The Guardian in its season’s preview has us finishing 20th - what do they know?

Very predictable!

I’d say the majority would think the same.

Typical lefty woke nonsense

This is a real gut punch, the Guardian is never known to wrong about anything. The only thing they tend to be wrong about...are the facts.

Once they move away from mainstream news, the Grauniad is useless

A far from unreasonable prediction.

No one likes us…

I don't blame them. Let's prove them wrong.

It's not hard to see why is it? I think last season's PL teams have better squads than us and the promoted teams have recruited better so far.

Obviously wouldn't want us to finish bottom or be relegated but think we would need a combination of us overperforming and for some teams to massively underperform for us stay up this season

Tremendous effort to feature Joe Westley in the Stepping Up section.

The Guardian says a lot of things tbh

Nearly every pundit has us finishing rock bottom. I don’t agree. We have a much better balanced squad than last time. Also I think the overall quality of the first 11(assuming the strongly rumoured players materialise) is much higher. Add to that growing turmoil at a number of clubs and I really think we might just survive.

I'd be surprised if you can find a bookie that says otherwise

Every season when we were consistently in the PL - papers had us going down ...

Even remember some saying we would double drop when we got relegated under Jackson

The Guardian talks rubbish at the best of time.

Almost everyone's predictions will have us in 20th.

That paper talks codswallop most of the time.

This is what they know....... absolutely nothing, said we'd finish 16th under Kompany.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... 24-preview

I had us down to get relegated under Kompany but I didn't expect us to be THAT bad, I have us down to be relegated this season but put up a far better fight.

The good thing is, I'm rarely correct with football predictions !

Outrageous prediction. Any football writer worth their salt knows this team will finish in the top half comfortably.

I stopped reading at 'Guardian'

It’d probably be better to only start threads for media outlets/pundits who don’t have us down to be relegated, make the board less cluttered.

When you look at it we were promoted and lost 3 of our best players before the season kicked off .

Ridiculous to be predicting anything before the transfer window closes.

The Super Computer had us being relegated, but at least it has us third from bottom. Leeds were bottom, with Sunderland just above them.

Joe Cole on TNT has us finishing 17th. Presume he’s pretty good mates with Parker.

At the end of the day preseason predictions are a bit of fun, and I’m not sure many neutrals would have us anywhere other than bottom 3.

The thread title has triggered a few I see.

Only surprising thing about this is that anyone still reads the guardian

With 8/9 of the prior promoted clubs relegated over the last three seasons, no pundit or super computer will ever give us a chance.

KellyClaret wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 12:49 pm

It's not hard to see why is it? I think last season's PL teams have better squads than us and the promoted teams have recruited better so far.

Obviously wouldn't want us to finish bottom or be relegated but think we would need a combination of us overperforming and for some teams to massively underperform for us stay up this season

Why do you say they have recruited better than us? They have certainly spent more money but don’t look at any of there signings and think wow apart from maybe Xhaka I would imagine most Sunderland and Leeds fans would have a similar feeling to me about the others signings.

I have a sneaky feeling about Everton struggling this season but also see Brentford, Bournemouth, Fulham, West Ham and Palace getting dragged into will be tight but I think all 3 promoted could actually survive.

A quick look at odds checker relegation odds.. unsurprisingly agrees.

Clarets 2/5
Mackems 4/9
Yorkshire's finest. 11/8

Money to be made if people are confident we'll stay up....

I'm sure we were favourites to go down when we finished 8th.

NewClaret wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:24 pm

Only surprising thing about this is that anyone still reads the guardian

With 8/9 of the prior promoted clubs relegated over the last three seasons, no pundit or super computer will ever give us a chance.

8/9 is incorrect I think more like 6/9 isn’t it?

I do think that this impossible mission of staying up after promotion is a total fallacy based on lazy journalism with no actual sensible review of it being done.

Of the 6 relegated in the last 2 seasons just some thoughts of the top of my head:

Luton and Ipswich were essentially League 1 teams and the jump was too much Ipswich spent money but on decent Championship players.

Us and Southampton had managers that played for there CV rather than what was best for the team. That said As bad as we were that season we were only a poor ref decision against Luton and 2 all timer calamities by Muric away from staying up madly.

Leicester lost there manager just before the season started and made 2 bad appointments.

Sheff Utd sold there best 2 players just before the season started and never recovered.

Do they not know we've got singing away shirts and we've moved the tunnel?

Personally not surprised, though I would like to think we will be higher. In some ways thats good as there is no pressure on us

Not since Bob Lord pxxxed off the press have we we've been media darlings.We have a great chance of midtable finish once we get our new signings sorted.Its lazy journalism with the promoted clubs going down

Lazy and ridiculous assumption. We'll easily get 19th spot!!!

