Premier League Predictions, Week 25

Welcome back to the weekly predictions, Premier League fans! We had another chock full week of football, with Premier League matches and FA Cup matches each day from Monday through Thursday. After a one-day hiatus today, we're back to the action bright and early tomorrow!

Much like my favorite team Liverpool's on-field results, I don't want to speak too soon, but I may be making slow and steady improvement on my picks! I whiffed on two of my first three last week, with Arsenal winning rather than drawing and Crystal Palace drawing rather than winning. But I steadied the course with accurately forecasting Arsenal's midweek win over Everton, as well as Manchester City's and Tottenham's victories. Plus, in all three matches I was one goal away from a spot-on accurate scoreline prediction, which is no small feat considering two matches were blowouts and one was a high-stakes derby, so I'm giving myself partial credit. Sorry haters and losers! I'm back above the .500 mark, ever so slightly, with a record of 38/75 on the season.

But hey, the games are less than 12 hours away from resuming, so no time for fudging the numbers. Here are your 5 for Week 25!

Manchester City vs. Newcastle United

The Premier League weekend kicks off with a banger; why has the early match so often been one of the biggest of the weekends this season? Bizarre. Anyhow, this is a rematch of one of the league's wildest, most entertaining matches this season; all the way back in August, Newcastle roared out to a 3-1 lead against the champions before two quick second-half goals from Manchester City forced a pulsating 3-3 draw. Although Newcastle's defense vastly improved from that point forward, it ended up being a somewhat prophetic result in that it indicated the Magpies were ready to compete at the top level, and City would find the going much more difficult in the league than most recent seasons. Still, this fixture comes at a time when Newcastle have gone a month and a half without a win, and as such, have slipped out of the Top 4, while Manchester City are coming off a resounding bounceback win vs. Bournemouth to hang around in the title race. It's hard to imagine the Toons having quite as disastrous a first half as they experienced in their last two matchups against Liverpool and Manchester United, but it's even harder to pick against form at the moment, especially with City playing at home.

The Pick: Man City, 2-0

Wolverhampton Wanderers vs. Tottenham Hotspur

Given the drama at both the top and the bottom of the table, not much attention has been paid to the wide open race for 4th place, where Spurs have quietly snuck up to snag the last Champions League spot, thanks to 4 wins out of their last 5. Their lack of consistency still doesn't make them exactly trustworthy (see: this week's FA Cup loss to Championship side Sheffield United), and I'm sure Julen Lopetegui will make sure Wolves come out much sharper than their very flat performance at Liverpool on Wednesday, but Tottenham need this win much more than Wolverhampton do.

The Pick: Tottenham, 2-1

Arsenal vs. Bournemouth

After their brief three-match slide, I think it's safe to say Arsenal are back. Not "back" as in "it's time to start etching the name on the trophy," mind you, there's still plenty of football to be played. But three straight victories, the latest a romp over the same Everton side that set off that three-match slump, has shown their mettle and their title credentials. On the other end of the table, meanwhile, Bournemouth's couple months of good play is long past, and after even hanging out in the Top 10 for a time, the Cherries are back in the relegation zone. Given the league leaders' form, and Bournemouth's returning tendency to leak goals, I don't think their suffering is going to end this weekend.

The Pick: Arsenal, 4-0

Brentford vs. Fulham

This week's 'Monday Night Football' pits two of the season's biggest overachievers against each other. Brentford have been a delightful success story, not just surviving in the Premier League, but downright thriving; they're sneakily in the Top 4 race still, thanks to the fact that they haven't lost since before Halloween, a streak that includes wins over Manchester City and Liverpool, and road draws against Arsenal and Tottenham. They still sit a little ways back thanks to a far-too-high number of draws-- three in their last four --which is the opposite of Fulham, who's been far more inconsistent than the Bees this season, but has reached higher heights (and lower lows) with 11 wins on the season vs. their opponent's 8. The Cottagers actually sit higher up in the table in 7th place, but with two more matches played, so both clubs have tangible reasons for needing a win. Brentford have the home crowd and the more reliable squad, but Fulham has been here before; there have been numerous times this season where when it seems they're finally about to revert to the mean, they pop up with a big result. I can't bring myself to pick an outright winner here.

The Pick: Draw, 2-1

Liverpool vs. Manchester United

Even if both teams were in the lower half of the table, as they were at the time of their first meeting this season, you would be hard-pressed to find a matchup more anticipated than Liverpool vs. Manchester United. This edition of the Northwest Derby, though, does have tangible significance yet again. When the two rivals met back in August, both were desperately looking for their first win of the season. United won that matchup, and the two teams' seasons could not have played out more differently; the Red Devils have gone on to enjoy perhaps their best season since Sir Alex Ferguson was at the helm, sitting in 3rd place in the league (and not totally out of the title race), progressing to the latter stages of the FA Cup and Europa League, and just last weekend, winning their first domestic trophy in 6 years. Liverpool, meanwhile, has had an unlucky, injury-riddled, aggressively mediocre season, which by the lofty standards Jürgen Klopp has set for the club, has felt disastrous. Might the Reds finally be rounding somewhat into form, though? Their play on the whole remains nowhere near as consistently dominant as it has been throughout the last several seasons, but they've quietly earned 10 points from their last 12 with four consecutive clean sheets, good enough to see them move up to 6th place with a match in hand. Still, you'll forgive me and Liverpool fans everywhere if we're not ready to declare them "back" after many different false starts this season. Regardless of the two teams' form and quality, up until this season, I would think it unfathomable that the Reds could lose a big game in front of a packed Anfield. But, as we saw with their stunning loss to Leeds last Fall, and the shocking capitulation to Real Madrid just last week, the magic of Anfield isn't enough any more to offset bad or mediocre performances. I'm not saying Liverpool is guaranteed to come out mediocre or bad on Sunday, but I can't say with any confidence that they're playing at a level that can hang with Manchester United at this point.

The Pick: Man United, 2-1