Football Manager 2022 predicts the 2022/2023 Premier League season

The 2022/23 Premier League season is upon us with most teams done with pre-season preparations. 

After an impressive display in pre-season, North Londoners, Arsenal, travel to Selhurst Park to take on Crystal Palace in the season opener on Friday. 

Some important questions need to be answered and fans can’t wait to find out once the campaign gets underway. 

Who will win the league? Where will Erik Ten Hag finish with Manchester United? What teams will finish in the top four? Who will win the golden boot?

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Football Manager 2022 answered all these questions and the results were interesting. 

The Pulse Sports Nigeria simulation of the Premier League season ended with the league title making its way back to London as Chelsea, who claimed the ultimate prize by two points ahead of defending champions Manchester City (78 points). Manchester United (75 points) and Liverpool (74 points) complete the top four. 

Arsenal was the biggest disappointment of the season after the Gunners missed out totally on European football and were nowhere close to a return to the Champions League, 

However, Arsenal’s bitter city rivals, Tottenham made it to the Europa League spot after missing out on the top four with a fifth-place finish. Moneybags, Newcastle United returned to Europe after decades as they picked up the other Europa League ticket. 

Steven Gerrard overachieved at Aston Villa in his second season at the club after the Villains picked up a top-seven finish and a place in the Europa Conference League. 

Meanwhile, Brentford continued their fairytale season in the English top-flight with another respectable seventh-place finish despite losing the playmaking brilliance of Christian Eriksen to Manchester United. 

There were a total of five (5) high-profile managerial changes in the season led by Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta. The Gunners boss was the first to be sacked following a poor start to the season with the club pulling the plug on December 1 and was replaced by Marcelo Bielsa. 

West Ham United and Leicester City were the next two PL clubs to sack their coaches with David Moyes given the boot on December 4th while Brendan Rodgers, replaced by the animated Jorge Sampoali, followed six days later.

Everton’s Frank Lampard was the fourth manager to be sacked on January 15th, with former international teammate Wayne Rooney appointed as his replacement. Wolves’ Bruno Lage joined the list of casualties on January 22 and was replaced by Paulo Fonseca. 

It was a quick return to the Championship for Fulham who dropped based on goal difference after they finished on 35 points, the same as Bournemouth. 

Also relegated were Wolves alongside Merseysiders, Everton, who finally said goodbye to the PL after a narrow escape last season. 

The battle for the top scorer this season is one of the most interesting races in the Premier League after the arrival of Erling Haaland at Manchester City and Darwin Nunez at Liverpool. 

However, despite the expected head-to-head battle between Haaland and Nunez, especially after the intense Community Shield battle on Sunday, it was a former Cityzen Raheem Sterling who finished as the top scorer with 21 goals. 

Mohamed Salah and Haaland were tied for second with 19 goals, Cristiano Ronaldo netted 17 goals, Harry Kane had 13 goals while Nunez failed to make it inside the top 20 for goals after he only managed to score 6 goals. Arsenal star, Gabriel Jesus also failed to impress in his first full season at the Emirates, scoring just 7 goals in 33 matches.

It was a very poor season from a Nigerian perspective with Taiwo Awoniyi scoring just 6 goals in his first season in the PL. 

Kelechi Iheanacho continued his struggle to convince Rodgers for more game time, making 24 appearances but he only started just six. However, he scored seven goals. 

For the new Saint at St. Mary's, Joe Aribo, it was a nightmare debut season for the playmaker after he failed to start a single game for Southampton. He made seven appearances as a substitute and scored 0 goals. 

Defensive midfielder Frank Onyeka had a lovely season for surprise package, Bretford. Onyeka played 29 times and started 26 of those games, scored one and assisted another goal. He also completed 91% of his passes and won an average of 1.39 tackles per game.  

Wilfred Ndidi had a very injury-free campaign for Leicester City, making 34 appearances for the Foxes. Interestingly, the world-class defensive midfielder scored 4 goals and assisted 5 more for Leicester in the PL season.