You want my predictions for the upcoming Premier League season? The things that I'd choose if I happened to encounter that bizarro situation where my life was on the line if I didn't correctly choose what might happen during a specific sporting event?
Here you go:
• Win the Premier League: Arsenal • Finish top five: Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea • Get relegated: Hull City, Ipswich Town and Coventry City • Golden Boot: Erling Haaland • Most assists: Bruno Fernandes
Why am I predicting these things in this hypothetical life-or-death situation? Because those are the most likely outcomes. How do I know they're the most likely outcomes? Because the betting odds are telling me as much.
Per DraftKings, Arsenal are significant favorites to win the league, the five biggest clubs in the league all have better-than-50% shots at finishing top five, and the same goes for the chances that the three promoted teams are sent right back down. Haaland wins the Golden Boot almost by default every season. Given the random nature of assists, Fernandes leading the league again is the only outcome that isn't significantly more likely than the second-most likely one.
Yes, betting markets are wrong all the time, but they'd need to be so wrong about most of these outcomes for me to be able to confidently disagree with any of them. Given the amount of money on the line, I'm not going to do that.
So, that's it. There's my preview. Enjoy the season!
I'm kidding -- sort of. Instead of telling you what's most likely to happen across all of the major races in the Premier League, I'll tell you what I think is more likely to happen than conventional wisdom suggests. So, which teams and players in the Premier League are most likely to defy the betting odds?
But first: This is not betting advice!
To define conventional wisdom, I'm using the betting odds from DraftKings. But I am not telling you to use any of these predictions to try to make money.