Four Premier League managers were born in Gipuzkoa, a Basque province of 700,000 people. Exactly one current Premier League manager has won the title before. That one manager is also from Gipuzkoa. That is the new Premier League in a single paragraph.
Arsenal won it last season. Pep Guardiola finally left Manchester City. Liverpool, somehow, fired Arne Slot twelve months after he won them the championship. And now we go again — with a reshaped title race, a clutch of clubs in genuine chaos and at least two promoted sides who look like they will be fighting for their lives from August.
The title picture
Arsenal are the defending champions and the clear favourites. Since Declan Rice arrived in 2023, their defensive numbers have been in a different stratosphere — there's roughly a 37 xG gap between them and second-placed Manchester City over the past three seasons. The same gap exists between City and Fulham in 12th. That is not a small margin. That is dominance.
The questions are almost entirely injury-related. Bukayo Saka played through an Achilles problem at the World Cup. Declan Rice had back and hamstring issues described as simultaneously "terrible" and "not an injury" by England manager Thomas Tuchel, which tells you everything about how poorly that was managed. William Saliba hurt an already-injured back in the semifinals and will miss the start of the season. Jurriën Timber didn't make the World Cup at all. Strip out Arsenal's four most important players and the title race opens up considerably — which is the only realistic scenario in which it does.
The Gunners also added Bruno Guimarães from Newcastle for €87.5 million, one of the best midfielders in the league. Their squad depth is the strongest it has ever been under Mikel Arteta. If everyone stays fit, this is over before Christmas.
Manchester City are the most fascinating club to watch this season. They've lost Guardiola, Rodri, Bernardo Silva, John Stones and Manuel Akanji in one summer. But Erling Haaland is still there. Gianluigi Donnarumma is in goal. Rayan Cherki, Phil Foden, Jérémy Doku, Antoine Semenyo and new signing Elliot Anderson — purchased from Nottingham Forest for €135 million — give new manager Enzo Maresca a squad that is almost offensively loaded. The Community Shield loss to Arsenal was awkward in the extreme. There will be a transition. How long it lasts is the only real question.
Chelsea finishing third is the kind of prediction that demands a justification. Here it is: they hired Xabi Alonso, they have a season without European football, and they have thrown another €339 million at the squad. Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Joao Pedro, Pedro Neto, Estevao and 19-year-old Geovany Quenda in attack. Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia, Valentin Barco and Enzo Fernández in midfield. The talent is not the problem. It never was. The problem has always been structure, leadership and coherence. Adding veterans Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck helps at the margins. Alonso is the real signing. Since BlueCo took over in 2022, Chelsea have averaged €417 million per season in transfer fees and finished 12th, sixth, fourth and 10th. The fifth entry in that sequence is what we're all waiting on.
The mid-table battleground
Liverpool sit fourth in these projections, and the gap between where they were expected to be and where they actually ended up last season — fifth, with 60 points — tells you how badly Slot's tenure unravelled. Their pressing intensity hit an eight-year low in 2025-26, and the board responded by firing him and bringing in Andoni Iraola, who kept Bournemouth competitive for three straight years while losing his best players every summer. Now he has Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike and a defence that lost Ibrahima Konaté on a free. Mohamed Salah is gone to Trabzonspor. Andrew Robertson went to Tottenham. The club appears more focused on selling a stake to Jeff Bezos than on building the squad. Iraola is a good manager. He has been handed an unusually complicated situation.
Manchester United come in fifth, off the back of a third-place finish that flattered them considerably. Michael Carrick's team ranked fifth in xG differential but first in points per game after his arrival — driven by a finishing run that almost certainly won't repeat. Matheus Cunha and Casemiro scored 11 goals from shots worth 4.5 xG. Casemiro is now at Inter Miami. The squad is ageing, Carrick is adding Champions League football back to the schedule, and the main summer addition is Youri Tielemans, who has started more than 21 league matches just once in the last three seasons. Young players like Kobbie Mainoo, Andrey Santos, Leny Yoro and Patrick Dorgu will need to carry more weight than Carrick probably wants.
Brighton and Brentford are arguably the two best-run clubs outside the top six. Brighton forced more high turnovers than anyone last season — 12.4 per game, producing 23 goals — and their late-season surge under Fabian Hurzeler earned them Conference League football. The concern is depth and goals: outside Danny Welbeck, who has left for Chelsea, no Brighton player scored more than five league goals last season. Brentford, meanwhile, are entering what may genuinely be their most talented squad ever. Mamadou Sangare arrives from Lens, Igor Thiago and Kevin Schade are back, and Keith Andrews has proved capable of getting the most from Matthew Benham's analytically driven roster. They missed the Europa League by a single point and three goals in goal differential last season. The edge-of-the-table life may finally be behind them.
