Wilfred and the subscribers are tied on 253 points going into the final day of The Athletic’s Premier League predictions challenge, and Wilfred leads only because he has picked more correct scorelines. The race has been running since August, with four predictors — a guest subscriber, a six-year-old, an algorithm and the writer — making picks each week.
Wilfred also picked up two bonus points last weekend, after forecasting draws between Brentford and Crystal Palace on Saturday and Bournemouth and Manchester City on Tuesday. The writer added a bonus point for Aston Villa’s win over Liverpool and then landed Chelsea 2-1 Tottenham exactly on Tuesday, but it was not enough to close the gap. The challenge awards three points for a correct scoreline, one point for a correct result and a bonus point for any unique correct prediction of a result.
That leaves one man with the last word for the subscribers. “It falls to Neel, a 35-year-old Arsenal supporter from New Delhi, to try to finish the job for the subscribers,” the writer said. Neel goes into Sunday’s final round with Crystal Palace meeting Arsenal, while Wilfred is a Palace fan who, a couple of weeks ago, successfully predicted a 3-0 defeat for his own side.
The algorithm has been the hottest predictor in the closing stretch, top-scoring in each of the last two weeks and piling up 30 points over that period. Over the same span, the writer has 14, Wilfred 11 and the subscribers nine. That late surge has kept the title race alive, even as Wilfred stayed in front on the tie-break that matters most.
“When I said the title race couldn’t be tighter, I wasn’t joking,” the writer said. He also argued that “when it comes to predicting football matches, humans know better than computers,” though the algorithm’s recent form has made that harder to defend. Sunday now decides whether the subscribers can reel in Wilfred at the last hurdle, or whether his extra correct scorelines hold up.
There is another strand to the day as Brighton face Manchester United in a match that could shape the end of their own season. Victory would give Brighton the chance of beating Bournemouth to sixth place and Europa League qualification. Anything less would leave them at risk of missing out on Europe altogether.
The predictions challenge has become one of the clearest ways to watch the Premier League season unwind because it rewards not just broad calls, but exact scorelines and the kind of rare correct results that can swing a table late. With Wilfred and the subscribers level and Neel left to make the decisive picks, the final day carries the same pressure as the matches themselves.
