Pre-Season Predictions: How to Get Ahead Before the First Ball Is Kicked
There is a window every summer that most prediction league players completely ignore. The weeks between the end of one season and the start of the next feel like downtime. The league table is finalised, the awards are handed out, and everyone switches off until August. But this is exactly when the smartest predictors are doing their homework.
Pre-season is not just about watching friendly matches in far-flung locations. It is a goldmine of information that directly affects results in those crucial opening weeks. If you are playing on ScoreBadger or any other prediction platform, getting ahead before the first whistle blows is the closest thing to a cheat code you will find.
Why the Opening Weeks Matter So Much
The first five or six gameweeks of any Premier League season are chaos. New signings are still bedding in, tactical systems are half-formed, and nobody really knows how good anyone is yet. That chaos is your opportunity. While everyone else is guessing, you can be making informed predictions based on actual research.
Most players in your league will default to their assumptions from last season. They will predict the same top six, the same relegation candidates, the same scorelines. But football changes faster than people's mental models. The predictor who recognises that a promoted side looks genuinely dangerous, or that a big club has lost their best defender without replacing him, starts the season with a real advantage. And as we have covered in our guide to staying consistent across a full season, those early points add up.
Tracking the Transfer Window
The summer transfer window is the single biggest factor in how teams perform relative to expectations. A squad that looked mid-table last season can become a genuine threat with two or three quality additions. Equally, a team that loses its star player and fails to replace them properly will almost certainly regress.
Here is what to track:
- Net spend relative to squad needs - a club spending big on a striker when they already have three good ones is different from a club buying a goalkeeper they desperately needed
- Where new signings played last season - a midfielder arriving from the Bundesliga will need more adjustment time than one coming from another Premier League club
