Premier League final-day predictions: Chris Sutton v Sam Tompkins - & AI (original) (raw)

Sam was on holiday with his partner in Paris when Manchester City drew with Bournemouth on Tuesday to crown Arsenal as champions after a 22-year wait.

"We had gone out for a really nice dinner and I'd been trying to look away from football for the evening," he told BBC Sport.

"Then my mate texted me at half-time, saying '45 minutes'. At first I was like 'what does that mean?', before I realised that Bournemouth were winning.

"After that I just watched the rest of the game with my missus - she was actually very happy to watch it with me to be fair - and then at full-time I ran through the streets of Paris screaming!"

Arsenal will try to complete an amazing double when they play Paris St-Germain in next weekend's Champions League final but, before then, Sam is hoping things go his way at the bottom of the Premier League table too.

"The title is in the bag and we have Budapest to look forward to. Now we can sit back and see what happens to Spurs on Sunday. What a month it would be if everything comes off."

Chris Sutton and Sam Tompkins were speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan.

The AI predictions were generated using Microsoft Copilot Chat - we simply asked the tool to 'predict Sunday's Premier League scores'.

The problem with predicting a game like this is that both sides are understandably going to make a lot of changes with European finals coming up in the next few days.

With the Premier League title won, why wouldn't Mikel Arteta rest a load of players before his side face Paris St-Germain next weekend?

The same applies to Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner with his side playing Rayo Vallecano on Wednesday.

So, it is going to be Palace reserves versus Arsenal reserves - and some of the Gunners players may still have a hangover.

I understand why they wanted to enjoy themselves. I know Alan Shearer famously said he would be celebrating by "creosoting the fence" when we won the title with Blackburn in 1995, but he was the only one of us who went to bed early that night.

I am still going to go for an Arsenal win, though, and by their favourite scoreline too - the same one as their past three victories.

That was how they got over the line and it won't change now.

Sutton's prediction: 0-1

Sam on how Arsenal got over the line this time: For me the big turning point for us was near the start of the season, when we went to Newcastle. I was at St James' Park and Gabriel got our winner with a header in the 96th minute. That was when our mentality changed, because I think in previous seasons we would have lost there or, at the very most, got a draw. The fact we came back from 1-0 down was a real sign of resilience for me.

When we lost to City in April, that was the first time I thought we might not win this, but we didn't panic. When we beat West Ham, I felt like we said to City 'you can do what you want but we are always going to grind out a win out of anything'.

Declan Rice has been our top player, along with David Raya. Martin Zubimendi has been great in his first season with us as well. There have been unsung heroes too, like Ben White, who has always put his body on the line for us. I honestly don't think we pick up as many points at the end of the season as we did without him playing.

Sam's prediction: This is the game I am least sure about, because I have no idea what sort of team we will put out. But Palace will rest players too, and I still think we will be trying to get as many points as we can this season. 0-2

AI's prediction: 1-3

AI took the win in week 37, which included Tuesday's games where Bournemouth drew with Manchester City and Chelsea beat Tottenham.

Chris got two correct results with no exact scores, for a total of 20 points.

He had three guests - rapper and Chelsea fan Songer, and Tom Ogden and Joe Donovan from indie band Blossoms.

Songer and Tom both managed four correct results with no exact scores for a tally of 40 points, while Joe got three correct results with one exact score to give him 60 points - and the guests an overall average of 47 points.

The collective efforts of the BBC readers fared better, with exact scores for both of Tuesday's game boosting their tally. They also got two other correct results, and ended up on 100 points.

But it was AI who took the weekly win that moved it top of the table with one set of predictions to go. It got six correct results with two exact scores, for a total of 120 points.

There were also predictions made for the FA Cup final, but they did not count towards any weekly scores or the leaderboard below.

Everyone was right about Manchester City's win at Wembley, apart from Chelsea fan Songer.

Overall, Chris was correct about 38 of the 63 ties from round three onwards.

His guests finished on 36, AI got 44 but it was the BBC readers who claimed that particular prize, with 45.