Predictions for 2024, and how I fared this year

It's that time of year again

Hi, everyone. I should start by apologising for the lateness here. I picked up Covid this past week and though it’s nothing serious, it did knock me off my game for a few days. But I feel like I’m on the mend now, so hopefully it shouldn’t be an issue going forward.

Since we’ve arrived at yet another new year, it’s time to check in on how my predictions fared from 12 months ago, then make another round of predictions that may or may not do better. Let’s get straight into how my 2023 expectations panned out.

Data is from FBRef unless stated otherwise

1. Lionel Messi will win the Ballon d’Or

Yeah, I mean, duh,

I think the only way this potentially becomes interesting is if Manchester City win the Champions League with Haaland delivering the goods in the later stages. But even then, I don’t think the voters will be able to resist the romance of Messi “completing” his career.

Man City did win the Champions League, but it couldn’t compete with the Messi narrative. Easiest call I made.

2. Kylian Mbappé will stay at Paris Saint-Germain

This time, the talk of him leaving never got beyond vague murmurs.

I think they’ll figure out what Mbappé wants and give it to him. It’s happened before, and Mbappé is right to think that he has a gun to PSG’s head from which he can negotiate anything.

This is how it played out, with the manager and squad reshaped to Mbappé’s liking. But perhaps PSG shouldn’t have given him this much control?

3. PSG will win Ligue 1

Only won it by a single point, but they all count the same.

4. Bayern will win the Bundesliga

It got tight, Julian Nagelsmann lost his job, but never bet against Borussia Dortmund doing a Dortmund.

5. Napoli will win Serie A

Not very close in the end.

6. Barcelona will win La Liga

Another one that was pretty clear by last January.

7. But their financial problems will continue

It was certainly a more austere summer, despite flirting with Lionel Messi. I’m sure Ilkay Gündoğan’s wages are not nothing, but that’s the only significant cost while selling Ousmane Dembélé and getting long-time decent earners Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba off the books. It’s not scintillating on the pitch right now. Will they stick to a tight budget or try to blow everything up for on-pitch success? We’ll have to wait and see.

8. Carlo Ancelotti will leave Real Madrid

Nope! I also thought he might be leaving this summer, but he just renewed his deal until 2026. Complete miss on my part.

9. Manchester City will win the Premier League

We forget just how close this one was.

I was literally about to say Arsenal until the 0-0 draw with Newcastle. I think it will be tight. Most everyone agrees that, all else being equal, Man City are a better football team than Arsenal. The question is just whether they’re so much better as to make up the points gap.

City won by five points in the end. Part of that is simply their strength, but Arsenal looked a broken team once William Saliba got injured.

10. Antonio Conte will leave Tottenham

He was gone before the end of March. This one was no surprise.

11. Mauricio Pochettino will return to Spurs

Nope! It seems like Daniel Levy didn’t want Pochettino’s insistence on controlling recruitment and behind-the-scenes policy. I don’t think many Tottenham fans are unhappy with how this all turned out.

12. Chelsea fans will turn on Todd Boehly

Nailed it!

For the most part, Chelsea fans have been used to liking their club’s ownership. The Roman Abramovich era brought every trophy they could want. For the older generation of Chelsea supporters, this was a dream they surely never thought would come true. For the younger generation, it was all they had ever known.

It was that backdrop against which the fans largely welcomed Boehly and the other investors this summer. They were spending a lot of money, which is the only thing fans really want to see in the transfer window. Since then, the consortium has been totally unafraid to change just about everything, and the results on the pitch have been poor. I certainly think Chelsea can turn it around over a period of a few years, but in the meantime, I think we’re heading for a Glazers/Kroenke-style fan-owner relationship.

Losing a lot of football matches will do that. The Athletic recently did a survey claiming that 78.6% of Chelsea fans are currently “unsatisfied” or “very unsatisfied” with the way the club is run. Which isn’t surprising when they’ve been such a basket case.

13. Manchester United will be sold

Close, but the Glazers still hold majority control.

We saw with the Chelsea sale that there is still a lot of demand for a top-six club when the situation calls for it. And that was Chelsea. In the words of the meme, this is Manchester United. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper but, in the long run, I honestly can’t think of a better football club to own. It’ll happen.

The allure of Manchester United cannot compete with a higher interest rate environment. The Glazers didn’t want to give up the easy money when the offers coming in weren’t quite as hot as expected. No, I don’t know why Qatar didn’t pay up, either.

14. Liverpool will get “investment”

Fenway Sports Group don’t seem quite as desperate to sell up as the Glazers. They would like to sell outright, but only if someone comes in and makes a really huge offer. It sounds like they’re leaning towards another group buying a partial stake in the club from FSG.

Technically, this counts as accurate. FSG sold a pretty small equity stake used to pay off Covid-accrued debts, which is nowhere near the original intentions. American cash just isn’t flowing into football like it was in the zero interest rate era, and we’re going to have to get used to that.

15. Darwin Núñez will score goals

Ok, ok, let’s talk about this.

I’ll admit this has become an obsession for me now. “If you don’t rate Darwin, you don’t know ball”, I’ll tell people. I’ve invested my own self-worth into wanting to see him score goals, and that never ends well. No, he hasn’t stopped missing chances and getting memed about it.

But at the same time, he’s getting a goal or assist every 96 minutes for Liverpool this season in all competitions! Yes, he’s erratic. Yes, it doesn’t always look great. But if you don’t think he’s a huge net contributor to this Liverpool team then I don’t know what to tell you. Every sequence he’s involved with ends in a shot. He’s constantly creating danger. He’s good.

16. Men’s football will benefit from a summer off.

I really thought this would pan out. But the wave of injuries we’ve seen this winter suggests otherwise? We might have permanently overworked some players during the Covid era. Too Much Football.

Ok then, now let’s get onto the predictions for 2024!