CleggHall wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 12:34 pm

The Guardian in its season’s preview has us finishing 20th - what do they know?

The same thoughts as most of the bookies

jojomk1 wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 3:42 pm

The same thoughts as most of the bookies

Yeah but it’s more annoying because the Guardian said so.

Woodleyclaret wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 3:04 pm

Not since Bob Lord pxxxed off the press have we we've been media darlings.We have a great chance of midtable finish once we get our new signings sorted.Its lazy journalism with the promoted clubs going down

Bit of a stretch to suggest Bob Lords' actions 60 years ago have influenced Andy Hunters projections for this seasons premier league.

JarrowClaret wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:36 pm

8/9 is incorrect I think more like 6/9 isn’t it?

I do think that this impossible mission of staying up after promotion is a total fallacy based on lazy journalism with no actual sensible review of it being done.

Of the 6 relegated in the last 2 seasons just some thoughts of the top of my head:

Luton and Ipswich were essentially League 1 teams and the jump was too much Ipswich spent money but on decent Championship players.

Us and Southampton had managers that played for there CV rather than what was best for the team. That said As bad as we were that season we were only a poor ref decision against Luton and 2 all timer calamities by Muric away from staying up madly.

Leicester lost there manager just before the season started and made 2 bad appointments.

Sheff Utd sold there best 2 players just before the season started and never recovered.

We were well behind even with other teams getting a points deduction. No team has ever survived with 24 points.

I think 35/36 point is what is required (if you exclude points deductions) and we were absolutely nowhere near that many points.

If you go back to 2016/17 17 out of 27 teams were relegated in the first season back in the PL.

You need to spend big to make the transition and at this point we haven't.... time yet I guess.

ClaretPete001 wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 5:20 pm

We were well behind even with other teams getting a points deduction. No team has ever survived with 24 points.

I think 35/36 point is what is required (if you exclude points deductions) and we were absolutely nowhere near that many points.

If you go back to 2016/17 17 out of 27 teams were relegated in the first season back in the PL.

You need to spend big to make the transition and at this point we haven't.... time yet I guess.

Not seeing we deserved to stay up we were awful I agree but in purely points terms we weren’t that far off, accepted it took a points deduction for that to happen though.

I would disagree with you in that spending big guarantees nothing we spent a lot, Ipswich spent a lot and neither of us survived. Survival is linked to your recruitment though but not how much you spend as such more about what you spend your money on. More critical though is having the correct tactics, a good work ethic and player buy in in my opinion at least.

JarrowClaret wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 6:01 pm

Not seeing we deserved to stay up we were awful I agree but in purely points terms we weren’t that far off, accepted it took a points deduction for that to happen though.

I would disagree with you in that spending big guarantees nothing we spent a lot, Ipswich spent a lot and neither of us survived. Survival is linked to your recruitment though but not how much you spend as such more about what you spend your money on. More critical though is having the correct tactics, a good work ethic and player buy in in my opinion at least.

Ignore me wrong season*

I think pre signing these three potential signings I think 20th is a fair assessment, but these three signings significantly strengthen our starting eleven and give us a real chance of 17th

Newcastleclaret93 wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 7:54 pm

I think pre signing these three potential signings I think 20th is a fair assessment, but these three signings significantly strengthen our starting eleven and give us a real chance of 17th

Not sure 20th is a fare assessment I think it feeds into a bit of lazy reviewing based on the fact that we have lost 3 players that people outside our club believe were our best last season and that we are newly promoted there is no actually insightful in it. Could we finishes 20th of course we could and i get it is more likely than say West Ham could finish there, but we are still in a decent position when you compare to the other promoted sides and teams like Brentford for example.

apart from the fact no one buys it, the Guardian sports dept is populated by fat gutted arsenal types with rosy complexions and no footballing knowledge whatsoever.

The corpulant slobs thumb through a few odds checkers on their phone and base a prediction on it.
We aren't getting relegated.

...oh no.

We all know the Guardian is very honest and predictable.

Will they last till the end of the season to write a further story on this matter?

ollieclarets8 wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:35 pm

I'm sure we were favourites to go down when we finished 8th.

Or even 7th. !! We were actual Premier League Champions - the first 6 preferred to abscond to the European League

tarkys_ears wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 06, 2025 11:55 pm

...oh no.

We all know the Guardian is very honest and predictable.

Will they last till the end of the season to write a further story on this matter?

If you listen to their excellent Football Weekly podcast you will find that they do revisit their pre-season predictions at the end of the season.

Strong favourites.
I'm happy about it.
Absolutely no expectations.
We look much stronger than last time.