Of the varied gifts bestowed upon us mere mortals, hindsight is probably the second best. (The best is, of course, the ability to liberally deploy the right analog stick to beat a friend at FIFA). We're going to use the great power of hindsight now, to look back at a Premier League season throughout which Claudio Ranieri confronted reason and logic and stamped upon them with extreme prejudice; concepts ending up trampled deeper into sand than a Nigel Pearson-endorsed ostrich's head could reach.
To illustrate that, we have looked back at the ten Guardian writers who were invited to make their predictions under the following headings: Title winners; teams relegated; Player of the season, Surprise of the Season; Signing of the Season; along with what each writer is most and least excited about.
Teams Relegated
To give them some credit, one writer (Simon Burnton) did predict Aston Villa to go down. Among the most popular choice to be relegated were - you guessed it - recently crowned champions Leicester City. Six of the eleven writers predicted the Foxes to go down, with Leicester City seemingly determined to prove them wrong on almost every level, including Jamie Vardy's crusade against with Barney Ronay who wrote "no Nigel, no party".
Louise Taylor mentioned that Leicester might get relegated, but also wrote that "Claudio Ranieri may just exceed expectations". Quite to what extent Taylor did not speculate on, but we will give her the benefit of the doubt.
Title Winners
Nobody predicted Leicester would win the title. Instead, Chelsea were heavily backed with seven votes, with Manchester City and Arsenal each getting two votes.
Player of the Season
Sergio Aguero was injured too often to justify the seven votes he had for Player of the Season while Eden Hazard disappointed those who nominated him by not trying a leg until April.
There were a number of ultimately erroneous nominations for Raheem Sterling as both Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year: Sterling disappointed as the season wore on, scoring just six goals and creating a further two in 31 games. Memphis Depay's earthly torpor also fooled Barney Ronay.
Most Excited and Least Excited About
Equally disappointed were the two writers who said they were most excited about Louis Van Gaal's second season at Manchester United. Jacob Steinberg was 100% correct to predict he would be bored senseless by debates about handshakes.
A number of writers with The Telegraph were also let down by Leicester City, with five of the ten writers asked predicting them to go down. These oversights can be mended in two instances, however:
Mark Lawrenson's Premier League predictions on the BBC website is rivalled only by Garth Crooks' team of the week for batshit logic, and this is how the table would look if all of his predictions come through:
We will leave the final word to the Guardian's brilliant columnist Daniel Taylor:
Leicester City have made fools of us all.
[The Guardian and The Telegraph]
See Also: The Crazy Stats Which Prove Just How Fecking Mental This Premier League Season Truly Was
See Also: The Sakho Banner That's Heading To The Europa League Final Came At A Slight Cost
