Good news, folks: The Premier League is back. The best domestic soccer league in the world kicks off on Friday afternoon for those of us in the States, where we will see Manchester United attempt to do something that resembles being a good team against Fulham. And from there, the next nine months will be spent watching 20 of the top teams in England go up against one another with the hopes of calling themselves champions against one another.
With things kicking off on Friday, we wanted to take a quick look at the league and answer five questions that should cover just about everything in The Barclays. Will we simply get another year of Manchester City winning everything, or will the title go elsewhere? Who’s getting relegated? What on earth is Chelsea doing? There’s a lot! Let’s dive in.
1. Is this all pointless because it just ends with Manchester City winning again?
City, the side I support (which was clear when the second sentence of this piece featured a dig at United), have won the Premier League in each of the last four years. They have the best manager in the world in Pep Guardiola, who might be entering his final year with the club, and a collection of players who feature for club and country and have gotten the job done time and time again when the league is up for grabs. Nihilism in the race for the title is sensible, because, well, City have just won over and over with Guardiola at the helm, and unless injuries pile up, they’re the favorites to do it again, especially if Erling Haaland can bounce back from a down (by his standards) season last year and put away chances created by their plethora of creative players.
Having said that, it’s not a lock. They’ve never figured out how to do much of anything when Rodri, their indomitable holding midfielder, gets hurt, there’s a chance that they get a monster points deduction this year depending on how an independent panel rules on the Premier League’s allegations that they broke financial rules (you can read about this here), and each of the last two years, they’ve had to deal with a spirited challenge from Arsenal. The Gunners haven’t won the league since 2004, but Mikel Arteta has had them right there recently — some underlying metrics indicate they were a better team than City last year. Their inability to bring in a big time striker this summer might be a problem, but their defense (which got reinforcements in the form of Italy’s Ricardo Calafiori, a star at the Euros) is unbelievable, their midfield is a nightmare to play through and could get better if they get Mikel Merino across the line, they create a ton of chances, and the soon-to-be 23-year-old Bukayo Saka keeps getting better. The club, for years, has had the reputation for letting things slip through their fingers, but this team might just be good enough to get the job done.
And then there’s Liverpool. Frankly, I think there’s a gap between the top-2 teams in the league and them, but they’re built around a group of talented, battle-tested players, even if the club is going through a transitional period. Gone is beloved manager Jurgen Klopp, in comes Arne Slot from Feyenoord, and while he has a reputation for being one of the best managers in the world, being the guy after Klopp is a tall task. The team ran out of gas down the home stretch last year, and followed it up this year without making a single signing so far — they’ve been looking for a defensive midfielder, but their high-profile pursuit of Martin Zubimendi came up short. And on top of it all, the trio of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah, and Virgil van Dijk are all out of contract after this year. They’re going to score a lot of goals in Slot’s system with their collection of players, but keeping pace with City and Arsenal is going to be awfully difficult.
2. Who gets the fourth Champions League spot?
In order to qualify for the Champions League, you need to finish in the top-4 of the league. As you can guess, my assumption is the above three teams are going to get a spot. The final one will go to one of these clubs: Aston Villa, Brighton, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Manchester United, Newcastle United, or Tottenham. Let’s go in order…
Aston Villa were the biggest surprise in the league last year, as they pipped the fourth spot from Tottenham and qualified for the Champions League for the first time since 1982-83. How they deal with European football and the expectations of being a top team will be fun to watch, but they’re a talented team under Unai Emery. They’ll have to replace a pair of really important players in Moussa Diaby and Douglas Luiz, but they had a good summer headlined by their purchase of Amadou Onana from Everton.
Brighton are the best team at identifying talent, developing them, selling them for crazy money, and then doing that cycle over and over again. Injuries were a problem last year, and they replaced highly-regarded manager Roberto de Zerbi with Premier League newcomer Fabian Hürzeler, so my guess is they don’t get a top-4 spot. But if they stay healthy and their younger players develop (I have a lot of Evan Ferguson stock that is going to make me a hypothetically rich man some day), don’t be surprised if Brighton is in the mix at the end of the year.
The longest longshot of the bunch here is Crystal Palace, which looked like a different team after Oliver Glasner got appointed as manager in February. Glassner took advantage of the fact that Palace is a team filled with athletic and technically magnificent players and got them looking like one of the best teams in the league over the final month or so of the season. Selling Michael Olise to Bayern Munich will be a hard pill to swallow, but Eberechi Eze should do some great things as the focal point of their attack.
I, personally, do not think Chelsea are going to be in the top-4, as the club is a mess from the top down — they have 43 first-team players, which is unheard of, and cycle through managers in the never-ending search for a guy who can make a squad that big work. This time, they went with a Guardiola disciple in former Leicester City manager Enzo Maresca, and the early returns on him in the preseason have not been especially great. But Chelsea has so many players that I suppose it is possible the find the secret sauce and get into a groove as the year goes on … even if they fired their last manager despite this happening.
