Lawro's Premiership predictions

By Mark Lawrenson sleeping dog liar football expert


Charlton v Manchester City (Kick-off 1400 BST)
Aha! You will never catch me, coppers! I shall kill again! I disappear into shadows, like Thierry Henry finding space in a stretched Newcastle defence. Let the people know me! Let the people fear me! I shall come to you in visions, in nightmares, in dreams of untold erotic pleasure... you cannot escape me. I shall possess you. For you are merely mortal and I am the EVERLASTING, the timeless, I am the stain upon your soul that infects your every action!

Verdict: Charlton to win 1-0.

Leeds v Newcastle (Kick-off 1400 BST)
Alan Shearer, Alan Shearer, Alan Shearer... I am the recurring muscle injury that will force you to quit the game. We shall sit next to each other in television studios and I shall smile my sweetest smile, and you shall never know that I am the fiend who brought your Premiership career to a premature end! How fate mocks you, you square-headed lunk! In biblical times they called me Hamen, but you shall know me simply as your nemesis! Haha!

Verdict: Newcastle to win 2-0.

Liverpool v Chelsea (Kick-off 1605 BST)
Oh Mr Abramovich, will your millions ever really buy you happiness? Do you think you can ever forget that lonely little boy, crippled by sadness... I don't think you will. I am the worm of doubt that lives in your spirit, eating you away from the inside. I have crushed greater men than you. Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Churchill, all brought to heel - their pride snuffed by the inevitability of my victory. Do you really think your team of international superstars can shield you from my glare? You are mine. I am omnipotent.

Verdict: Liverpool to win 1-0.

Manchester United v Middlesbrough (Kick-off 1500 BST)
Who was the serpent who tempted Eve? Who caused Adam to be gracelessly ejected from the Garden of Eden, like Sunderland cast out of the Premiership with the lowest-ever points total? I was I, you fools! My powers grow stronger with every passing fixture. Here, the Master meets the Apprentice as Ferguson faces McClaren, but all men are as insects to me, as toys to an angry child.
Remember: the priest fears me, but only the whore knows my name!

Verdict: Manchester United to win 3-1

Portsmouth v Fulham (Kick-off 1500 BST)
Ah, Pompey... I do love the smell of sea air. It brings back fond memories of slave ships dashed against jagged rocks, of the Titanic sinking into the inky depths, of the precious hubris of mankind. Oh, hatchet-faced Harry Redknapp, do you think the world will ever take you seriously? Do you think your victories will ever really see you accepted into polite society? No. The public see a conman, a rogue, a spiv... I have poisoned their minds. That's right Harry... have another drink. Pour it all away.

Verdict: A 1-1 draw.

Wolverhampton Wanderers v Southampton (Kick-off 1500 BST)
Men talk of the banality of evil, but what evil could be more banal than this fixture? As the passion-play of football unfolds, the spirits of the spectators will ebb... they will grow restless, they will tire. They will start to doubt. They will think about unhappy sexual acts in suburban hotels, of childhood ambitions cruelly unfulfilled, of relationships thwarted by pride and anger. Sometimes man is so bereft of hope that I need do nothing to cause misery... so it is with this fixture. Truly mankind is doomed.
I am the darkness that envelopes you. You CANNOT escape.

Verdict: Southampton to win 2-0.

Everton v Blackburn (Kick-off 1500 BST)
You lie asleep in your single bed. A newt drops from the ceiling onto your unconscious body. Its inpenetrable black form burrows under your skin, tearing away muscle and sinew with its needle teeth! You awake wracked with pain, a cold sweat covering your back like a shroud! Who do you think singled out Wayne Rooney for glory? Do you think it was God? Do you think a kindly old man with a white beard chose him for greatness? Hahahaha... oh, you poor deluded fools. The twinkle in his eye does not come from the heavens... oh no it does not!

Verdict: Blackburn to win 1-0.

Leicester City v Tottenham Hotspur (Kick-off 1500 BST)
The Israelites fled from me in Egypt, their robes filled with hope and parcels of unleavened bread, but now the hope has been extinguished. All is black!
I am the flashing blade in the inner-city allleyway; I am the gun pressed against your temples at dawn; I am the bacteria that fills your lungs with pus. Dance! Dance your merry little dance of glee, as you believe you have conquered evil! Dance all you like, for you are my puppets and I am jerking your strings. The danse macabre only brings you closer to my fiery bosom.

Verdict: A goalless draw

Aston Villa v Bolton (Kick-off 1500 BST)
What's that you say, Mr Ellis? Your powers are greater than mine? Hardly... you are but a footservant of evil, while I am chaos incarnate!
Jack the Ripper was a cheery sort. I twisted that man's brain like Jay-Jay Okocha twisting a bewildered Villa defender. Do you know, he thought he was performing the Lord's work? What simpletons men are. A vision here, a prophecy there and they believe that good is evil, that murder is rebirth. But there is no rebirth, there is no salvation, there is just 90 minutes of torment and mockery, followed by a week of silence and recrimination.

Verdict: Villa to win 2-1.

Birmingham v Arsenal (Kick-off 1500 BST)
The day of reckoning is coming! The clouds gather around the cities, around the town, around the blackened souls of men. Grown men in football shirts, standing like apes around a television set, pouring alcohol down their throats, baying for blood, for pain, for change! Fists are thrown into the air. Glass shatters, vomit pours forth like wine! The noon of my conquest is upon us! The screams will sound like Satanic melodies, like a symphony of evil.
And poor Steve Bruce... oh that face of yours. It was only a joke - I didn't expect you to keep it.

Verdict: Arsenal to win 3-0.