned for being too predictable… but not this season.

That goes for the 23 BBC pundits who had a go at picking who would finish in the Champions League places, and in the right order, before a ball was kicked back in August – and also for our readers, who actually did even worse at the same task.

Thirteen pundits were right about City finishing top of the pile, but 10 thought Liverpool would be champions, and their challenge was essentially over before the season paused in November for the World Cup.

While eight pundits correctly thought Arsenal would make the top four for the first time since 2016, none thought they would be higher than fourth. No-one saw Newcastle making it, and only three backed Manchester United.

Tottenham and Chelsea’s multiple managers and even more unexpected defeats meant the best any of the pundits managed overall was two teams out of four, and only five of the 11 who managed that also picked City to finish top.

Rob Green, who had City first and United third, comes out of this best, while ‘professional’ predictor Chris Sutton – who picks Premier League scores for BBC Sport on a weekly basis – went for Liverpool to win… and was right with only one of his four selections.

You can see everyone’s pre-season top-four predictions in full below.

Six teams featured in the forecasted top fours, but only Manchester City and Liverpool featured in all 23.

(using system of 4 pts for a 1st place, 3 pts for 2nd, 2 pts for 3rd and 1 pt for 4th)

Some of you may be reading this and thinking ‘how did they get it so wrong?’ but I am sad to say many of you were even further off target, and you got a lot more wrong besides.

Thousands of you picked the final Premier League table on the BBC website back in August and, although 54% did pick City as champions, the rest of your top four was (in order): Liverpool. Leicester and Arsenal.

In case you missed it, the Foxes ended up 18th, 41 points behind third-placed United and will be playing in the Championship next season, not the Champions League.

Mind you, on the same predictions page, more of you thought Mohamed Salah (26%) would be the top-flight’s top scorer rathern than Erling Haaland (25%), while Bournemouth, Fulham and Nottingham Forest were your picks to go down, and England won the vote about ‘who will win the World Cup?’.

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