Working with Chelsea and Manchester United fans – Their expectations for 2024/25 season | OneFootball

The 2024/25 Premier League season kicks off in 55 days time.

The Premier League fixtures were released on Tuesday and now all fans of top tier clubs know their match schedule.

I work down in Wales, with a lot of Manchester United fans, a couple of Chelsea and the odd Spurs or Liverpool fan.

I thought I’d give you an insight into how the mood and expectation is amongst these fans of other clubs, in how they feel about next season.

The Chelsea fans are young. I’m approaching 37 and these daft kids are 16 years or so younger than me and still haven’t got a clue how the real world works.

They were giving me the big one when Chelsea caught Newcastle at the end of last season and were bigging things up, that Poch had sorted it and they were only going to get better . Now to be fair to Pochettino, he had turned things around to an extent and there was an improvement. They seemed to be gelling a bit more and with couple of sensible signings, who knows, they may well have improved again.

Then Todd Boehly decides to intervene and the circus is back in town.

Those Chelsea supporting kids at work are now annoyed and massively underwhelmed at this new coach they got from Leicester, finally, the penny seems to have dropped that their owners don’t have a clue. So these boys had Chelsea going to be top four at bare minimum but that has now changed to expecting being mid-table again.

I’ll move on to the Manchester United fans.

These tend to be older, a bit more sensible, around my age group.

They see their club as a total mess and a joke and don’t see Jim Tatcliffe as being the saviour. They basically believe they need a massive overhaul, the whole lot at the club, the culture needs to completely change. They believe they need to get rid of 20 players or so and stop spending stupid money on average players.

These Manchester United fans don’t particularly care about the Dan Ashworth affair. They just want some competence at the club but there is no expectation whatsoever from these lads, that this is what they think Man U will do.

IMAGO/Sportimage

The Manchester United fans acknowledge they were lucky to even get anywhere near the top six last season and have said until the rubbish is cleared, there’s no point wasting money on new players, only to be ruined by the current players they’ve had for a number of years.

As for where I think Newcastle United are at…

It’s obviously early yet and nobody knows what shape each club will be in across the league with new signings and outgoings plus injuries and so on. However, I think assessing everything, I predict Newcastle United will finish third.

I don’t think we will get close to Man city and Arsenal again. I think it will be those  two clear again at the top.

I do sense though a big improvement in the situation at Newcastle United.

Eddie Howe lost a lot of players last season due to injury and suspension. A fair few will be effectively like new signings.

If we can cut the injuries down, plus recruit well alongside Lloyd Kelly, then I think Newcastle United have every chance of getting 3rd or 4th.

I don’t see Liverpool challenging for the league and I suspect a slight drop due to Jurgen Klopp leaving.

Tottenham I don’t think will do anything, I don’t think they’re good enough and the manager has been found out.

Chelsea just keep hitting the self-destruct button.

Whilst Man United are a shambles.

So that leaves Aston Villa. I think Villa did exceptionally well last season and like us, have a very good manager. However, I think they were getting found out at the back end of last season. They only just managed to get top four in the end. They’ve got no momentum really going into next season. I think recruitment for them will decide how they cope with the demands of competing on the four fronts . It will be a lot harder for them this time around as teams I think will be more aware of them and treat them with more respect.

Anyway, this is my forecast final 2024/25 Premier League table, after predicting all the fixtures, just a bit of fun:

1 Man City 99 points 2 Arsenal 90 points 3 Newcastle United 79 points 4 Liverpool 74 points 5 Chelsea 70 points 6 Aston villa 66 points 7 Man U 63 points 8 Spurs 60 points 9 West Ham 49 points 10 Wolves 47 points 11 Brighton 46 points 12 Palace 46 points 13 Bournemouth 44 points 14 Forest 42 points 15 Fulham 40 points 16 Brentford 39 points 17 Everton 37 points 18 Leicester 35 points 19 Southampton 32 points 20 Ipswich 26 points