RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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On first inspection, change seems to be the order of the day for the 2026-27 Premier League. When the new season begins this weekend, there will be nine new managers populating the dugouts of England's top flight. The absence of Pep Guardiola alone ought to significantly change the timbre of the league. When four of the other members of the 'big six' either have new managers or one whose future was only decided in the final weeks of last season, this ought to be the start of a new era.
And yet while the faces might change, will the storylines? Start at the bottom and you see a familiarly doom-laden picture. Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City have come up; the widespread expectation is that they will go straight back down. Few would be surprised if at least two of West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley took their place.
Bridging the gap between the Championship and Premier League requires a confluence of pretty unlikely events. Either one of the best teams to come up from the second tier spends its money shrewdly as in Leeds United's case or a more ordinary playoff team leaps up, invests incredibly shrewdly and gets the fortunate bounces of Sunderland, a minus six goal difference and a minus 16.9 non-penalty expected goals difference.
Above them, the Premier League's middle ground still contains an awful lot of the top 20 or 30 teams in Europe. That is why Brighton and Hove Albion will surely rank among the favorites to win the Conference League, why Sunderland might be placed on a comparable level to Bayer Leverkusen and AC Milan even as they profile as battling against the drop. Fifteen of the top 40 teams in the world by Club ELO rating come from the Premier League. According to Opta's power rankings, it is 18, and 41st-placed Ipswich sandwiched between RB Leipzig and Milan. There is vanishingly little between a lot of those teams, making some of the most contentious picks in this exercise those between around sixth and 15th. There is a growing proportion of this division who can attest that it does not take a lot to go wrong before they are staring nervously over their shoulders, just as a good run in the right year might have their fans dusting off their passports.
For all the strength in depth, though, it does not seem any likelier that the thrusting middle classes will be able to smash the glass ceiling. Aston Villa are back in the Champions League but they and Newcastle still find themselves carrion for their wealthier contemporaries. At the time of writing, these two are among the few Premier League clubs to have brought in more than they have spent. Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest are also notable sellers in that regard. Meanwhile, the greatest net spend is coming from Ipswich and Coventry, who need to throw hundreds of millions at a survival bid, as well as five of the big six.
Those teams will surely tussle it out for the podium spots. Well, two of them. Because, at risk of looking really rather foolish come May, it is hard to shake the sense that first place in the 2026-27 Premier League is close to locked off:
The best look to have got better over the summer. Bruno Guimaraes' arrival turns what was already an impressive central midfield corps into a group that can compete with almost anyone else for the title of Europe's best. The only evidence is preseason but Christos Tzolis looks like a handy fit for Arsenal's attack even as they await the breaking free of one of the few legitimate, S-tier attackers who would raise their ceiling yet further. The expectations that threatened to crush them in the spring have been replaced by the extremely bearable lightness of being champions, the 3-0 demolition of Manchester City typifying that.
There are scenarios where Arsenal let the chasing pack eat up the ground. Many of them will revolve around the absence of William Saliba, who is out for the long term with a back injury. Ezri Konsa is a valuable addition to cover both for the Frenchman in the long term and to ease the burden on Ben White and Jurrien Timber at right back; his experience playing in Aston Villa's high line will be greatly appreciated. Still, the fact that Arsenal won the league with so many key players sidelined last season does not make it any easier to do so this season. If losing Saliba compromises the Gunners' ability to compress space with possession while keeping the stable door bolted, then his absence could be more impactful than any of those Mikel Arteta had to coach around on his way to the title.
That really might be the limit of Arsenal's Premier League worries though. They were comfortably the best team last season and are the only one of the prospective top five who look settled on and off the field. If they don't win the league, it will almost certainly be because of something they got wrong.
Such an authoritative assessment of Arsenal probably would not have been possible if Manchester City simply rolled up for 2026-27 with what they had last year. That was far from a Pep Guardiola outfit at its prime, but the most crucial factor of all was it was a Pep Guardiola outfit. You could never entirely discount the prospect that the greatest manager of his generation would simply figure out a way to play football better than anyone else.
It is hard to know for certain just yet how good Enzo Maresca is. There is, however, nothing in his track record at Leicester City and Chelsea to suggest he could meaningfully alter how the sport is played. So that's a downgrade in the dugout. On the pitch? Well, there is a risk that it goes that way. While Elliot Anderson is the ideal replacement for Rodri, for whom City got a very good price, the ideal scenario would have been that the latter guides the former in his new role for at least a year. If not him, then perhaps Bernardo Silva. It would be handy to have John Stones, Manuel Akanji and Nathan Ake around to keep the dressing room in line.
Aggressive moves are being made in the m...
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