Spring is here, and the sap is plummeting. April clouds sprinkle crimson rain on barren land, and thorns shoot forth from twisted roots. The sun, when it appears, does not herald new life, but burns and eviscerates. Gambolling lambs self-combust in bile-green fields. Renewal? This is the season of revelation, and the four horseman twitch their reins on the horizon.
You probably get the gist, right? The world is on fire; if the front pages do not spell it out, if the television headlines do not scream it in your face, then gaze upon The Athletic’s patented Hope-o-meter and see for yourself that nature is perverted. Up is down, first is last. Armageddon approaches.
And blue is very much the colour.
Chelsea are absolutely hopeless. Wait. Let’s try that again. Chelsea are absolutely hope-less. As our table shows, supporters of Liam Rosenior’s side are rock bottom of the Premier League when it comes to mood, a total reversal from the start of the season when we last asked our subscribers whether they felt optimistic or pessimistic about their teams’ prospects.
Back in August, Chelsea fans were radiating positivity. They were like dancing moonbeams, shining benevolently over a globe they bestrode. They are still world champions! Only two per cent of our Chelsea respondents described themselves as pessimistic, but what did they know, apart from everything?
Eight months ago, we asked Liam Twomey, one of our brilliant Chelsea correspondents, to explain. He wrote beautifully about “this strange magic”, about hope, but there was a late addendum to his words. “Literally minutes after I file this, Chelsea confirm Levi Colwill’s done his anterior cruciate ligament,” he said. It was cruel and prescient. Liam’s strange magic was something else entirely: evil sorcery.
As Rafa Benitez never tires of saying: “Football is a lie,” and hope is its malignant consigliere, whispering deception. If you have read any of these pieces before, then first, I’m really sorry, I don’t know why they keep asking me to do them and truly wish they wouldn’t, and second, you will know precisely what I think about hope. Hope is a f****** t***.
Yeah, we had a relationship once, yeah, I’m still a bit bitter and no, I don’t want to talk about it. Nobody likes a smart arse, but I did warn you about hope. I did try to tell you. NEVER give in to hope and certainly NEVER give hope your credit card details, because hope will buy you a load of expensive duds in the transfer market and stick them on eight-year contracts.
On that note, let’s check in with Liam again.
Chelsea
It’s the hope that kills you, they say — or in this case, the hope that sends you typing furiously into your phone after another defeat, organising small but loud protests outside Stamford Bridge and vehemently agreeing with senior players who publicly question your club’s vision.
Chelsea came into this season with the sheen of Club World Cup champions, but the seeds of future difficulty were already there: a minimal pre-season, a new batch of very young signings and a head coach who was already starting to sound a little agitated.
Enzo Maresca’s sudden departure at the turn of the year has punctured the sense of upward momentum at Chelsea, for many fans and even for some of their most important players. It’s hard to keep your optimism when your new head coach is being widely mocked, your club captain is injured, your vice-captain appears to be flirting with Real Madrid and the league table increasingly suggests Champions League football will not be back at Stamford Bridge next season.
Liam Twomey
Yet Chelsea are merely outriders in a larger story of impending doom. The end is nigh. Why? Study the Hope-o-meter again: it is early April, and Sunderland are having fun. Sunderland, the withered giant, who came up through the play-offs and were destined to head straight back down.
You know the drill. You’re out of the Premier League for a long time, but you get promoted, and even if you secretly know it’s going to be tough, you tell yourself it’ll be cool to finally watch the best teams in the flesh. And then you lose every week, and it’s awful. And then Sunderland usurp this contract and do a lot of things right, which is all wrong. Even they know it.
Sunderland celebrate at the end of the Tyne-Wear derby (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)
Sunderland
If worldwide harbingers of apocalyptic doom are racking up a little too swiftly for your liking, look away now. Sunderland are in the Premier League, and they haven’t been rubbish.
Topping the optimism stakes is rare on Wearside but reflects where Sunderland arrived here from. The last-gasp, euphoric play-off final winner last May, just three years removed from the days of League One, came with a tacit understanding among fans in the pubs of London afterwards: don’t talk about next season.
The consensus, at home, abroad, was that Regis Le Bris’ side would scarcely make a dent in the top tier. A record low points tally awaited.
Yet what followed was around £200million (more than $260m) in ambitious transfer spending, Granit Xhaka in command and a slew of young talent hived from across Europe. They will doubtless be paid well, but in battering their way to 40 points by mid-March, they have exceeded all expectations. Supporters are determined to enjoy it (and those derby wins may have helped, too).
Chris Weatherspoon
Spoony had to mention the derbies, didn’t he? Here we are, attempting to compile a serious, statistically-based piece of academia, and he just has to throw in a sly little parochial reference to Sunderland’s two admittedly deserved victories over Newcastle United this season. Unbelievable. So unprofessional.
Yet there is a far bigger picture here, and I must be the bigger man. It is important not to be sidetracked BY THOSE F****** SIX POINTS, JESUS and if you need further evidence that we are dashing headlong towards catastrophe, then look at Everton and weep. They’re second in our table. They’re miles above Liverpool. They’re smiling and giddy.
