Cartilage Free Captain predicts the 2019-20 Premier League Table

Yes, the 2019-20 Premier League has already started. That doesn’t mean we can’t still predict the table! One match doesn’t mean anything over the course of a 38-match season. (Except when it comes to Manchester City, just give them the title now, amirite?)

Each year the writers at Cartilage Free Captain put their heads together to come up with the best, most sensible, and perfect Premier League table predictions known to humankind. Actually, we just all put our predictions into a spreadsheet and let it average everything out, but whatever. And then we asked the community for your rankings on that handy dandy online poll. Well, the results are in.

This year, the masthead rankings and community rankings are pretty similar. I’ll include both and then my usual Qualtrics graphics from the community rankings as a means of evaluation.

Manchester City is far and away the favorite to three-peat.

And it isn’t even close. A whopping 72% of you chose the Citizens, which is even more than last year’s predictions. 89% of all respondents had them either first or second. F—king City, man.

Here is the rest of your top four.

There’s surprising unanimity here as well, especially picking Arsenal in fourth place ahead of Chelsea. That surprised me a bit. I guess Tottenham fans like Arsenal more than they trust Frank Lampard to actually be good? I find it interesting that most people were actually and refreshingly realistic as to Tottenham’s prospects this season — everyone seems to think a top three finish is basically a certainty. Spurs got more first place votes than Liverpool did, I’m guessing because Spurs blog.

Hilariously, none of the masthead had Manchester United in the top four. Chelsea just misses out, though they’re basically a coin-flip with United for 5th/6th.

These teams are going down.

Again, there’s shocking agreement as to the most likely candidates to be relegated this season. Sheffield and Norwich’s placements are identical in both the masthead and community table, and the community REALLY thinks Sheffield is going down — fully half of the submissions had them in 20th. The only difference between the tables is Newcastle vs. Brighton, and in the community table Toon finishes 17th, barely safe.

Who’s going to gate-crash the top six? Probably nobody.

Ten years ago everyone talked about the “big four” — Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Arsenal. Well, Spurs and Manchester City gate-crashed that party, so now it’s which of the remaining interlopers can sneak into the top six and qualify for the Europa League? If our tables are anything to go by, it’s nobody. United is still the favorite to finish sixth, though the community thinks that if any club has a chance to knock United out of Europe, it’s Everton. Which will make Toffees fans real happy when they finish in their usual eighth place.

Leicester