Just after the start of the season - after the incoming & outgoing, summer transfer windows have closed – I sit down and attempt to predict how our season will end. I also try to guage how our Premier League competitors will fair in the league.
Along with some ‘other stuff’, here are the results…
First of all, my league place finish predictions…
1st Manchester City – SPOT ON!
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2nd Liverpool – SPOT ON!
3rd Chelsea – SPOT ON!
4th
TottenhamHotspur – SPOT ON!
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5th Manyoo – (6th) – Just 1 out!
6th
Arsenal – (5th) – Just 1 out!
7th Everton – (8th) – Just 1 out!
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8th Fulham – (19th) – Oh dear…11 places out.
9th WolverhamptonWanderers – (7th)
– Just 2 out.
10th Watford (11th) – Just one out!
11th AFC Bournemouth – (14th) – Just 3 out.
12th Leicester City (9th) – Just 3 out.
13th
West Ham United (10th) – Just 3 out.
14th Newcastle United (13th)
– Just 1 out!
15th Southampton (16th) – Just 1 out!
16th Crystal Palace (12th) – 4 out.
17th Burnley (15th) – Just 2 out.
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18th Huddersfield Town (20th) – Just 2 out and drop predicted.
19th Brighton & Hove Albion (17th)
– Just 2 out!
20th Cardiff City (18th) – Just 2 out and drop predicted.
Hey…not
flippin’ bad or what?! Especially the top 7! Chuffed with that.
Now for the cup predictions & results
for our very own club.
Predicted – Quarter finals.
Achieved – Final (& winners)!
2 rounds out.
Predicted – Final.
Achieved – Final (and won it)!
SPOT ON!
Predicted – Quarter final.
Achieved – Quarter final.
SPOT ON!
And also…
At
the same time, I do a W / D / L prediction for each of our
games – one ‘pre-season’ (when those same transfer windows have closed) and the
other is a pre-match; different because I can then look at current form. Here
are those results…
- Pre-season match result prediction:
71.05% correct.
- Pre-match result prediction:
84.21% correct.
Empty seats
Now,
of course, this isn’t a prediction but it is something regular readers might
remember me-doing each year (and all of this record keeping isn’t a quick
job, let me tell you!).
What
is it and why do it?
Huhhhh…well, as I say each season in
order to explain, as our wonderful football club got more & more successful,
winning more & more silverware I noticed, more & more, that Manyoo fans (not exclusively as band-waggon
jumpers / fans of other teams that I know locally joined in) started on the
“empty seats” jibe at us.
Although
I could clearly see these unoccupied, flip-up chairs at the Etihad I just thought, I bet the difference
between us & Manyoo isn’t “all that” over a full season…and certainly not
enough to keep bleating on about it much as they did and still do.
And
do you know what, the results have mostly
shown that very thing to be the case. In fact, there was one season in recent
years where…guess what? The team from Trafford had more empty seats over the whole season and in all competitions than
we did!
Anyway,
here’s the results of 2018/19 (and explanations where needed).
Manyoo’s capacity:
74,994 in every competition.
Empty seats in all competitions: 36,690
Least empty seats in a game: 438 v AFC Bournemouth in
the Premier League.
Manchester City capacities:
55,097 for league & domestic cup games, 53,000 for
Champions League.
Empty seats in all competitions: 90,562
Least empty seats in a game: No empty seats v Spurs in
the Champions League (*see below)
(* The Spurs game actually saw 348 seats filled
over the apparently-allowed capacity for Champions League games of
53,000).
Difference between both clubs all
season and in all competitions: 53,872 more empty seats at the
Etihad than at Old Trafford all season and in all
competitions.
As
I say most seasons, a difference over a whole season worth bleating on about? And
what about their 36,690 empty seats for a club whose fans often say they, “…fill
their stadium every week”. Well,
clearly not…
Anyhow,
these are the figures from last season that I
like to quote:
·
1 – The position we finished
in the league.
·
3 (or 4) – the number of trophies we won.
·
5 – The number of places we
finished in the league above our empty seat, sabre-rattling
neighbours.
·
32 – The number of points we
finished ahead of them; improving a LOT on 19 the season before.
·
4 – The number of times we
went to Wembley (excluding games where
Spurs were using it as their home ground).
·
98 – The number of points we achieved
in the league last season.
·
198 – The number of league
points we’ve amassed in the last 2 seasons!
·
0 – The number of times we
changed our manager in the season-just-gone.
·
0 – The number of trophies
they won.
And from
Manchester City themselves just this morning…
·
169 goals in all competitions,
which is a new record for a top-flight, English side.
·
6-0 – Biggest win in a cup final for over 100 years, equalling the all-time record too.
·
10-0 – Biggest ever semi-final aggregate win.
I’m
sure there are more we could think of from the season just gone; a season that
followed an amazing record-breaking one the year before!
Thank
you, as always, for taking the time to absorb all of that.
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