Jason Cundy Says Chelsea Win the League. We're Both Just Saying Second.

AI Disclaimer: Show notes and transcript corrections in this document were generated by Claude (Anthropic’s AI assistant), based on an auto-transcribed recording of the episode. While corrected for obvious transcription errors, this content has not been independently fact-checked beyond that and may contain inaccuracies.

It’s prediction season again, and per tradition, we’re opening with the disclaimer: don’t bet actual money on anything we say here, because our track record is bad. (We’ll get to actual betting later this year, now that mobile sports betting is legal in our state — that’s a whole separate segment we’re saving for the transfer-window finale episode.) This year we split the usual mega-episode in two: Chelsea predictions today, full Premier League predictions dropping Wednesday. Tonight it’s just the Blues — assists, goals, goal contributions, player of the season, points, and final position, with the standard caveat that any prediction is subject to revision if a new signing changes the picture before the window shuts.

Spreading the Love: Assists, Goals, and Goal Contributions

Jason opened with a curveball, backing Morgan Rodgers for most assists — a pick Daniel admits “made absolutely zero anything” on his own list. Daniel went the safer route with Cole Palmer, but with an asterisk: if Enzo Fernández stays at the club, Enzo gets the nod instead, since neither of them got a real look at how he’s being deployed under Xabi Alonso (the one match where it mattered got buried behind Chelsea’s still-broken CFC+ paywall, which crashed and forced a refund). On goals, they’re aligned: João Pedro, no debate, coming off a preseason with something like seven goals in five matches. The real argument was the number — João Pedro had 15 Premier League goals last season despite a rough November-December stretch and an injury layoff, and both hosts think 20-plus is very much in play this year given he skipped the World Cup and gets a fresher, fuller season without Club World Cup fatigue. Daniel locked in 22 (his daughter’s favorite number, he admits, after briefly saying 21), and Jason said he was hoping Daniel would land there because he had 23 ready to go. For goal contributions, they both landed on Cole Palmer, with Daniel’s now-familiar Enzo caveat still attached — the logic being that if Enzo’s playing a deeper role for Xabi rather than crashing the box the way he did under Enzo Maresca, his numbers might not keep pace.

Player of the Season: Mudryk, Estêvão, or a Palmer Bounce-Back

Jason’s headline pick was Mykhailo Mudryk, with an immediate correction to Estêvão as the real answer if Mudryk’s situation doesn’t sort itself out — a pick tangled up with the ongoing Pedro Neto transfer speculation (reportedly gaining traction toward the Saudi league, at a valuation that’s apparently jumped from roughly $70 million to $100 million, which both hosts find absurd). Daniel went back to Cole Palmer, betting on a rebound season after an injury-hampered year and a summer off — Palmer and João Pedro both skipping the World Cup, which Daniel frames as a blessing in disguise for a Chelsea fan even though it stung to watch happen. Daniel’s specific number: 25 to 30 goal contributions this season, with double-digit goals and double-digit assists both in reach. Both hosts keep circling back to the same idea — a fully rested attacking group (João Pedro, Palmer, Estêvão, Morgan Rodgers, Geovany Quenda, Moisés Caicedo, and possibly Enzo) that didn’t exist in this form a year ago.

Second Place, Two Different Point Totals

This is where it got interesting. Daniel predicted 74 points to start — a big jump from last season’s total — before revising upward as the conversation went on, eventually settling on 77. Jason went further, calling 81. Both landed on the same final position: second place in the Premier League. For context, they noted Arsenal finished on 85 points last season, Man City second on 78, and Man United third on 71. Both hosts point to the same root cause for last year’s underperformance — a 14-win, 10-draw, 14-loss season where the draws, not the losses, did the real damage, including a seven-match losing streak that alone cost 21 points. They think a healthier, more attacking setup under Xabi Alonso closes that gap.

Why No Europe Might Actually Help

The case for optimism keeps coming back to the same practical point: Chelsea has no Champions League or Europa League football this season (Conference League football, which they mostly rotate the squad for anyway, doesn’t carry the same load). That means less rotation, closer to the same 11 players available week to week, and a real shot at avoiding the fixture pileup that wrecked depth last year. They also flagged a wild league-wide backdrop: a record number of managerial changes across the Premier League this season, with Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta the only manager among the traditional top six who’s actually won something at his current club. Both hosts think that instability, combined with Chelsea’s rested squad, gives them a real chance to finish high — while cautioning that basic fundamental lapses (the kind of “boneheaded” mistakes that showed up throughout preseason) and injuries are still the main things that could derail it.

What’s Coming This Week

Big week ahead: the full Premier League predictions episode drops Wednesday, a live Thursday transfer-news show runs roughly 4-5pm, and Friday brings the debut of a brand-new weekly show where Daniel and Jason predict every Premier League match, kicking off with round one (Arsenal vs. Coventry, per the hosts) at 2pm ET Friday. It’s a roughly 15-minute show, explicitly billed as not-serious. Expect a transfer-finale episode later in the window too, complete with a promised prediction “update” and — new this year — actual small-stakes parlays, now that mobile betting is legal where they live.

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