Revisiting my Pre-Season Predictions

How did I do with my expectations for the season

The 2024/25 Premier League season is over and while I still have some energy to look back on the season I thought it would be good to revisit the bold predictions I made for Arsenal back in August.

Fair warning for any future predictions, I did not do great this last season.

Prediction 1: Arsenal to Finish 1st with 87 Points

I was optimistic about Arsenal’s chances, predicting they’d claim the Premier League title with 87 points.

The final standings show that had Arsenal achieved that points total it could have come true. Instead, they finished in second place for the third season in a row with a disappointing 74 points.

I remain positive about this team and believe that largely this season was derailed with misfortune in player availability, inopportune times for finishing to abandon a good finishing team, and some truly bizarre referee decisions.

Prediction 2: Goals Scored (92) and Goals Allowed (25)

I forecasted Arsenal would score 87 goals while conceding 25. The actual numbers? They netted 69 (not nice this time) goals and conceded 34. My prediction would have been a +67 goal difference on par with an incredible league season but instead it was just a good +35 this season.

Prediction 3: Top Scorer (Saka and Havertz tied) and Player of the Season (Saka)

I correctly predicted that one of Saka and Havertz would lead Arsenal’s scoring charts, but I was wrong that it would be tied between them. Havertz ended up leading the team with 9 goals scored in the League, Saka was 5th highest scorer with 5 non-penalty goals scored this season.

I also pegged Saka as the Player of the Season, which very well could have happened had he not gotten injured. He ended up coming second in the Arsenal player of the season vote and I think that is about right for him.

Prediction 4: Champion’s League Finish (Semi-Final)

I predicted Arsenal would reach the semi-finals in their Champions League campaign going a step further than last year and that is exactly what happened!

The Champions League campaign was by far the brightest spot for Arsenal this season and I think showed that the team actually believed that they were good enough to hang with the best teams in the world there. They basically matched or outplayed every team they faced this season in the Champions League and with a few bounces could have lifted the big cup. Maybe next year it will finally happen.

Prediction 5: Who takes the left back role - Calafiori

This one was a miss, with Riccardo Calafiori only making 11 Premier League starts and even when he was fit (which wasn’t enough) it not being clear that he would be picked over Myles Lewis-Skelly.

MLS was a player on no ones radar as the guy you just right down in pen on the team sheet and that’s one of the fun things about how a season can go.

Prediction 6: Breakout Player Calafiori, Underperformer Trossard

Looking back it makes sense that Calafiori would be the pick here, he just didn’t play enough to be able to say that it was correct. One thing going for him was that when he did see the pitch the guy flashed talent and unpredictable chaos that the team is craving.

For the underperformer, I think that you could make a case for Trossard but it would be a stretch. He played in all 38 Premier League matches and improved on his 13 goals plus assists last season with 15 this season. Raheem Sterling was probably the winner of this among players that didn’t have a big injury asterisk next to their performance this season based on expectations at the start of the year.

Prediction 7: Over/Under Starts - PL Starts for Calafiori (20.5, over), PL Starts for Timber (14.5, under), PL Starts for Jesus (21.5, Under) Martinelli (24.5, Over), Nwaneri PL Appearances (8.5 Under)

I missed on Calafiori here, he made just 11 starts this season and 19 appearances.

I predicted Gabriel Jesus would have under 21.5 starts, I was correct with him only having 6 starts. If he had not blown out his knee it might have been closer but I think still under the total listed here.

For Martinelli, the number was 24.5 and he just beat it with 25 starts.

For Timber I missed by a ton here taking the under on 14.5, he ended up making 27 this season. I thought that he would share the right back role more with White but he ended up missing a huge chunk of the season with his own injury. Even then I probably would not have been right here.

The last one on the appearances/starts section was Nwaneri and I missed this badly as well. He started more games than I thought that he would appear in. I am happy to say that I am thrilled by this outcome and that his future looks much brighter than my prognostication.

Prediction 8: Over/Under G+A - Odegaard G+A (20.5, over), Saka G+A (24.5, over), Kai G+A (22.5, over), Martinelli G+A (15.5, over), Jesus G+A (14.5, over) and Trossard G+A (13.5, under)

This is a pretty funny one to look back on. The one player I thought was going to go under the total was Trossard and he was the only player here to actually go over the total given.

I missed big here. Injuries explain a lot of the why but still an ugly result for me here. Also a big reason why the season feels like a disappointment.

Prediction 9: The Top Four - Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, and Newcastle

I didn’t get the order correct here with the actual order being Liverpool, Arsenal , City and then Chelsea (Newcastle 5th) but I did do a decent job at actually getting the teams right.

Another humbling prediction here.

Looking at how others do, even those that have money on the line, it is a good reminder that this is hard to do.

Bonus Prediction: Where will Manchester United Finish - 7th

I predicted Manchester United would finish 7th, and they only missed by a tiny fraction down in 15th place.

I will say that I am pretty happy that my projection model was quick to point out that this team was not great but even that was not nearly pessimistic enough for them.

Going into next season it would probably be a success if they could recover to 7th place for them.

Final Thoughts

Overall, my pre-season predictions for Arsenal were largely terrible.

I missed a lot more than I got right here and it was probably because I was too much of a fan while making the predictions and you know what, I am okay with that in this instance. I think we all need to have that optimism to help get us ready for a 10 month season and a fair amount of that was warranted for Arsenal going into the season.

I remain pretty optimistic about the team but it is looking like things will start off a bit less rosy for the team from the view right now. It is way too early but the opening lines from the betting markets have Arsenal third in a very close Premier League next season.