It’s that time again. Following the enormous success of our World Cup predictions, it’s time for twenty predictions for the upcoming Premier League season. Twenty clubs. Twenty entirely hinged previews, this time.
As ever, it’s time for my standard disclaimer that none of these predictions matter. There’ll be a mixture of serious and extremely unserious predictions going on here, and I already know that there will be things that I get drastically wrong, because there always are.
This summer has been one of managerial change, in the Premier League. Five of the “Big Six” have changed their managers in the last twelve months, and as such it’s more challenging than usual to understand what Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool, Manchester United or Manchester City will look like. The departure of Pep Guardiola from Manchester City in itself is a sign of clearly changing times. Also, bear in mind that there are still two weeks of transfer window to go, so a lot of this coulsd be out of date by the end of the month.
So with all of this in mind, here are a couple of paragraphs on each of the twenty teams who’ll be starting 2026-27 in the Premier League. I’ve even added a predicted top six and bottom six, so that you can all send me abusive messages at the end of the season.
Arsenal: Arsenal will win the Premier League again. They ended last season with all the momentum in the division, don’t seem to have got themselves all worked up over losing the Champions League final, and while they’re still absent that big signing that we might have expected (sorry, but Bruno Guimaraes doesn’t quite hit those heights, no matter how talented he might be), they’re infinitely more settled than any of the other clubs that might ordinarily be expected to do something like challenge for the title.
It certainly helps their case that there has been so much upheaval elsewhere. Arsenal have, among the Big Six clubs, been an ocean of serenity this summer. They’ve offloaded a couple of the players that they’d have wanted to be rid of, and Mikel Arteta has had an entire summer to come up with new set-piece routines. In the absence of anyone else who look like serious challengers, a second successive Premier League title may even arrive by default.
Aston Villa: Villa have got “Champions League quarter-finalists” written all over them, but have small concerns ahead of the new season. Losing Youri Tielemans, Morgan Rogers and Lucas Digne in one summer is harsh,while they’ve also lost three key members of their backroom staff. Winning the Europa League returned Unai Emery to his happy place, but the challenges are only going to get greater over the 2026-27 season.
After three consecutive seasons of finishing in the top six, it’s fair to wonder whether they’ve supplanted Spurs in the Big Six Club Gang. Achieve it this season, and I’d consider it fair to say that they will be, if they’re not already. And one of their new arrivals gives them huge cause for optimism. Johan Manzambi had an excellent World Cup for Switzerland before it was curtailed through injury, and if he can hit the ground showing the same sort of form that he did during the summer or last season in the Bundesliga with his previous club Freiburg, and they’ll be set fair.
Bournemouth: They’ve been excellently run over the last few years, but defying football’s financial gravity only becomes increasingly difficult over time, and Bournemouth play European football for the first time this season. That’s going to be a lot of hard work - those megagroup matches can feel pretty relentless throughout the autumn - and there are questions to be asked over whether they have the resources to be able to manage it.
Although they’ve not lost any of their key players over the summer, Andoni Iraola’s successor Marco Rose faces a tougher job than his predecessor. Losing more than “just” the manager who’d moulded the team into his own style so successfully could have been catastrophic, but they should still be good for the middle of the table, and repeating anything like their sixth-place position at the end of 2025-26 would be a hell of an achievement.
Brentford: Hear me out here, but what if narrowly avoiding qualification for European football on the last day of last season was a good thing for Brentford? The timetable would be punishing, and this way they have an extra year to be ready in the event that they improve while their rivals are doing the Thursday-Sunday lambada throughout the winter months.
They’ve improved their attacking options over the summer and Thiago Silva - who was only beaten to being the Premier League’s top goalscorer by St Erling of Haaland - is still there, and that gentler schedule has the potential to push them towards the top six.
Brighton & Hove Albion: The 2026-27 season for Brighton really needs to be all about the Europa Conference League. With West Ham and - shudder - Crystal Palace having lifted the trophy, the time is surely right for the Albion to mark ten years since their promotion to the Premier League by winning a first piece of major silverware.