There may not be a stranger club in Europe than Manchester United, the giants who used to run the league but have not finished atop the table since 2013. Their manager, Erik ten Hag, was reportedly going to get sacked until the team stunned City in the FA Cup final last year. Now he’s back, and the club backed him with three big signings, a pair of center-backs (Lenny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt) and a forward (Joshua Zirkzee). They finished in eighth place on 60 points last year, which is not good enough for United even with the caveat that injuries were a big issue, and they need to show that they are capable of taking a major step forward under ten Hag this year.
Newcastle were absolutely killed by injuries last year, which meant they went from fourth the previous season to seventh in 2023-24. They haven’t been especially busy this summer, although that can change pretty quickly if Manchester City launch an ambitious and potentially nine-figure bid for standout midfielder Bruno Guimarães. This is to say that they, presumably, have some level of faith that they can perform at a high level if they just stay healthy, and in fairness, they have a talented squad led by Guimarães, Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon, and a defense that was incredibly difficult to break down during their top-4 finish two years back.
If you’re a fan of chaos, watch every Tottenham game you can. They play some of the most attack-minded (and, at times, reckless) football in the league under Ange Postecoglou, and finished only two points out of the final Champions League spot in the Premier League last season. They exist in a state of perpetual chaos, and if year two under Postecoglou leads to them being comfortable within that chaos, they’re going to be fun, especially after they spent big money to bolster their attack by bringing in Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth.
3. Who’s getting relegated?
Obviously, any conversation about getting relegated in a given year begins with the teams that just came up from the Championship. This time, it’s Ipswich Town, Leicester City, and Southampton. Just in general, staying up is difficult, although last year was the first time in quite a while that all three teams that were promoted went right back down. Of this group, I’d probably back Leicester to stay up, as they have a number of players with Premier League experience from their last stint in the league (I have no clue how Wilfred Ndidi is still here), and have a newly-appointed manager in Steve Cooper who has managed at this level before. Ipswich Town is awesome — their story of getting back to the Premier League is great, and they pumped in goals under rising star manager Kieran McKenna in the Championship last year — while Southampton are right back in the league after only one year in the second division.
The thing that makes the Premier League so difficult is that the middle and bottom portions of the league have talent and/or good managers — a team like Wolverhampton Wanderers, which finished in 14th last year, have some legitimately good players, while Gary O’Neil might be the best English manager in the league. That sentiment also applies to Everton, which are led by Sean Dyche and are capable of being incredibly difficult to break down with England’s No. 1 Jordan Pickford in net. If either finishes in the top-half of the league, I wouldn’t be stunned.
All of this comes with the caveat that the league won’t dock points from any team for breaking its financial rules, which could be huge with how tight things might end up being at the bottom. But keep an eye on Brentford and Nottingham Forest, both of which got the final two spots in the league last year above the relegation zone (it’s worth noting that Forest had a four point deduction, although they still would have finished in 17th). Both have managers in Thomas Frank and Nuno Espirito Santo that know how to navitage the league, but I’m looking at Forest, specifically, as a team at serious risk of going down, since I don’t know if they added enough talent to stay up — figuring out their goalkeeping situation, which they might have done with gigantic Brazilian Carlos Miguel, would be huge.
4. Who’s left?
Three teams: Bournemouth, Fulham, and West Ham. Bournemouth are one of the best teams in the league at identifying talent that fits within their manager’s system, and as a result, they played some really pretty football last year and accrued more points (48) in the Premier League in club history. I think that, despite selling Dominic Solanke, they should be in for a big year under Andoni Iraiola.
Fulham are the poster child for the league’s middle class, and hold a soft spot in my heart because of their long history of getting the best out of American footballers, the most recent of which is Antonee Robinson, who was their player of the season last year. They have to replace standout midfielder João Palhinha, but bringing in Emile Smith-Rowe from Arsenal was a nice bit of business. West Ham are overhauling their club after longtime manager David Moyes was not brought back, and did a ton of business this summer — bringing in French CB Jean-Clair Todibo on a loan was especially interesting. It wouldn’t be stunning if it takes them a bit to get off the ground as a result, but if they find their form as the year goes along, they’ll be a tough team to deal with over the final few months.
5. Alright, so what’s happening this year?
Sure, whatever, here are some predictions:
Champions: Arsenal
Champions League: Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham
Biggest surprise: Brighton
Relegated: Ipswich Town, Southampton, Nottingham Forest
Player of the Season: Erling Haaland
Young Player of the Season: Bukayo Saka
I must advise you do not bet on any of these. However, I hope you, like me, enjoy watching the Premier League this season … well, except for when City play Arsenal, because those games will be horrible.