Fulhamish's 2025/26 predictions revisited

Who was Mystic Meg? And whose crystal ball was a tad cloudy?

Credit: Adam Farquharson

Ah, the optimism of summer. It’s preseason, before a single ball’s been kicked in anger, and anything is possible.

That’s why I thought it’d be good vibes to ask the Fulhamish team to make their predictions for the season ahead. So, whose glass was half full, whose was overflowing, and whose was bone dry?

Final position

We of course finished 11th, exactly the same as 24/25. So there’s the argument that we all should’ve seen what was coming. And, basically, we all kinda did.

Sammy, Cam, and Elizabeth thought we’d fare slightly better, predicting 10th, 10th and 9th respectively. Though, in fairness, no one predicted Europe - well, through the league anyway. Sammy and Elizabeth both believed cup glory would send us into midweek football on the continent.

Jack and Joe, Jack Collins, Dan Goga-Cooke, and Ben Jarman all pegged us as 12th-placed finishers, so surely they’re all dead pleased at our actual final position. The questions is: was Joe calculating our chance of European qualification from way back there?

So, who got our final position right? Well, only one of us. Me. I did.

Player of the season

Voting hasn’t opened on this yet, but I think we can all agree it’s a two-horse race between the (probably) outgoing pair of Harry Wilson and Raul Jimenez. So, was anyone close?

Josh King signed a new contract during the summer and it felt like this season would be his coming out party. The England starlet certainly announced his arrival in the first-team squad, but perhaps didn’t hit the heights expected by some of us. Those people being Jack Collins, Coops, and Joe Sansom.

There were some dubious shouts from some of our hipsters. Jarms said - wait for it - Joachim Andersen. I must have been on the Aperols as I plumped for Sander Berge, while JK thought ESR would silence his doubters.

And, of course, Elizabeth said Ryan Sessegnon.

Kudos to Sammy and Dan, who said Wilson. They’ll both be hoping Raul doesn’t pull off the upset.

Top scorer

Another one for Harry - and this time it’s undisputed. But did anyone see it coming?

Our predictions were made during Atalanta’s pursuit of Rodrigo Muniz, who at the time was the new Messiah. We were terrified of losing him, and we were all convinced that if he stayed he would fire us to glory. Or so thought Sammy, Ben and myself.

Jimenez finished up second in our top scorer charts, so Cam and Elizabeth were close with him as their pick. Jack and Joe were not; they both had ESR on top. Coops went for Alex Iwobi, who finished way back in third place with four.

Cookie correctly went for Wilson, and after initially going for Muniz, Jack Collins opted for Harry as he was convinced our Brazilian was off to Italy. To make his last-minute heel turn more palatable, he offered up the extra prediction of double figures, which was, of course, correct. Just!

Best result

This was a tougher one to get right - so there were plenty of duds in here!

Jarms went super vague with “beating any of the top six”. We (OF COURSE) beat Villa at home 1-0. Joe went a tad more detailed with “an unexpected win against the top six”. Perhaps that counts given our recent form against Emery’s men.

Cookie thought we’d beat City at the Cottage. JK thought we’d beat them at the Etihad. The men in white coats are coming for both of them. Mind you, I said we’d win at the Emirates.

Coops thought we’d do the double over Brentford again. He wasn’t far off! Cam said we’d beat Chelsea at the Bridge. I’m sure the win at the Cottage was good enough for him.

Jack Collins proposed a win at Spurs, which of course came to pass. I thought Sammy was mad when he said we’d break the Turf Moor curse. Well, who’s laughing now?

And Elizabeth went detailed with a win against Chelsea at the Cottage that’d get Maresca the sack. We got the W, but Maresca had left the club a week earlier.

Most left-field Fulham prediction

Here was a safe space for the wildest and whackiest Fulham predictions. And boy, some of them were.

I said Silva’s departure would be announced in March, with Mourinho coming in to replace him. Oddly, our gaffer’s future is somewhat tied up with the Special One’s, albeit with Real Madrid and Benfica the potential beneficiaries.

JK’s prediction of ESR racking up 10+ goals and 10+ assists can just be chalked up to blind optimism. Or too many Vindaloos.

Similarly wild was Elizabeth’s shout that we’d finish above Manchester City. That’s about a realistic as Coops’s very on-brand call that “the Khans will sell to an ownership group led by Danny DeVito”.

Sammy once again manifested his Carabao Cup ambition, while Jack Collins said we’d score 10+ goals from set-pieces after being woeful at them in 24/25. This one was right - we scored 14, which is still pretty poor and ranked us 15 out of 20. But progress, right?

Cam said we’d break our record points tally again but still miss out on Europe. A fair shout as the level required continues to rise, but as we all painfully know, equalling our 54 points this year would have got us in the Europa League.

Joe said our home form would be among the best in the league. It was the sixth best, which I think proves him kind of right?

The best shout was from Dan, who said Jorge Cuenca would step up during AFCON and we’d remain undefeated during the tournament. Jorge absolutely impressed, and we were unbeaten until the day before AFCON ended, with Leeds beating us 1-0 at Elland Road. It would end up as our best run of the season.

Luckily no bets were placed off the back of any of these predictions. After all, you never see a broke bookie…