This time last year, despite no requests whatsoever, the team at Balls HQ each produced one outlandish prediction for the new Premier League season.
Incredibly, our own Gavin Cooney hit the nail on the head, suggesting that keen Instagrammer José Enrique would quit the social media platform citing 'footballing reasons'. Incredibly, as it would turn out...
You better believe we're doing it all again - but this time the whole charade has become even more outrageous, because we've been joined by a very special guest in Chris O'Dowd. Also, our editor Mick has predicted the end of times, but we'll get to that shortly.
We begin with the man who made his name not in The IT Crowd, nor in Bridesmaids, nor in Moone Boy - but on the fields of Roscommon.
Chris O'Dowd, yes the actor, former Roscommon Minor goalkeeper:
A dramatic reunion for José and Eva
I'm really hoping Guardiola hires Eva Carneiro and makes a whole show of what a brilliant physio she is when they go to Old Trafford. And he behaves like a real old school gent. Like, he puts down his coat for her when he sees a puddle and stuff.
Mick McCarthy, Editor of Balls.ie, former Ireland manager
Doomsday.
The Premier League will collapse during the January transfer window which will see Jermain Defoe sign for Burnley for a world record £221 million, only for Sunderland to top that a day later by signing flavour of the month Grant Ward from Ipswich.
At this point, we'll all just decide it's all gone to far and will agree to call it a day with the Premier League experiment. The new Football League Division 1 will start on August 2017 with a new maximum wage and a minimum of four amateurs on each starting XI.
Preston North End will be provisional favourites for the title, with arch rivals Blackburn Rovers focusing on the bigger prize of the FA Cup.
Mark Farrelly, former Editor of Balls.ie, we think he might still live here
Liverpool fans to call for Jurgen Klopp to be sacked before Christmas.
It’s always so easy to spot the Liverpool and Man United fans on Twitter. Just a couple of days ago I saw some gasson tweet his predicted end of the season Premier League table. Needless to say, he had Liverpool finishing in the top two.
This kind of delusional nonsense from their fans will ultimately heap pressure on poor Jurgen Klopp when they’re still languishing in 8th place, and behind Crystal Palace, come late November. The Kop will call for his head and Rafa may be Anfield bound once more.
Gavin Cooney, Outlandish Predictions champion '15/16, wears a grusett
Liverpool to win the league.
Now some of you may disagree that this is an outlandish prediction, given that it is made every year.
Others of you may believe it is outlandish for exactly that reason, that Liverpool fans are in someway hopeless optimists who prefer not to live dwell in objective reality.
Regardless of your stance, there is a very good chance Liverpool will win the league this year. They have no European distractions for the first season since the Gerrard Slip, Jurgen Klopp has had a full pre-season to boost fitness levels to the requisite gegenpressing levels and for the first time in years they haven’t sold their best player in the transfer window.
Also, every direct competitior bar Arsenal and Spurs (maybe Leicester too) have only recently appointed managers, meaning Klopp has the benefit of nine months of Premier League work already under his belt.
Having typed this out, and realised the rationale of my argument, I’ve totally convinced myself this is going to happen.
Oh shit. It’s going to happen this year.
Mikey Traynor, host of the Balls.ie Football Show, jersey pornographer
Sadio Mane to lead the Premier League in combined goals and assists.
What makes this an outlandish prediction is the fact that I'm not a Liverpool fan, otherwise it would just be a tweet like the rest of them.
I genuinely believe that Mane is a wonderful signing for Klopp's style of play. Mane has proven his ability to get goals and assists for Southampton but with so much speed around him now and the infamous gegenpressing that Barcelona decided they wanted nothing to do with at that point in their pre-season, I think he's going to be capitalising on a lot of mistakes.
I'm not saying Liverpool will crack the top four because I still have major doubts defensively, but I think they will score a lot of goals this year and Mane will be involved in most of them.
Donny Mahoney, 'The Don', US Ambassador To North Lotts
Leicester to get relegated.
