Predictions review

Keane: Best buy?

Predicted final table from pre-season
1 - Man Utd
2 - Chelsea
3 - Liverpool
4 - Arsenal
5 - Spurs
6 - Portsmouth
7 - Everton
8 - Aston Villa
9 - Man City
10 - Newcastle
11 - West Ham
12 - Middlesbrough
13 - Blackburn
14 - Sunderland
15 - Wigan
16 - Fulham
17 - Bolton
18 - West Brom
19 - Hull
20 - Stoke

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• Sky Sports experts
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• Super 6: Win £100k

It is never pleasant, but there are times in life when you have to hold your hands up and admit: 'I was wrong.'

Having been tasked with assessing how the skysports.com team's pre-season predictions have fared, I can exclusively reveal that pretty much everyone needs to make that confession.

I know the Fat Lady is not yet singing, and that half of the season still remains to run, but some of our summer punts are so wide of the mark they make our weekly Fantasy League preview columns look almost accurate.

In the interests of balance and fairness, I will admit to my own shortcomings before casting a critical eye over my colleagues' comical considerations.

Boldly predicting that Robbie Keane was the season's best buy is not my finest hour, and I cannot share Rafa Benitez's confidence that he will come good in the second half of the season, given his return of three Premier League goals to date.

Similarly, plumping for Cesc Fabregas as a Fantasy League must-have is unlikely to have me installed as the next Mystic Meg, with the Arsenal midfielder not even in the top 30 points scorers for his position and lagging behind such football greats as Rory Delap, Andy Reid and Dean Marney.

More than one of my colleagues fell into the same trap, with the talented Spaniard and his misfiring Gunners team-mates apparently suffering from the absence of midfield enforcer Matthieu Flamini in the centre of the park.

Tigers burning bright

I also ear-marked Hull City for an immediate return to the Championship, but at least was again not alone with that one.

Of the 11 so-called football experts who make up the skysports.com team, only Football Editor Mark Buckingham did not include them in his three teams tipped for the drop. That must be why he earns the big money and gets to tell the rest of us what to do every day.

Credit must go to Picture Editor David Milner who picked out the Tigers as his dark horses for the season. However, he loses points for also including Phil Brown's men among the sides he tipped for the drop. And there's no way he can Photoshop that out.

Senior Reporter Graeme Bailey kindly compiled a pre-season table using our combined predictions and a formula so complex and secret that he must be employing Carol Vorderman and Colonel Sanders on a consultancy basis.

The aforementioned table, which can be found in the fact box to your right, has Hull in 19th, Stoke dead last, Tottenham flying high in fifth, Blackburn in 13th and Manchester City up in ninth. It might look like that in May, but I doubt it.

The 'best buy' category saw three names appear on a regular basis, unfortunately most of them have turned out to be anything but, as the aforementioned Keane was also backed by Bailey and Tony Curtis.

More worryingly, Tottenham duo Giovani dos Santos and Heurelho Gomes turned the heads of Buckingham, James Pearson, Lewis Rutledge and Editor Chris Harvey.

Sparkle

While Gomes' backers can point to his recent improvement after a gaffe-strewn opening to his Premier League career, Dos Santos' most newsworthy recent contribution came when he was carried out of a London nightclub following the club's Christmas party.

Amidst the generally appalling efforts emerge a few diamonds. Step forward Joe Drabble, who decided that Amr Zaki would sparkle at the JJB Stadium. And while the goals have dried up somewhat for the Egyptian striker in recent weeks after niggling injury problems, his early displays led to frenzied speculation that a move to a more glamorous Premier League location is on the cards.

The 'biggest flop' selections saw some success with Buckingham and Chief Sub Alex Dunn pin-pointing Jo, with the Manchester City man offering a return of one goal from six Premier League starts in return for an £18million investment.

Milner was also in focus again, nominating Kevin Keegan as the man least likely to succeed this season, with the Magpies' 'Messiah' walking out on St James' Park for the second time in September.

But there can be no hiding place for Rutledge, who claimed Deco would be dismal at Stamford Bridge, which was not entirely accurate.

So there you have it, humble pie all round for the skysports.com team at the Christmas party buffet. Let's just hope none of us end up leaving the bash in the style of Dos Santos.

Think you can do better? Send us your predictions for the remainder of the season using the form below and we will publish a selection of the best.