The Script
Having tasked various eggheads who specialise in number‑crunching and sports data with predicting how the Premier League season will pan out using cutting-edge “machine learning” artificial intelligence and statistical analysis, BT Sport’s preseason promotional wheeze, The Script, proves eerily prescient. As predicted, but in a state of affairs few football followers could conceivably have foreseen, Manchester City go on to win the title, Newcastle and two out of the three promoted sides get relegated, while Everton finish seventh. Spooky, eh? Despite falling outside The Script’s remit, predictions that the match-going public’s football fun will be impaired by incidents of racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, mindless thuggery, tedious outrage over the wearing or not wearing of poppies in November, inconsiderate TV-induced fixture rescheduling, monotonously predictable public transport disruption, ticket price gouging and relentless exposure to “banterific” gambling adverts from grasping bookmakers are also likely to prove depressingly accurate.
Frank and Ole
With Eden Hazard gone to Real Madrid and Chelsea under a transfer embargo, fears that Frank Lampard may have returned to the club at an inopportune moment in his fledgling managerial career are quickly allayed when the former midfielder masterminds victory over Manchester United in his opening game. Having waxed lyrical about his “dream” of scoring a last-minute winner at Old Trafford following his £80m transfer from Leicester this week, Harry Maguire apologises for his late own goal, while an increasingly ashen-faced Ole Gunnar Solskjær is left to ponder a run of seven games without a win since beating West Ham in April. Having refused to take his designated parking spot because he believes it still belongs to Sir Alex Ferguson, the Norwegian’s penchant for espousing Manchester United’s traditional values is taken to extremes when he decides to offer his place in the dugout and technical area to his former boss too.
Media bias
Whether it’s the running order on Match of the Day or your favourite podcast, the backgrounds of pundits paid for their analysis, or the coverage (or lack thereof) afforded to your particular club in the proliferation of coverage afforded to football in print or online, there are always those desperate to find evidence, however tenuous it might be, of bias against the team they support. The season ahead promises to be no exception and football fans are often justified in their accusations, as even-handedness of opinion is the very antithesis of what following sport is all about. Yes, assorted pundits, presenters and journalists have their own footballing prejudices, much like fans. But before levelling those inevitable accusations of “media bias” against your team, ponder the fact these people all have different opinions and are not a hive mind. There is no media agenda against your team. Or is there?
The sack race
There is something grubby and unedifying about betting on somebody to lose their job but, as sure as night follows day, several of the 20 Premier League managers who begin this season surfing a wave of breezy optimism will be out of a job before the season ends. There were six top‑flight managerial changes last season, with Fulham’s Slavisa Jokanovic going first in November. Given the unenviable job of filling Rafael Benítez’s size 12s, Newcastle manager Steve Bruce is the bookies’ favourite to be first to receive his P45, while odds‑makers are also of a mind that his former teammate Solskjær may not be long for Old Trafford. While Mauricio Pochettino is unlikely to be sacked, the Tottenham manager’s uncharacteristic spikiness while discussing his place in the club hierarchy during preseason suggests his relationship with Daniel Levy might be fractured. While unlikely, it would not be entirely shocking if at some point the Argentinian decides enough is enough and agitates for a move elsewhere. There may be a vacancy at Old Trafford.
City’s owners
Having seen their team of superstars wrap up a domestic treble with the demolition of Watford in the FA Cup final, Manchester City fans were entitled to celebrate. One of them did so by storming the Wembley press box to complain about media bias towards Liverpool, while plenty more gloried in their team’s success by using social media to attack any journalists who had the temerity to point out that the Abu Dhabi group, City’s owners, have serious questions to answer about financial fair play. With the club’s success showing no sign of abating, we can be thankful these frank exchanges of views have taken place and been put to bed, so the focus can now return solely to marvelling at City’s on-field excellence. And pigs might fly over the Etihad Stadium.
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