Messi, Pele, Man Utd: Football's most embarrassing predictions

As we head rapidly towards the start of another Premier League season, pundits around the country are preparing their predictions for the 2022/23 campaign.

As we all know, just because you are paid to give your opinion on the beautiful game, it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have called things correctly come the final day of the season.

In fact, over the years, a few predictions have gone so spectacularly wrong that they have earned their way into footballing folklore.

Be careful with your words, guys. They can very easily come back to haunt you.

On that note, we’ve decided to take a look back at 10 of the most embarrassing predictions in football history.

A bold statement from Match Of The Day pundit Alan Hansen after Manchester United lost 3-1 to Aston Villa on the opening day of the 1995/96 season.

Sir Alex Ferguson had decided to take a gamble on a new crop of youngsters moving forward – and former Liverpool defender Hansen wasn’t impressed.

“Aston Villa, at 2.15pm when they got the teamsheet, it’s just going to give them a lift and it’ll happen every time he plays the kids. He’s got to buy players. It’s as simple as that. The trick to winning the championship is to have strength in depth. They just haven’t got it,” he declared on the Saturday evening highlights show.

As it turned out, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Nicky Butt had plenty to offer at first-team level, helping United to a Premier League and FA Cup double that season.

Hansen has never lived his comments down.

“He made no impression at Inter,” said Nottingham Forest legend Pearce of Bergkamp when he arrived at Arsenal in July 1995, “so the guy is now trying a different country in the hope it might suit him better. I would