BfB

This is a set of predictions about the Premier League 2025/26, but purposefully I’ve tried to only listen to the quiet voice at the back of my mind that nags with doubt – or suggests something Left Field – and allowed that to shape my thinking.

The purpose is not to create a random ordered list of teams, so much as it is to try to offer something different in the sea of Predictions that is the middle of August, 2025. I’ve included a range of my thoughts on where a team might finish.

This is all guessing by the way.

Also, I’ve written some things about Liverpool being impacted by the death of Diogo Joto. It should go without saying that this is not disrespectful to the players involved, and comes from the idea that we should acknowledge that those players are people and those people will be impacted. If you think I’ve been rude, or disrespectful, or questioning the professionalism of anyone I’ll say that I don’t think it is disrespectful, or questions the professionalism or someone to suggest that the death of a friend might change them and their priorities.

The Big Fellas…

1. Chelsea

Range: 1-5

Chelsea seem to have everything to win the League except for a team. Every player is really good, but very few excellent, enough that you’d imagine that they should be considered champions, but Maresca’s match winning trick over Paris SG seems like an out layer for a manager who does not have a lot of variations on how is likes to play. The central midfield are good enough to plunder many points, and the shape is robust enough to defend a lead well, and the strikers can score goals, but expecting all those things to happen at the same time seems a bit like wishful thinking.

This season should be the year that Manchester City get punished, it will be the season Arsenal carry on being Arsenal, and Liverpool I think will struggle as they transition the core of the team across generations.

If Newcastle signed Nick Woltemade then they might be at the top but they have not. Brighton and Bournemouth are not close enough to be contenders so, in the absence of any options, Chelsea will win the League.

Or it might be Arsenal.

2. Arsenal

Range: 1-2

The worst thing about Arsenal is that they have a manager in Mikel Arteta who refuses to allow the team to live with any failure they have, and by extension, learn from them. In shielding his players from the negative, the Arsenal manager seems to have made something more fragile than it needs to be, and probably too fragile to win the title.

Some offside call will go the wrong way in November and the team will sulk to two points in fifteen for a month and that will assure second, again, but if Chelsea absolutely fail to come together as a team then Arsenal might end up being the runners up to no one, which would make them the winners, I suppose.

Yerp…

3. Liverpool

Range: 3-5

How do you carry on being successful, when you have been successful? Spending all the money is one way because it brings in a lot of players with a lot to prove, but this close season has been horrific for Liverpool.

The phrase “It puts football in perspective” was used a lot following the death of Diogo Jota, and while it is distasteful to talk about death in the context of football results, perspective might not include the kind of single-minded determination that wins Championships. Perspective might be that there is more to life than winning away at Brentford. Because there is.

There is a transition happening, and it is happening during this season, where the Klopp era retracts and Slot’s players replace them. I would not be surprised if Liverpool won the Champions League, I would be surprised if they won away at Sunderland.

Mo Salah, though, is impressive.

4. Manchester City

Range: 3-5

The problems Manchester City had last year are not really fixed, but they were never as bad as they seemed in the lowest parts last year. As with Liverpool the biggest problem they have is maintaining motivation after success and Pep Guardiola has often done that by nominating a villain to best but given that Liverpool’s Slot is very nice, and Maresca at Chelsea and Arteta at Arsenal are his footballing children, Man City lack an opposite to be against.

With the exclusion of the Financial Regulations of football, which they obviously do oppose, and one can only hope that justice catches up with them soon. They have perverted football, and if they are found to have done that illegally, they should be cast as far out of the game as possible and the Earth salted behind them.

5. Newcastle United

Range: 1-10

It is really easy to forget in the Summer of transfers that most players in most teams do not move anywhere. Alexander Isak might have decided that he does not want to play for Newcastle United any more, but Eddie Howe has been making a lot of good players better for the last few years. Isak’s absence robs Newcastle of one of the most innovative players in the Premier League, but the structures behind him are still intact.

So Newcastle are good, but they should have signed Thierno Barry, or Jonathan David, or Nick Woltemade then they might have had a chance of being Champions in this curious year but playing Anthony Gordon as a false nine feels like not that.

The sort of season everyone dreams of, but no one wants…

6. AFC Bournemouth

Range: 6-10

Of all the teams, Bournemouth seem to have the most first team players. They get injuries, “ten first team players are out”. They sell players “fifteen new first team players”. They sign a bunch of kids, “twenty-eight new first team players.” Bournemouth are going to do well because Andoni Iraola seems able to make a team out of the parts he finds lying around European Football, and despite missing forty-eight first team players he will put out a first eleven which is well-organised, and beautifully chaotic.