The loss of Danny Welbeck to Chelsea may hurt them, but the decision to effectively swap Jean Paul Van Hecke for Luka Vuskovic looks like a good deal, and it’s been a long time since they were last involved in a relegation fight. Mid-table will suit them fine, so long as there’s a potential trophy to win on the table.
Chelsea: With another £300 million spent on shiny new players and no apparent interest from the Premier League in doing anything about their stockpiling, and with something like fifty players to have to keep happy, Xabi Alonso has his work cut out to match ambitions at Stamford Bridge next season.
Last season saw them finish 10th, the second time they’ve had a mid-table finish in four years, but they have the domestic advantage of no European football, and this jumbled assortment of parts should improve upon last season. Indeed, given the coach who’s agreed to join them and the lavish amounts of money that have been spent in recent years, they need to be targeting Champions League qualification and no less.
Coventry City: Finishing above the dotted line is the aim for any newly-promoted club, but if any of last season’s three are capable of Doing a Sunderland, it’s Coventry City. They were the best team in the Championship by a mile last time around, and after years of neglect, under engaged ownership - who’s already taken the hugely symbolic step of reuniting the club with their ground - they’ve got that all-important momentum behind them. Frank Lampard has taken a while to get there, but he’s found the right fit at this club, and they’ve got it in them to do better than 17th, this season.
Summer transfer business has been brisk. Goalkeeper Carl Rushworth made his loan from Brighton permanent, and the club have also been reunited with Gustavo Hamer, who’d spent a three-year sojourn at Sheffield United. They’ve also confirmed the signature of Taiwo Awoniyi, who was sporadically an extremely entertaining presence up front for Nottingham Forest. Their first aim will be 17th, but they’re the best-placed of the three promoted clubs to improve upon that.
Crystal Palace: It’s been a contradictory last couple of years for Crystal Palace. On the one hand, in successive seasons they’ve won the first two pieces of major silverware in their history. But they also found themselves continuing to be picked at by bigger clubs for their best players, and their relationship with Oliver Glasner, who finally left for Nottingham Forest at the end of the season, was often fractious.
But they’ve got a decent replacement in the form of the former Lens coach Pierre Sage, though much may come down to whether, having already lost Maxence Lacroix to Chelsea, they’re able to hang onto the likes of Craig Wharton or Daniel Munoz beyond the end of the August transfer window. Palace usually finish 12th in the Premier League, but last season they dropped to 16th. Unlike some other clubs, though, they do have that experience of going all the way in a European trophy now, but it’s difficult to see improvement on last season in the League, and they might even have to scrap a bit to stay up.
Everton: Following a bit of a slump after failing to win any of their final seven games, Everton finished last season in 13th place in the Premier League, meaning that it’s now been six years since they last ended a season in the top half of the table. The news that they’d have to pay £40 million to Burnley as compensation over their previous financial misbehaviour didn’t help, either.
But it certainly seems that they got the better end of the Brennan Johnson-Dwight McNeill swap and, having seen a lot of him in the Championship for Middlesbrough last season, I’m excited to see what Hayden Hackney brings to their midfield. Another season of mists and mellow fruitfulness of mid-table may lie in wait, but it’s better than living in the hellscape offered by their former owner.
Fulham: Life after Marco Silva has been the story of Fulham’s summer, having lost the manager who transformed them from a yo-yo club between the Premier League and the Championship into solid mid-table performers. Álvaro Arbeloa has arrived as his replacement with Real Madrid, and two of the players who’ve already arrived at the club have that pedigree.
Gonzalo Garcia was the top scorer for Real at last year’s Club World Cup, while Cesar Palacios made five appearances for them in La Liga last season before making the swap to London. But staff costs are at 117% of turnover and cloth may need to be accordingly cut, and I suspect those yo-yo years could be set to appear on the horizon again.