Tottenham are the hardest club to read. They sacked three managers last season and finished 17th for the second year running — but Roberto De Zerbi's seven-match sample produced a plus-0.24 adjusted goal differential that would have placed them sixth over a full season. They've now spent more than Real Madrid in the transfer window, bringing in Sandro Tonali (€108 million), Mateus Fernandes (€99 million), Jan Paul van Hecke and Andrew Robertson. The infrastructure of the last two 17th-place finishes is still there, though. And De Zerbi's relationships with clubs have had a consistent pattern: they end badly. Ask Brighton. Ask Marseille.
Aston Villa have lost Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans, Lucas Digne and Amadou Onana (ACL) in one summer, with Emiliano Martínez potentially following. Over the past three seasons, only Arsenal and City had a bigger positive gap between actual goal differential and xG differential than Villa — a sign that Unai Emery has consistently squeezed more than the underlying numbers suggested was possible. That margin is harder to maintain when the squad loses this much quality in a single window, and Champions League football adds further strain. Newcastle, by contrast, have gone in a completely different direction: selling Guimarães, Tonali, Anthony Gordon and Trippier — their four most important players of recent years — and replacing them with five players whose average age is 20. It looks like a planned rebuild. Whether it was planned or not is less clear.
The bottom half and the relegation picture
Bournemouth finished sixth and nearly made the Champions League under Iraola. Marco Rose has now inherited that squad — keeping most of it intact — and must clear the highest possible bar for an incoming manager. Whether Bournemouth's rise was built on Iraola specifically or on genuinely undervalued players who could thrive under any intelligent coach is the question Rose's first season will answer.
Nottingham Forest burned through four managers last season, finished 16th, found stability under Vitor Pereira — and then Marinakis fired him anyway. Oliver Glasner arrives from Crystal Palace. The squad still has Morgan Gibbs-White, Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic. But they've lost Elliot Anderson, who led the team in chances created, passes received, progressive carries, progressive passes, total carry distance, tackles, blocked passes and ball recoveries last season. He was essentially doing the work of three players. Replacing that output across the midfield is not a one-signing problem.
Everton are at a genuine crossroads. David Moyes spent €130 million last summer but only one of those signings broke 2,000 league minutes. They were the third-oldest squad in the league. With smart summer additions — Brennan Johnson, Merlin Röhl, Tyrique George, Hayden Hackney, Christian Nørgaard — the talent to build something younger is there. Whether Moyes uses it is the question. Too conservative and the relegation risk doesn't go away. Too aggressive and it might arrive faster.
Leeds were the better of the two promoted sides last season for a sustained stretch. Daniel Farke's direct-but-disciplined approach kept them well clear of the drop zone, but James Trafford arriving from City and a centre-back swap are the only significant additions. The squad relies heavily on Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who is both injury-prone and essential — Leeds averaged 1.37 points per game when he started, 0.75 when he didn't. That dependency is a vulnerability that hasn't been addressed.
Crystal Palace lost Glasner to Forest and are left with Adam Wharton as their one remaining genuine star. French manager Pierre Sage has taken over a squad that was gradually dismantled over the past two seasons, shedding Olise, Eze, Guehi and Lacroix to bigger clubs. Fulham are in an equally uncertain position: oldest squad in the league last season, now managed by Álvaro Arbeloa, who oversaw significant decline at Real Madrid both on and off the pitch. The two Real Madrid B players he has brought to Craven Cottage are not an encouraging sign.
Sunderland finished seventh and earned Europa League football despite ranking 18th in xG differential. They won five games in which they had a negative expected goal difference and drew another eight. Those results do not repeat. The attacking numbers were also poor — 17th in shots per possession, 17th in xG per shot, 17th in goals — and no new striker has come in to change that picture. Eliezer Mayenda left for Rennes. Europa League nights on top of that underlying fragility is a combination that points downward.
Coventry were the best team in the Championship last season by every meaningful measure — first in goals, first in goals allowed, first in xG differential. Manager Frank Lampard runs a possession-based side that may need to add more directness against Premier League opposition. They have reinforced smartly. There is real reason for optimism about survival, even if the jump from Championship dominance to Premier League security is never straightforward.
Ipswich were promoted as Championship runners-up and have spent €115 million more than they've received this summer — making them one of the four biggest net spenders in European football, alongside Chelsea, Real Madrid and Arsenal. All of it is an attempt to replace Kieran McKenna, who took the club from League One to the Premier League in two seasons, got them relegated, promoted them again, and then left. Gary O'Neil has inherited a completely rebuilt squad and a fanbase that knows exactly how much of the last four years was down to one man.
Hull City finished sixth in the Championship and were promoted through the playoffs. Their adjusted goal differential ranks 235th across 13 full Championship seasons tracked by Stats Perform. That is, by a significant distance, the worst performance by any side promoted to the Premier League in the modern era. Hull appear to know this. They've spent sensibly — ranking 13th in net spend — on a squad that skews young, with veterans like Jack Butland, Hidemasa Morita and Matt Targett added for a combined €3.5 million. The plan seems to be: survive if possible, develop regardless. Relegation is the most likely outcome. History says it's far from certain.
