Yes, it’s that time of year again. I’ve dusted off the crystal ball, stared long and hard into the tea leaves and eaten my way through a mountain of fortune cookies to bring you my English Premier League predic­tions.

Today we look at the bottom half, next week the top…

11th – Leeds United

You’ve got to love Marcelo Bielsa. Not only is he a unique and innovative coach of the highest calibre, he is also quirky and full of personality. A rare combination in today’s age of manufactured, vanilla football managers. Despite a solid and varied managerial career at club and international level,  even he would admit he has never entirely fulfilled his potential – he hasn’t won anything of note outside Argentina. I would love him to stick with Leeds for the remainder of his career and gradually build something special. But you get the impression he is already a bit restless in Yorkshire. Leeds approached last season by setting out to score one more goal than they conceded in every game.  That tactic will be more than enough to keep them safe this season.

12th – Southampton

Rituals mean a lot to football fans. Everything from where you have your pre-match pint to wearing the same underwear for must-win games. But Southampton have one particular ritual that their fans would be happy for them to give up – an annual 9-0 defeat. Two seasons ago it came against Leicester City, last year against Manchester United. The club was apparently on a mission to dispel the myth that lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. But credit to the manager and the players for not letting either of those massacres define their entire seasons. Before and after those painful spankings, they played some lovely attacking and effective football. And credit also to the Southampton board for sticking with Austrian manager Ralph Hasenhüttl when it would have been incredibly easy to send Mr Nine Ball on his way. Easy survival for the Saints.

13th – Burnley

There can’t be many better examples of well-run clubs than Burnley. Despite being a smallish club from a smallish town, and despite never breaking the bank on transfers, they have spent the best part of the past decade in the top-flight. A lot of that is, of course, down to Sean Dyche, possibly one of the most underrated managers of all time. This season the club has new owners – one of those dastardly American investment companies – and it will be interesting to see if they decide to tear up the script that has worked so well for so long. Chances are they will, blinded by the financial holy grail of pushing for a top four finish. And, if that is their course of action, Dyche might well find himself out of a job in favour of a manager with more sparkle, a more exotic name and maybe more hair. If, however, they stick with the Englishman, then safety is all but assured. This prediction is based on the Americans being sensible and not trying to run too fast, too soon.

14th – Wolves

It’s not easy to decide whether Wolves will struggle or thrive this season. Since they returned to the Premier League, they have been synonymous with Nuno Espírito Santo. But now he has moved down to London to be 37th choice manager at Spurs, and Bruno Lage is the new man in charge at Molineux. Is Lage a good manager? Probably. He certainly has a decent record and a burgeoning reputation. But if nothing else, history has taught us that foreign managers in the Premier League have a tendency to either sink or swim, to either prove to be an inspired appointment or an insipid one; irrespective of where they come from. Having said that, the new Wolves manager has a good base to start from so I am going with him bucking the ‘hit or miss’ trend and seeing the team through a season of tranquillity.

I expect Xisco Muñoz to be the first managerial casualty of the season

15th – Newcastle United

For a large chunk of the opening period of last season, Newcastle approached every game by parking the bus. And many times they left all the strikers sitting inside it playing cards. This approach was not only painful to watch but highly ineffective. Heck, they even conspired to lose to Sheffield United, which was not something many teams managed. They improved in the second half of the season, and the signing of Joe Willock on loan from Arsenal proved a bit of a masterstroke. If they get him again this season, that will certainly help. But there is still a sense that The Toon are merely treading water until the club is sold, new owners sweep in and Steve Bruce is guided gently out of the door.

16th – Brighton

I’ve got a lot of time for Graham Potter. He is everything a young English manager should be – intelligent, thoughtful, passionate and ambitious. However, I suspect the people who own the club lack most, if not all, of the same attributes. It feels like they are happy with survival and are afraid of trying to punch above their weight. The team was crying out for a top-level striker to push them to the next level. Instead of filling that gaping hole, however, their major move in the transfer window so far has been to create an even bigger hole at the back. Selling your best defender to Arsenal, considering it was their tight defence that saved them many times last season, is almost suicidal. Luckily for Brighton fans, Potter has enough about him to overcome these issues. But I tell you what: if he keeps them in the Premier League again this season, as I suspect he will, he will be off somewhere where the owners are a bit braver.

17th – Norwich City

The very definition of a yo-yo team, Norwich have been up and down more times than an Eiffel Tower lift. The last time they were in the Premier League, they were a bit of a disaster, but they stuck with Daniel Farke, and he rewarded them with an instant return to the top flight. I can’t believe that he hasn’t learned his lessons from that horrible season of failure and, in fact, Norwich were much better defensively last season than when they were previously promoted. And that’s why I am putting them down for scrappy, battling survival. They may not even need to use their Delia-Smith-coming-on-the-pitch-to-rally-the-crowd secret weapon. Which will be a blessing.

18th – Crystal Palace

This is probably my most controversial prediction for the bottom half of the table, but I see relegation tragedy striking at Selhurst Park. The Hodgson years may have been unremarkable and mediocre, but the grandfather of football brought a degree of dull stability that few others can match. And that matters for clubs without massive spending power. Patrick Vieira sounds like a glamourous appointment, but he has only had any sort of managerial success in America, which is not the most competitive of leagues. When he moved to France with Nice, he ended up getting the sack, and I just don’t think he is ready for the cut-and-thrust of the English top-flight. The team is ageing and needs a complete overhaul, but I don’t think the relatively inexperienced Vieira is the man to do that.

19th – Watford

Watford have a habit of alternating between relegation and promotion. But unlike Norwich, they don’t stick with their managers. They’ve had 12 in the past seven years. The current one – Xisco Muñoz – has only been in charge since December, a mere blink of the eye for most teams but an eternity by Watford’s standards. Although the team  plays some attractive football, the constant change in tactics, systems and coaching styles can’t be easy for the players. I expect them to struggle from the word go, and I expect Muñoz to be the first managerial casualty of the season. Maybe by Christmas, maybe after just a handful of games, maybe at half time in  their opening match. Certainties to go down in my mind.

20th – Brentford

I don’t like to pick on the smaller teams – after all, I’ve spent my life supporting one – but I can’t see anything other than a season of abject struggle ahead for Brentford. Teams that come up through the play-offs sometimes surprise us by doing far better than the ones that got automatic promotion. Brentford won’t. Their team is still very much championship level and it will be a swift return whence they came for Thomas Frank and his lads. Of course, that’s not always a bad thing as it gives the players valuable experience for the future, and the club money to invest over the next couple of seasons. But potential long-term benefits will be of little short-term consolation for the fans. Trust me, I know.

e-mail: james@quizando.com

twitter: @maltablade