Predicted Premier League table spells trouble for Arteta as Sesko flies in for Man United

You can tell we’re well into August now, with the usual summer transfer tish and fipsy forced into a fight for space with predicted Premier League tables. Happily, though, there’s not a supercomputer in sight despite some ‘bad news’ for Mikel Arteta.

Palace Coup

The Mirror excitedly bring news that Alan Shearer has predicted the 2025/26 Premier League table and, to be fair, his guess is at least as valid and relevant at this point as any supercomputer’s. Probably more so.

There are few great surprises here, as you might imagine. The top five is last year’s top five, in order, the bottom three are the promoted three, and both Man United and Spurs are tipped to be a bit less crap this time.

It is, in essence, an entirely reasonable if inevitably wrong prediction for how the entire season will pan out. Sort of thing we can and will all attempt, sort of thing nobody will ever get right. Deeply unserious, but fair enough fun and games. Top story on a major football news site in the middle of the transfer window, though? Not for us, Clive.

And while the story accompanying these predictions is mercifully largely free of pretending it matters – there’s admirably little of the ‘it’s bad news for Team X’ when it’s not in fact news of any kind – the writer has faltered at the very last here.

Brighton in tenth may have hoped for more under Fabian Hurzeler.

Yes, we imagine Brighton’s summer has been filled with nothing but hopes about just how high Alan Shearer might place them in his predicted Premier League table.

But you’re still waiting on the most important piece of information to determine whether Shearer’s Table is of any value at all.

And we’re pleased to confirm that Shearer is a man who clearly knows his full Premier League table prediction onions. That’s right: Crystal Palace are 12th and all is right with the world.

Bad news bears

While we have given the Mirror credit for just about managing to resist the temptation to pretend Premier League tables conjured up by former Newcastle strikers before a ball has been kicked amount to actual news, we must now give the Daily Mail one of our hard stares.

Because their typically succinct headline on their version of the story runs thus:

Alan Shearer makes bold Man United claim in naming his predicted Premier League table while Joe Cole places Ruben Amorim’s side NINTH – and there’s also bad news for Mikel Arteta

We’re going to gloss straight over the apparent astonishment at someone predicting United might finish NINTH a year after finishing FIFTEENTH, and move straight on to that last bit.

Because at the risk of repeating ourselves there really is no news for Mikel Arteta here. Literally none.

We are struggling to think of things that might currently be of less consequence or interest to Mikel Arteta than Joe Cole and Owen Hargreaves not expecting Arsenal to win the league. Especially as neither of them have even got Palace 12th, which just shows how little thought and effort they’ve put into it.

Food for thought

Genuinely baffling piece of Benjamin Sesko content from The Sun’s football editor Charlie Wyett, who, halfway through a harmless if slightly silly attempt to compare Sesko (48 goals in 119 top-flight league games) with Cristiano Ronaldo (498 goals in 653 top-flight league games) because they can both jump quite high suddenly and without warning changes tack to an alarmingly detailed breakdown of United’s new striker’s dietary habits.

For reasons Mediawatch simply cannot fathom, we end up lurching without warning into one of those nauseating ‘what I eat in a day’ features designed specifically to make you feel like a worthless piece of sh*t as you tuck in to your fourth Hobnob at 10.27am.

After loads of stuff about the fact he can jump quite high (he can, in fairness jump quite high) we get this sensational segue into the food and drink section.

United boss Ruben Amorim will utilise Sesko’s super-human strength this season to finally help the Red Devils restore their bite in front of goal. Sesko’s aerial ability, speed and power make him a real threat. He will certainly give defences food for thought — fuelled by plenty of protein. His breakfast consists of FOUR fried eggs, yoghurt with berries, muesli and freshly-squeezed fruit juice. For lunch, Sesko has chicken, rice, carrots and broccoli, with two slices of bread, followed by a fruit salad featuring mango, watermelon and pineapple. Dinner is salmon with potato and a tomato and cucumber salad, before finishing the day with yet more muesli, this time livened up with some Quark cheese, cashew nuts, kiwi fruit and blueberries.

Sounds to us like The Sun are in the pocket of Big Muesli.

We do at least, after this weirdly exhaustive yet apparently vital rundown of Sesko’s very boring dietary habits, get one throwaway line on something that feels like it might be worth a bit more exploration. At least equal billing to the muesli, anyway. We have to warn you, there is another pun coming right at the beginning of this next bit.

His approach is bearing fruit, and although Sesko’s shot accuracy and conversion rate need to improve with experience, he could be a huge success for the Red Devils over the next few years.

Shot accuracy and conversion rate? Yeah, we can gloss right over that. This is a man who can jump quite high and enjoys muesli, for goodness’ sake. Let us focus on what’s really important here, please.

This means Mor

If you read yesterday’s Mediawatch (and if you didn’t, then frankly shame on you) you’ll remember a bit of headline mischief about Tyler Morton and double deals.

We’re delighted to report that today’s headline housery about Liverpool selling a fairly anonymous young player is, if anything, even better work. And by better we obviously mean ‘much, much worse’.

We’ve slightly given the game away, but hey ho. Here it is from the Daily Star.

Liverpool transfer news: Harvey Elliott’s heartfelt goodbye and Alexander Isak latest

Harvey Elliott’s heartfelt goodbye to Tyler Morton obviously just too long to fit in here, sadly. They know exactly what they’re doing and, as Mediawatch has said so many times before, in a despicable way we kind of grudgingly respect the craft.

Click here to read article