Every fairy tale has to end, and the 2015-16 season will be terrible for Leicester. With Kante and likely Mahrez gone, and the fumes of hangover from last year's title celebration fresh in their collective consciousness, Leicester will finally be found out. Expect a reverse Nottingham Forest with Ranieri sacked by Christmas. Nigel Pearson, the architect of Leicester's success, will be given the job of reviving their fortunes from the Championship.
Brian Reynolds, evil genius and owner of Globex Corporation
Return Of The Keane
Clearly last year's prediction about Roberto Firmino winning player of the year was ahead of it's time. So this time out I give you two predictions - one being that Firmino misread the script and will end up winning that award this very season and the other being something even more outlandish.
Roy Keane will save Sunderland from relegation. After David Moyes' admission that he only remembers the names of people who played for him at his last club and a record equaling 9-0 loss to Bournemouth (in which Ivorian Max Gradel scores the Premier League's first double hat trick.) Moyes is sacked by the new Chinese owners.
Keane is drafted in on a loan deal with the FAI which sees all Sunderland youth players get Irish passports and their wages paid in the less volatile euro.
On the last game of the season against at Stamford Bridge when needing a three goal winning margin, Jermaine Defoe seals survival and a Man Utd league title with his 30th goal of the season following two Paddy McNair overhead kicks.
Conor Neville, Balls historian, was once labelled a "barnyard masturbator" by his loyal fanbase
Time to say goodbye.
Claudio Ranieri resigns after a few tanked-up Brexit supporters in Leicester tell him to piss off back home to his own country.
He makes the announcement at a tearful news conference at the King Power Stadium. Returns home to manage one of the few Serie A teams he hasn't been in charge of yet.
Conall Cahill, still trying to convince us he's a West Brom fan
A shock league winner.
I think the League is a foregone conclusion this year, really. It is fairly plain to me, anyway, who is going to win the title.
A world class, international goalkeeper. A rock-solid back four. A midfield combining defensive solidity and attacking flair, and a selection of strikers whose names would roll off the tongue of any football fan worldwide, whose faces adorn the walls of bedrooms from the favelas of Rio to the mansions of Dalkey. Not to mention a manager who has been there, done that. Fought with the best, and head-butted James Beattie. While naked. I've been saying it for years, and I'll say it again. This is West Brom's year.
Jack Cahill, Skillzone champion
A Space Jam-related conspiracy theory
Leicester City will take an early lead in the Premier League leaving the traditional top 4 in their dust. It will later be revealed that both Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy had taken part in some kind of Space Jam-esque talent stealing scheme involving Diego Costa and Wayne Rooney as the injured parties. Claudio Ranieri will feign interest but the twinkle in his Italian devious eye will suggest that he knew all along.
After a lengthy process to get their talents back which will include a ferocious game of red arse in Webley, Costa's world weary face will begin to grow younger looking before our eyes as Rooney's hair and talent returns. Order will be restored as Manchester United and Chelsea return to the top 4, Leicester will return to being best known for cheese and Gary Lineker.
Gavan Casey, Director of Corkonian Affairs, former handwriting champion
The Tony Awards
Antonio Valencia to register the most assists in the Premier League and be named in the PFA Team Of The Year. And also to beat a defender for the first time since 2011.
The Ecuadorian has spent his last six years walloping the ball of defenders' shins like it's nobody's business - his pinball approach to crossing manifesting itself in the nightmares of United fans and, more generally, football fans.
I have a theory, however: the reason he has been firing ghastly crosses at such low trajectories is due to United's lack of presence in the box ever since Wayne Rooney lost his ability to jump circa 2011. With a six-foot-four Zlatan Ibrahimovic to aim for, Valencia can get back to what he did best in his mid-twenties - floating hopeful balls into 'the mixer'. With four assists in his last two appearances, Valencia is bloody loving life again - even at right-back. He now has a reason to beat defenders again, as opposed to receiving the ball and passing it back to Michael Carrick for fear of the nihilistic breakdown he might experience should he get to the byline and look towards the area.
