The Roker Report predictions are back and probably as useless as ever, but we’re back and that’s the main thing.
Last year Jack and Matthew shared the spoils of bragging rights and becoming the Roker Report oracles. Martin collected the wooden spoon, mainly due to his extravagant attempts to gain ground with such predictions as a 5-0 victory in our play-off semi-final second leg. The least said about some of the late-season calls by Martin the better.
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This year we will be at it again match-by-match, beginning with Wigan on Saturday, but we are starting a little earlier this time around as we are predicting how we think the League One table will fall into place come May 2022.
These predictions will come back into play where five points will be awarded for every correct placing come the end of the season.
This means that as the final whistle goes on the final day of the season, there are still plenty of points on offer to propel someone from mid-table mediocrity to Champions League qualification.
So here we have our end-of-season League One table, generated as an accumulation of the group's predictions where the positions below represent the average of our individual stab-in-the-dark assignments, which are also in the table.
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Well, the numbers are in and we have Sunderland to win the title.
We didn’t set out to do that, it just seemed to have happened.
But to give us our dues, we are pretty consistent on the whole with our top three or four, as we have Ipswich to join us in the other automatic spot with Rotherham, Charlton, Oxford and Lincoln left to fight it out in the play-offs.
Also according to our predictions, Wycombe will be sniffing around the play-offs, but the spread on Sheffield Wednesday stretches from 2nd to 13th, suggesting we haven’t really got a clue.
Sunderland Old Boys are in for an 11th place finish going off our table, although Phil is seeing the strategy to sign every available ex-Sunderland player at the DW Stadium being the cause of finishing in the lower reaches of the table in 17th place.
We are also consistent with our picks for the drop to League Two. Pretty much across the board Cambridge, Morecambe, Cheltenham, Fleetwood and AFC Wimbledon are unanimously going to be in trouble this year.
We’ll keep an eye on this as the season progresses, but for now, we’ll be back on Saturday for our opening day predictions for the visit of Wigan Athletic to the Stadium of Light.