Everton
Well, isn’t this nice?!
In recent seasons, Everton fans have been near the bottom of the Hope-o-meter as the club grappled with crises on and off the pitch.
Now, with seven games to go, David Moyes’ side are still within touching distance of a Champions League place. The club appears to be on a much more stable financial footing and supporters have been buoyed by the 3-0 home win against Chelsea before the international break — by far the best evening yet at the new stadium.
It’s been quite the turnaround! But (hi Premier League and Sky) please stop giving us Monday night games…
Patrick Boyland
This is not who Everton are. This is not what Everton do. What Everton do is circle the drain without ever quite being sucked down the hole because that would at least bring a form of closure. Who they are is a personification of continual, grumpy, unsatisfactory limbo. Isn’t this nice?? WTactualF?
And while we’re on this kind of subject, just look at who are fourth. It’s only the kings of comedy, Manchester United. They’re not going to win anything because they went out of both domestic cup competitions at the first time of asking, they’ve sacked a manager, they’ve often been dreadful, all of which is fine and par for this course. And here they are all chirpy.
I’m telling you: armageddon cometh.
Manchester United fans are optimistic about the rest of the season (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)
Unfortunately, the bottom of the Hope-o-meter only calcifies this prognosis. What do Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Newcastle have in common? Huge, rich, ambitious clubs. Three members of the so-called ‘Big Six’ and one of its interlopers, all of whom won trophies last season.
This tells us several things. One: winning is actually s***. Two: nothing good ever happens. Three: Spurs are gonna Spurs and although this season is a bit like the purest essence of Spurs being Spurs, they deserve their own special category of cluster-f***. Four: Oh my god, we’re all going to die.
We’ve already dealt with Chelsea, so let’s examine Liverpool, whose fans began this season second in the Hope-o-meter and now stand third-bottom. Back in August, our very own Gregg Evans wrote about their “unrivalled confidence” and said, “This is a season where Liverpool can dominate again and their supporters know it.” Let’s revisit.
Liverpool
Goodness me, what a difference eight months makes.
Liverpool supporters could not have more buoyant at the start of the season, and remember when I said they were only one striker away from Premier League domination? Well, they got that striker, but it turns out they can’t keep him on the pitch.
It’s sad to see such struggles at Anfield this season and you can certainly feel the tension growing amongst supporters, particularly online.
‘Slot Out’ is not quite a trending topic, but for those on the edge, the next fortnight will be defining. It’s no surprise to see Liverpool so low in this sentiment table, and it will take a lot to spark a change.
Gregg Evans
There’s more (sorry). Newcastle are fourth-bottom, three places and 20 per cent MORE optimistic than at the start of the season, when they were still in four competitions, weren’t 12th in the Premier League, hadn’t just lost for a second, miserable time to their promoted local rivals and weren’t shouting rude words at Eddie Howe. I don’t understand. My head hurts.
Newcastle United
If you’d told any Newcastle United fan five years ago that they’d be fourth behind Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool, they’d have snapped your hand off. The problem is, this isn’t the actual Premier League table — this is on the pessimism poll.
Despair was a natural bedfellow on Tyneside for so long, yet Newcastle won their first domestic trophy in 70 years in 2025. But almost two-thirds of fans feeling gloomy paints an accurate picture of a season of slog.
Strangely, if Newcastle finish strongly, this campaign could still be seen as a success, but a bottom-half Premier League position has been compounded by two dire derby defeats — and now Sunderland are top of this list.
Life definitely felt better for Newcastle when the Tyne-Wear rivals were in different divisions.
Chris Waugh
This doesn’t help at all. Chris refers to this as a “pessimism poll”, which it isn’t; it’s the Hope-o-meter, obviously. He says Newcastle are fourth, which they aren’t, and then, even more confusingly, says that Sunderland are top, which they are, but not regarding pessimism. He is as addled and befuddled as me, which is vaguely reassuring.
One other thing. When I first met Chris, he was a cheerful young man. He was a glass-half-full kind of guy. A few years of knowing me later, he is shrivelled inside and perma-angry. His once hopeful soul is now blackened and charred. In many ways, I regard this as my finest professional achievement. I’m pleased to say, his glass is still half full. Of broken dreams and p***.
But so much here is off-kilter. Arsenal are top of the Premier League and are still in the Champions League and the FA Cup, but their fans, who have trodden this kind of path too often, are only eighth in the hope-o-meter. Manchester City are 10th; they still have a shot at the title and have already won the Carabao Cup. What gives?
For solace and security in these crazy, untethered times, we turn to Brighton & Hove Albion, who were third in the Hope-o-meter in August and are fourth now. Meanwhile, they are 10th in the actual table, which is a whole lot of ‘meh’. It seems that whatever happens at the Amex Stadium — losing players, losing managers — they remain happy.
So I’m heading to Hove to await humanity’s destruction. It’s a nice place, the sea air is bracing, and the people are clearly upbeat. There would be worse places to witness the world ending. You never know, perhaps we will make it through. Perhaps we will be doing this again in August. In the meantime, feel free to borrow my personal motto and make of it what you will: I hope not.
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