My Premier League Predictions for the 2022/23 season
On paper for all to see (and refer back to when they are inevitably wrong)
Disclaimer: All these predictions were written on Saturday 29th July before I headed off on holiday. If any of the information has changed since then I apologise, same goes for after posting since we have a whole month of the transfer window left.
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal kicks off the Premier League on Friday night and conversations have already begun about what will happen in the 2022/23 season.
Will Manchester City retain the title or will Liverpool challenge for the crown once again? Who will get relegated and which players will shine or flop in this campaign? Also, will the World Cup placed slap bang in the middle of the season affect the outcome?
So to that end here are my 10 predictions for the upcoming Premier League season about both teams and players. These are my opinions, if you don’t agree that’s fine, but let me know what you think in the comments below. So with that in mind let’s dive in:
Jack Grealish will have a ‘breakout’ season at City
I think this seems obvious, but I think Grealish will have a better season at Manchester City this year.
The 26-year-old cost Pep Guardiola’s side £100m and with a price tag like that many were disappointed with his return of 3 goals and 3 assists in the league.
However, one person who was not disappointed was his manager. Guardiola told the media during the season:
“If he is frustrated about his number of goals, he is a stupid man. That is not necessary to be frustrated about scoring goals. He has to play, and play good and try to do his best, that’s all he has to do. If he scores a goal, good. If not, next game.“
There are two major factors I think that will contribute to him getting more goals and assists; players seemingly always find their feet under Guardiola in their second season and City now have a striker and focal point, Erling Haaland.
As a more traditional creative player, I feel Grealish will thrive with Haaland to play off and because of that, he will maintain good underlying numbers by getting the goals and (mainly) assists that contribute to a ‘breakout’ year.
Spurs will make it a three-horse race
I covered this in more detail in my article ‘So... can Tottenham Hotspur win the Premier League title?’, but I think Spurs can close the gap between themselves and Liverpool and City this season.
They have the manager to help them overcome their ‘Spursy’ mentality, they have Harry Kane and Heung Min-Son, they have a good core squad and they have a decent amount of depth.
And who knows once you are in the mixer, a bit of luck or a slip up from your rivals and anything can happen (it probably won’t but it’s nice to think that it could).
Darwin Nunez won’t be ‘good’… but he’ll still probably score 15+ NPGs
This one needs a bit of explaining. Having watched quite a bit of Nunez now (partially because he was linked with Manchester United earlier in the season), I have some reservations about the striker.
He was afforded a lot of space in the Portuguese League and by this, I mean between him and the defenders when they were marking him, not in behind. This is something he likely won’t get in the Premier League and if players do stand off him, they will be more likely to react to his bigger touches.
So I think when Liverpool relies on him to have the ball at his feet, he’ll struggle and I also think he will be wasteful with a good percentage of his chances (plus you can add in that he already seems rattled by some comments about his preseason performances, posting images of him shushing to social media).
But Jurgen Klopp is a great manager, and Liverpool won’t have signed him without knowing what he’s good at (I also think they are the club that is best suited for him), so they’ll find a workaround.
They have arguably the best creator in the league in Trent Alexander-Arnold who will be able to give him shots right in front of the goal, and with Mohammed Salah and another forward alongside him, they will be able to give him more space to work with.
Given that one of Nunez’s biggest assets is his movement, he’ll certainly get chances so even if he doesn’t score them all he will score some (as we saw in the Community Shield against Manchester City).
So yeah I think he won’t be exceptional from a technical standpoint, but he’ll still score around 15 non-penalty goals in the league. And speaking of Salah…
Salah will contribute to 43+ goals
I think this is one of the predictions I’m most confident about (of course barring injury).
Salah was a force to be reckoned with during the first half of the 2021/22 season (and a lock for every Fantasy Premier League team who wanted to have any chance of winning their leagues), but during the second half he slowed down in terms of goals and assists, and Sadio Mane had to step up.
In the first 20 games he played, he only failed to score or assist in three, but in his final 15, he failed to score in eight. Overall he contributed to 36 goals, so despite the ‘drop-off’, it was still an incredibly impressive season.
So why do I think that Salah will contribute to 43 goals this year, which would statistically be his best ever season in the Premier League (topping his 32 goal and 10 assist season in 2017/18)?
Well, one (incredibly plausible) theory many fans had was just that Salah was burnt out by the end of the year. He played 2763 minutes for Liverpool and 753 minutes for Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations (39 90s and this isn’t even including cups).
However this year one of those elements is removed; Egypt did not qualify for the World Cup so Salah will have a month’s rest (and so will Haaland and that’s also incredibly worrying).
With his batteries recharged and at the peak of his powers it seems likely Salah will break his own record in the 2022/23 season.
Chelsea won’t get Top 4
I don’t want to be the one that puts too much emphasis on pre-season, but Chelsea have not looked great so far. And though they came third last season, they struggled with similar issues throughout the 2021/22 campaign.
Chelsea drew 11 games throughout the season. Despite their solid defence, they lacked the cutting edge on offence and they haven’t yet rectified this in the transfer market.
Raheem Sterling is a good addition, but most of the club’s transfer business has surrounded reconstructing their defence after the departures of Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen. But with Romelu Lukaku flopping and then leaving on loan they need a striker.
With other teams improving around them such as Arsenal, West Ham and even Manchester United, I feel this is the season where it all falls apart for Tuchel and if he fails to earn Champions League football, then his job could also be on the line.
