The early shape of the EPL table is already feeling fragile, which is exactly why The Athletic’s Gameweek 2 predictions matter. After a first round that produced a few jolts, including Hull beating Manchester United in the Saturday early kick-off, Manchester City’s late comeback against Bournemouth and Liverpool’s 99th-minute penalty against Newcastle United, the table is still too young to trust. That is part of the appeal of season-long predictions games: they give readers a way to test early instincts against the messiness of the league.
This week, The Athletic published its Gameweek 2 predictions for 10 Premier League fixtures, with its experts picking the results across the board. Last Friday evening, The Athletic and its experts picked Arsenal to beat Coventry City, and the competition continues to track those calls through a scoring system that awards three points for a correct prediction. Gameweek 1 showed how quickly that score can be distorted by surprise results, especially when the EPL table is still being written.
Scoreline picks join the Gameweek 2 analysis
There is a new wrinkle this week. The Athletic has said that from now on it will also include scoreline predictions from its Athletic Experts. Those exact-score calls will not count toward the scoring, but they add another layer for readers following the EPL table and the weekly prediction race. It is a useful addition because a result alone often tells only part of the story; the scoreline shows how much confidence the experts have in each matchup.
The Athletic is also comparing its experts against an algorithm called Algo, a weekly guest subscriber and Wilfred, who celebrated his seventh birthday at the weekend. That makes the Gameweek 2 set more than a simple list of picks. It becomes a rolling comparison of human judgment, machine logic and one very young predictor, all measured against a league that is already producing enough unpredictability to keep the EPL table shifting from one weekend to the next.
Andy Jones, one of The Athletic’s expert predictors, framed Manchester United’s problems in the context of the first round. He pointed out that Michael Carrick was probably wondering what the fuss was all about during his successful interim reign as United coach in the second half of last season. Then Hull arrived on Saturday and, in his words, punched his side in the nose, with little response. That is the kind of reminder these prediction games capture well: early assumptions can be overturned fast, and the EPL table can look very different once the margins start going against you.
For now, the value of the Gameweek 2 picks is not that they settle anything. It is that they create a baseline. Ten fixtures, expert scoreline calls, a scoring system built around three points for a correct call, and a first week already packed with shocks. In other words, the EPL table may be in its infancy, but the arguments around it are already underway.
