The Final Table

Call the whole season in one go: order all twenty clubs from the champion down to relegated, before a ball is kicked.

Tap two clubs to swap them, as many times as you like, right up until season kickoff. Nothing limits how much you rearrange it beforehand.

At kickoff your table locks for good, and stays sealed until the season ends. That is the whole game — your sealed call, then nine months of finding out.

You start on 200 and lose a point for every place you were out by. Put Arsenal 1st and they finish 3rd — that is 2 points gone. Do that for all twenty clubs and what is left is your base score.

Then the bonus: every club you place exactly right — a zero — earns 10 points more.

One club counts for more than the rest. Call the champion right and that is a further 25 on top of the exact-position bonus it already earned.

So a flawless table scores 425: 200 for losing nothing, 200 more for twenty exact calls, and 25 for the champion.

Highest score wins. Level on that, it goes to whoever got more clubs exactly right. Still level, it goes to whoever settled on their table first.

That last one rewards backing your judgement early.

Your score stays sealed until the season ends. The wait is part of it.

You are not flying blind though: once the football starts, your locked table shows where each club actually sits and how far off you are on each one. You can watch it drift all season — you just will not see what it adds up to until May.