But I doubt he will be the first manager to lose his job…
Scott Parker will be the first manager to be sacked
Unfortunately for Scott Parker, I think it’s a toss-up between him and Marco Silva as to who will be the first manager sacked this season.
It’s the constant danger as a newly promoted manager and neither Bournemouth nor Fulham have done sufficient business in this window to compete in the Premier League (and as an extra prediction I expect both to go back down).
Joe Rothwell, Ryan Fredricks and potentially Marcus Tavernier will be little help when you’re the whipping boys of the league and it’s likely before the World Cup break, Parker will be shown the door because of it.
Southampton will be relegated
Southampton has been flirting with the prospect of relegation for a number of years now, after an eighth-placed finish in 2016/17 (where they still only earned 46 points) their finishes are as follows:
2017/18 - 17th place, 36 points (3 points off relegation)
2018/19 - 16th place, 39 points (5 points off relegation)
2019/20 - 11th place, 52 points (18 points off relegation aka a good season)
2020/21 - 15th place, 43 points (15 points of relegation)*
2021/22 - 15th place, 40 points (5 points off relegation)
*Southampton didn’t even need to cross the mythical ‘40 point barrier’ to avoid relegation in this season as 18th place Fulham only earned 28 points.
Ralph Hassenhuttl’s side needed upgrading this summer in nearly every position, but instead of signing proven players, it seems that Southampton have gone down the road of signing the best young (but unproven) talents from across the Premier League and Europe.
The club have so far signed u21s Gavin Bazunu (an excellent signing all things considered), Armel Bella Kotchap, Romeo Lavia and Sekou Mara this summer, with Joe Aribo from Rangers being their only senior signing (he’s 26 but a really good player).
They are expected to continue this trend with the rest of their business; Manchester City youngsters Samuel Edozie and Issa Kabore have also both been linked with a move to the south coast.
It is smart to plan for the long term, but you also must not neglect the short term in the process, and these players will not only take time to adapt to Premier League football but also in some cases to adapt to first-team football as well.
This is, unfortunately, a liberty I don’t think Southampton can afford to take and even if James Ward-Prowse continues to be deadly from set pieces I think it will see them go down at the end of the campaign.
Everton will survive but Frank Lampard won’t
Having named three sides that I think will go down (Bournemouth, Fulham and Southampton) there are obviously others that will beat the drop. Nottingham Forest have done some good business and will likely be fine at the end of the campaign.
But one club that many have tipped to be relegated is Everton. They were not good last season and only avoided relegation by 4 points.
However, I think they will be fine when they reach the end of the campaign, even if they have a rocky start to begin with, which will see Lampard sacked.
Everton may have avoided the Championship with him in charge, but at times it seemed like it was in spite of him instead of because of him as they made hard work of their final run of games.
The team struggled with injuries throughout the 2021/22 season and a number of players seriously underperformed (or were not used correctly by Lampard), but with someone like Sean Dyche taking the helm part way through the season they should finish comfortably above the relegation zone.
Newcastle will stall in midtable
Newcastle’s 11th-placed finish last season did not do Eddie Howe’s good work justice. He had to undo the team’s poor form under Steve Bruce at the start of the campaign and climb out of the relegation zone.
However, I do not think they escape midtable this season.
Leeds United, Aston Villa and Crystal Palace have all done great business that could see them overtake Newcastle, while Wolves, West Ham United and Brighton will be hoping to stay above them as well.
Many expected their new Saudi owners to spend big this summer in a bid to upgrade their team further, but so far only Sven Botman and Nick Pope have been added.
Both are fine additions but Newcastle will still be entering the window with the same wingers and midfielders who lacked significant creative output in the 2021/22 season and an injury-prone Callum Wilson leading the line as of now.
They had been linked with Hugo Etikite but he has now moved to Paris Saint-Germain, and they have also been linked with a move for Lucas Paqueta from Lyon, but a move has not yet materialised.
If Newcastle fails to make any more significant signings before the end of the transfer window I believe that this will likely cap their ceiling below the European places and they will finish around 9th to 12th.
United will have the second most creative ‘defender’ in the league after Trent
I thought I’d end these predictions with both a bolder and a United-centric take. I think that under Erik ten Hag, United’s fullbacks will become important cogs in the team’s attack.
And because of this, I believe that after Trent, one of United’s fullbacks will be second for chances created and/or assists in the league amongst ‘defenders’ (I’ve put this in air quotes since positions don’t really explain the jobs that players like Trent do).
Reece James would be a worthy competitor to the crown (or silver medal) but given there are still question marks over whether he will be playing at centre-back this season if Cesar Azpilicueta leaves, I’m going to set my stall out early and say that one of United’s full-backs will usurp him regardless.
(I know that now I have put this on paper and scheduled this for release as I go on holiday, Tuchel will confirm that his position is primarily as a right wing-back)
Note that I’ve not named which full-back, this is partly due to the possibility of a new signing at right-back and it yet being unclear which full-back will be tasked with going forward more; at the moment it seems like Diogo Dalot has that duty.
So that’s my Premier League predictions for the 2022/23 season, what do you think? Do you agree with me or do you think my takes are scalding hot?
I will be revisiting these predictions at the end of the season to see which ones I got right and which ones were wide of the mark, so make sure to subscribe to see the outcome and also read the great articles I will be posting along the way.
And why not put your own predictions in the comments below (if I get enough I may do another article giving my opinions on the best ones).
Hope it transpires