Hull City: Sometimes, you just have to step back and admire your own handiwork. Last year’s Championship play-off semi-finals seemed to be pre-ordained. The winners of Millwall vs Hull would lose the final to the winners of Southampton vs Middlesbrough. Well, we all know how that turned out. Credit has to be given to head coach Sergej Jakirovic for taking them from 21st place at the end of 2024-25 to the play-offs. Beating Millwall and Middlesbrough to secure promotion was an incredible achievement.
But the owner - Turkish media magnate Acun Ilicali - has a reputation for being tempestuous and, should they not start brightly, we might expect gratitude towards Jakirovic to not be in especially large supply, though with eleven new players having already arrived at the club this summer, no-one can say that they won’t be giving it a go. But someone has to finish bottom of the table this season, and it’s kinda difficult to make much of a case for it being anyone apart from Hull.
Ipswich Town: Where once it was Fulham and Norwich City occupying the Premier League’s yo-yo positions, the current favourites to claim the position are Ipswich Town. They secured promotion on the last day of the Championship season, but have since lost their manager. Kieran McKenna needed a break, and his replacement is Gary O’Neil, who arrived at the club following half a season in France with Chelsea’s Strasbourg.
They have made some decent signings over the summer, including Julio Enciso and Abdoul Ouattara, both from Strasbourg, Emersonn (with two Ns) from Toulouse, Issa Diop, Sasa Lukic and the promising former Leicester City winger Abdul Fatawu. They have also signed the tallest player in Premier League history, the 6’9” tall goalkeeper (obviously) Kjell Scherpen from Union Saint-Gilloise. Perhaps one of their better chances of staying up might be to just use him to completely block their goal, in the manner of a human brick wall.
Leeds United: 2025-26 was the season during which Daniel Farke and Leeds United really started to make sense. Leeds became an obdurate force over the course of the season, finished by pulling comfortably clear of the relegation zone, and have had a reasonable summer in the transfer market, including the arrival of James Trafford from Manchester City, a sale which City may come to regret, if Gianluigi Donnarumma’s performance in the Community Shield is anything to go by.
Having reached a cup-semi final last season, Farke might well fancy another go at a domestic cup again, this time around. They could be a good outside bet for a European place too, come the end of this season. With ground expansion plans to increase the capacity of Elland Road to 53,000 already well under way, there’s more to look forward for Leeds fans than there has for quite a long time.
Liverpool: Farewell then, Arne Slot, and farewell Mo Salah, two people who played enormous roles for Liverpool, one for a couple of seasons, and one for considerably longer. The new man in charge is, of course, Andoni Iraola, who’s already admitted that his defence needs working following a pre-season in which they gave opposing teams goals in much the same way that a colander gives a sink water.
Jeremy Jacquet, Victor Munoz, Samuel Martinez and Ronald Araujo are all decent signings, but there’s nothing to raise the pulse amongst supporters. But having said that, Liverpool tried raising the pulse last summer and that didn’t work, so maybe this alternative approach will do better for them, though I suspect that this season may end up looking quite a bit like the last one, although at least with Iraola in charge, it should at least be entertaining.
Manchester City: In my review of last weekend, I touched on the fact that we shouldn’t really read too much into Community Shield performances, but still; oof, Manchester City. Oof. The loss of Pep Guardiola is one thing, but they’ve also lost their engine of the last seven years, Rodri, as well as the experience of Bernardo Silva and John Stones.
They’ve spent an absurd amount of money in bringing in Elliot Anderson, and teenage winger Jeremy Monga still managed to shine despite Leicester City’s plummet down the Championship table last season, but Enzo Maresca’s failure at Chelsea asks questions about whether he’s the natural Pepsessor that he’d been assumed to be. No matter what the pre-season questions might have been in the past, Manchester City have usually come good once the football actually started, but without Mister Pep, things might be different this time around.
