Sport | Football
It has been another a big year for football.
In 2023, the Lionesses went agonisingly close to World Cup glory, Manchester City won the Treble and West Ham conquered Europe.
But what does 2024 have in store?
Here, Standard Sport’s team of writers make their predictions for the year ahead…
Arsenal will win a first Premier League title since 2004, dethroning Manchester City who will nonetheless retain the Champions League.
Ange Postecoglou will lead Tottenham back into the top four, while Mauricio Pochettino won’t see out the calendar year with Chelsea.
Marco Silva will leave Fulham for a supposedly bigger job but regret it, and Roy Hodgson will call it a day (again) with Crystal Palace.
Harry Kane will break every conceivable individual goal-scoring record with Bayern Munich but still miss out on the Bundesliga title to Bayer Leverkusen, prompting him to consult a curse-breaker.
Jarrod Bowen will be England’s unlikely hero, scoring the winning penalty in the final of Euro 2024.
Chelsea will lift the Carabao Cup at Wembley… as well as their own depressing mood in February after nearly 18 months of abject football. Winning silverware will allow the owners to claim their experimental project built around youth players is working.
But Chelsea will not be consistent enough to qualify for the Champions League or Europa League, and will get into the Conference League through victory in the cup final against Liverpool.
Ivan Toney will fire Arsenal to their first Premier League title since 2004, Mikel Arteta will break the record for accumulating yellow cards in a single season and Mohamed Salah will join Saudi Arabian giants Al-Hilal after Liverpool miss out on title glory.
England win Euro 2024 and Jude Bellingham is crowned player of the tournament. The sort of prediction that would previously be made with heart instead of head, but feels like a genuinely possibility this time.
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England will not get many better opportunities to end their 58-year wait for a major tournament, with Harry Kane at his peak.
Kane should shine at this Euros but the stage really feels set for Bellingham. His game has gone to another level at Real Madrid and he can clearly handle the pressure on the biggest stage of all.
At the risk of this being out of date when he’s offered a new job before we publish, I fancy that in a field short on candidates Steve Cooper could get the nod to replace Gareth Southgate after Euro 2024, having worked with the age-group sides before.
It may be recency bias having just watched him dismantle West Ham, but an injury or two will see Curtis Jones make the England squad for that tournament.
Things will get a bit bleak at Crystal Palace, who will struggle to hold onto Marc Guehi and Eberechi Eze this summer (Tottenham for the latter?). I’ve a sneaky suspicion this will be the year in which Thomas Frank’s loyalty to Brentford is properly tested by a big offer, too.
Newcastle will make their first proper fantasy football signing of the new era and someone will pay £50million for a player I’ve never heard of (the £30m and £40m barriers have been blown out of the water in recent years).
Oh, and Declan Rice will be Footballer of the Year.
Firstly, though I think England can win Euro 2024 and are absolutely one of the two favourites to do so, I expect the other favourite — France — to get the job done.
Both squads are equally good on paper and they have been far and away the two most consistent national teams in Europe during the last six years, but France just seem to get the big moments right in tournaments. They will do so again.
Liverpool will win the Premier League this season, they have been flying somewhat under the radar to sit top heading into the year and will still be there come the end fo the season. There will be no change to the bottom three: the three promoted teams. Brentford, Crystal Palace and Everton survive.
Chelsea will lift the Carabao Cup, bringing much-needed silverware to Stamford Bridge, and it will be Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich rather than Jude Bellingham’s Real Madrid who win the Champions League.
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