It certainly seems to be a new phenomenon to ask endless people where they think the various teams in the Premier League will finish but the reality is it makes no difference and once you have read one former player predicting the table then you have pretty much read them all.
It has been a reasonable time since I have worried about the opinions of an expert. I think it was Alan Tate who said once that we were being written off for promotion from League One when we were 10 points clear at the top of the table.
That summed up for me how much research tends to go into these predictions and therefore they pretty much get ignored. And that is a viewpoint that is shared by the Swansea manager who last season had to contend with all the pre-season predictions that had us tipped for relegation.
Given that we finished 8th with 56 points that shows you just how much notice anybody should take of the predictions.
“I don’t read what these so-called experts say because they are making those assumptions without having a real knowledge of how we are working,” said the Swansea boss.
“I am not going to put a dampener on that positivity. It would be stupid if we did not try to better what we did last season, we have a squad more than capable of doing very well but we have to focus on the process rather than the end product, otherwise you will not get there.
“It’s a more competitive squad which is what I wanted. I have got options where some players are more offensive, some are more defensive, some can do both so it’s about how to select a team and use that squad the best way I can for a particular game.
“I have not had that before and having that variety and competitiveness is crucial to everything.”