Predicting the Premier League can be very difficult.
The league is considered to be one of the most competitive divisions in European football with the belief that there are ‘no easy games’.
Anyone can beat anyone and, at the start of each season, there is a handful of clubs hoping to become champions.
With a little over a week to go until the end of the season, we're still not sure how the final Premier League table will look.
In fact, there are still a couple of big issues to be resolved.
While Chelsea could seal the title on Friday night, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United are all fighting for the two remaining Champions League spots after Spurs secured theirs.
Meanwhile, at the bottom, one of Hull City, Swansea City and Crystal Palace will join Middlesbrough and Sunderland in the Championship next season.
It’s difficult to predict what will happen in the next week or so.
However, Sky Sports attempted to predict the final league table all the way back in January - and it’s fair to say they got it wrong.
They used their very own ‘Premier Predictor’ which works by “allocating ranking points based on teams' performances - taking into account the difficulty of the opposition, home advantage and margin of victory.”
Not only did they predict the final position of each team but they worked out how many points they were expected to end the season on.
Sky Sports' prediction
Take a look at Sky Sports’ January prediction (team club's current points tally is in brackets):
1 | Chelsea 82 points (84)
2 | Tottenham 76 points (77)
3 | Arsenal 74 points (66)
4 | Liverpool 71 points (70)
5 | Manchester United 69 points (65)
6 | Manchester City 68 points (69)
7 | Everton 59 points (58)
8 | West Brom 51 points (45)
9 | Burnley 50 points (40)
10 | West Ham 49 points (42)
11 | Stoke 48 points (41)
12 | Leicester 45 points (43)
13 | Southampton 45 points (42)
14 | Bournemouth 44 points (42)
15 | Watford 42 points (40)
16 | Middlesbrough 40 points (28)
17 | Sunderland 36 points (24)
18 | Crystal Palace 35 points (38)
19 | Hull 35 points (34)
20 | Swansea 35 points (35)
The current table
And this is how the current table looks:
Where do we start with this?
Although they said they would win the league, Sky Sports predicted that Chelsea would only finish on 82 points. They clearly underestimated Antonio Conte’s side because they’re currently on 84 points with three matches remaining.
As for Manchester City, they look set to finish third and have already racked up 69 points with three fixtures left to play. Better than the sixth with 68 points that was predicted.
Meanwhile, they thought that Arsenal would finish in third, just two points behind north London rivals Spurs. They’re currently fifth, 11 points adrift of Tottenham.
Down at the bottom of the table and they really did get it wrong.
They had both Middlesbrough and Sunderland surviving with 40 and 36 points respectively. The two north east clubs are already relegated and are currently on 28 and 24 points.
Sky Sports had Swansea, Hull and Palace all going down with 35 points but only one of them is set to be relegated this season.
Palace already have 38 points, Swansea are on that dreaded 35, while Hull have 34.
It takes a very brave man to predict who will get relegated this season as Palace take on Hull this weekend in a huge six-pointer.
Just don’t ask Sky Sports’ ‘Premier Predictor’ to try and work it out.