Manchester United: So, is Michael Carrick the new Alex Ferguson or what, then? Of course, there’s an element of mischief to this question, but it does remain the case that United have now spent more than a decade looking for this guy, and have tried just about every other managerial permutation possible.
But Manchester United had last season on easy mode. European football and early eliminations from both domestic cups meant that they had longer rests between matches and no distraction from their focus on the League, but things won’t be that straightforward next time around. They’ve been pretty quiet in the transfer market - Youri Tielemans is an excellent midfielder, but he’s not quite the sort of player you’d want to base a midfield around - and it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be challenging for the title this season, with the Champions League as an extra distraction.
Newcastle United: Bad news has been piling up for Newcastle over the course of this year. The Saudis don’t seem to be that interested any more, Eddie Howe has been replaced by Mattias Jaissle, who has no experience of either coaching or playing in this country, and the summer brought a steady stream of exoduses from the club, including Sandro Tonali, Anthony Gordon, and Bruno Guimaraes.
That’s quite a big chunk of the middle of the pitch to have to replace, and £170 million has been spent on replacements, but the mood on Tyneside has been growing increasingly unhappy over the last few months, and it does feel as though Newcastle could be set up to fail this season. Having a kit which is quite clearly a relegation kit doesn’t help their case, either.
Nottingham Forest: The big question facing Nottingham Forest as they enter the new season is whether Evangelos Marinakis can change his spots. Forest burned through four managers throughout last season and got away with it, but the arrival of Oliver Glasner in the summer provides an opportunity to do things differently.
Will Marinakis be able to keep his cool, should Forest lose three games in a row? Only time will tell. Elliot Anderson has gone to Manchester City, and he’ll be a big space to fill in midfield, but if Forest can keep the owner’s more tempestuous side in check, they can substantially improve on last season’s 16th-placed finish.
Sunderland: At the start of last season, I predicted that Sunderland would either finish their first season back in the Premier League in 7th place in the table or at the bottom of it. But while there have been widespread predictions of Second Season Syndrome for Sunderland this time around, I’m not wholly convinced.
Balancing European football with the Premier League may take a toll on a club with relatively modest financial resources, but they retained the services of Granit Xhaka in the face of Chelsea trying to tap him up over the summer, while Brian Brobbey had a decent World Cup and can provide goals. Another top half finish would be a hell of an achievement, but they have enough about them to stay up again, despite the increased pressures that come with European football.
Tottenham Hotspur: Roughly this time last year, I found myself thinking, “Well, at least Spurs can’t be that bad in the League again”. Spin forward a year and several managers, and I find myself thinking the same thing again. Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi, Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes and Jan Paul van Hecke all seem like sensible additions, even if they did pay through the nose for some of them, while it’s also surely time to unleash Mikey Moore on the Premier League. They’ve cleared out some of the dead wood, as well. Good riddance to captain and liability Cristian Romero, for one thing, although I have serious doubts over the decision to sell Djed Spence to Inter.
For once, the atmosphere around The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is reasonably positive ahead of the start of the new season. The owners said they’d be doing things differently, and they have delivered, although it does remain the case that Spurs need a more reliable goalscorer than they have at the moment. Much as we may love Richarlison and Dominic Solanke, they probably aren’t the answer to the sort of question you’d want answering in a positive light. Having finished 17th for the last two seasons, they have to improve. The problem there is that I was saying this at this exact moment last season.
(Spurs supporters may be interested to know that I’ll be writing a more fulsome preview of the new season for that lot later in the week.)
So where does all of this end up? Well, I’m not quite daft enough to try and predict the entire division position-by-position (especially with so many teams looking so difficult to predict, this year), but I am prepared to stick my neck on the line a little bit by predicting a top six and a bottom six. So here’s what will definitely happen at each end of the Premier League this season.
Arsenal
Manchester City
Chelsea
Manchester United
Aston Villa
Liverpool
Bournemouth
Ipswich Town
Crystal Palace
Newcastle United
Fulham
Hull City
Image by Kelvin Stuttard from Pixabay
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