Premier League predictions - blogger vs layman

With every football writer / blogger worth their salt offering some form of predictions for the coming Premier League season, I felt obliged to get in on the act. But rather than doing it the old fashioned way, I decided to test my crystal ball abilities against someone completely unversed in the world of football.

By his own admission, friend of Ball Between Two Gary Drohan had not even heard of some of the teams in this year's Premier League. Tasked with placing the teams in the order in which he thinks they will finish, he relied merely on his knowledge of teams whose names he was familiar with.

My challenge is to see if I can trump Gary's predictions (or, more accurately, guesses). At the end of the season, we will review our respective forecasts and see whether predicting where teams finish requires background knowledge or simply pot luck. Gary has proposed a Crunchie bar for the winner; if he ultimately wins that Crunchie bar, Ball Between Two will be forced to taste bitter humiliation.

* * *

Gary's Predictions
1.   Manchester City

2.   Manchester United

3.   Chelsea

4.   Arsenal

5.   Liverpool

6.   Everton

7.   Fulham

8.   Newcastle

9.   Bolton

10. Aston Villa

11. Blackburn

12. Tottenham 

13. Sunderland 

14. Stoke

15. West Brom

16. Norwich

17. Wigan

18. Wolves

19. Swansea

20. Queens Park Rangers 

Ball Between Two's predictions

1.  Chelsea

2.  Manchester United

3.  Manchester City

4.  Arsenal

5.  Liverpool

6.  Tottenham

7.  Sunderland

8.  Everton

9.  Aston Villa

10. Stoke

11. Bolton

12. West Brom
13. Fulham
14. Newcastle
15. Wolves
16. Norwich
17. Queens Park Rangers
18. Wigan
19. Swansea
20. Blackburn