7. Aston Villa

Range: 6-10

Villa are great, and if in May 2026 they had won the Premier League I’d not really be surprised that they were able to make a great team out of the side that almost did for PSG last season in the Champions League. However, really, Villa have a soft centre and the midfield gets dominated too often, and probably that will happen again, and happen too often.

8. Brighton & Hove Albion

Range: 6-10

The big question on Brighton how Fabian Hürzeler handles a second season, and I’m guessing that he is going to handle it pretty well, but the virtue made out of inexperience is becoming endemic in the Premier League and Hürzeler is the most obvious version of that. Whatever Pep Guardiola has learned from managing 941 games, Hürzeler obviously does not.

9. Crystal Palace

Range: 6-10

It seems rude to suggest that Palace will not build on the FA Cup win last year by cracking into a higher echelon of the Premier League, but with Marc Guehi set to wander off before he out of contract next summer, and with Eberechi Eze perhaps on his way, there is not much reason to think Palace will do much worse, but not a lot to think that they will do a lot better.

Higher Class Mid-table…

10. Tottenham Hotspur

Range: 10-11

Like a dog which struggles with object permanence, if Spurs could stick to a single approach for long enough they might start to improve, and Thomas Frank is a good manager for making a team which finishes in the middle of the Premier League. Give him four years, and he might be troubling the top five, but it seems unlikely that he will get that time.

11. Nottingham Forest

Range: 10-14

Forest stole a march on football being the first team to realise that smaller defenders could be bullied by a big forward, but that the rest of the League has caught up, and while Forest have a decent team with a strong defence, the European games and the lack of any real innovation from Nuno Espirito Santo will take the edge off the season.

Respectable Mid-table…

12. Fulham

Range: 11-14

If football has fallen in love with potential, then Fulham are the exception. The squad has experience, the manager knows enough about the Premier League to get the points to make sure they are not in a huge amount of problems. They are the definition of cruising altitude in Premier League football.

13. Manchester United

Range: 11-14

My Uncle once told me that I should never buy a house if it has new doors. “They always want a grand for the new doors”, he told me, “but they never take off the cost of the old ones they put in a skip.”

This is very much what I feel about Manchester United. They have indeed signed Benjamin Sesko, Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, but the skip has got Marcus Rashford, Antony, Jadon Sancho and Alejandro Garnacho (and more) in it, and just being more manager Ruben Amorim’s type of player is not enough of a reason to expect great things.

The midfield is questionable and the defence is embarrassed that Harry Maguire is still the most useful player. More of the same, although I expect them to beat Arsenal on the opening weekend.

14. Brentford

Range: 11-14

Brentford are a system as much as a team and that system is robust. New manager Keith Andrews will take a bit of time, and one does not lose a manager as capable as Thomas Frank without a bump, but what the Bees have is robust and while it might be a little less impressive than the last few years, they are still a great set up.

Grumpy Mid-table…

15. West Ham United

Range: 15-17

Graham Potter and West Ham are a perfect combination. We all like the idea of West Ham being good, we all like the idea of Graham Potter being good and when that happens it feels like a good thing, but it does not happen often and so both just trundle along being meat in the Premier League room.

16. Sunderland

Range: 15-20

Defending scales up a division better than forward play, and Sunderland along with Burnley were both well set up to defend last season. What I think gives Sunderland the edge – other than the guaranteed six points from annoying Newcastle United – is that they have been able to bring in players like Granit Xhaka who can take up big positions in the side. Not being married to players from the Championship can be useful, and Regis Le Bris seems to know what he is doing, so I’m expecting them to finish the highest of the three promoted teams.

17. Wolverhampton Wanderers

Range: 15-17

Wolves have signed a lot of players who might, might be good but probably will not be. Wolves seem to have mistaken having had some good form at the end of last season with having become a fundamentally better team and while I think they will have enough to stay up, I think it will be a struggle.

Relegation Follows…

18. Burnley

Range: 17-18

Losing James Trafford is going to be a huge problem for Burnley, as is the dedication they have to the players who have got them up. I always think that new signing Lesley Ugochukwu should be great, and he might be, but probably not.

However, it has to be added, that 18th might keep a team up this year if justice is visited on Manchester City and they are banished from top flight football.

19. Leeds United

Range: 18-20

Leeds have signed some players, and Leeds have meandered into August, and while there is a narrative of it being difficult for newly promoted teams to stay in The Premier League, Leeds seem to have played into it having made sure that nothing at all interesting has happened at Elland Road. If it was not Dirty Leeds then we would be talking about how they have gone up, will take the money, and go down again.

20. Everton

Range: 15-20

Everton never seem to be tempting fate. An Everton team with Thierno Barry seems like a great idea, an Everton team with Jack Grealish seems like a huge mistake. Perhaps David Moyes things that he can make a season out of set pieces derived from the fouls on Grealish but, well, I don’t think he can. The new ground might be nice though.