Predicting the final table for the 2025-26 Premier League season

We’re coming out of the gate a smidge hot in predicting that this is the year Arsenal goes from bridesmaid to bride. We think Liverpool will take a half-step back, while Man City seems primed to take a half-step forward. The Gunners could be steady and win the league. However, we also see them getting better. Bukayo Saka will hopefully stay healthy. Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri have seen Premier League action. Then, there is the addition of Viktor Gyokeres, who is expected to finally give Arsenal a top-tier goal scorer.

It seems like Manchester City is betting on Pep figuring things out and a healthy Rodri fixing the spine of the club. While it has added some transfers, plus Omar Marmoush looked quite good after joining last season, we’re not sure it is enough. Arsenal got better to a higher degree than City in our books, which will make it harder to catch up.

For a club that just won the title, Liverpool has undergone significant overhaul. There’s a decent chance more will occur after we write this. Now, they have added some great talent with upside long term, but this isn’t a long-term prediction. It’s a this-season prediction. Last season was great. Flags fly forever. Mo Salah is 33, and Virgil van Dijk is 34. Both have been as good as they will ever be. Liverpool’s chance of winning the league boils to us being wrong on that.

Chelsea added more young, promising players (including Ipswich’s lone bright light last season, Liam Delap) for millions and millions more pounds. All that, and we think it will finish fourth again. The Blues simply haven’t done enough, in our books, to jump past the top three. Maybe, through good luck on its front and bad luck on somebody else’s front, Chelsea can get to third. It’s very unlikely the luck will be sufficient to climb to the top of the table, though.

This season, Unai Emery will get the chance to do what he does best: Win the Europa League. The club finished sixth last season, while making a long Champions League run, and this season should be easier on Villa. Additionally, the club is as of this writing bringing back mostly the same lineup, particularly the key players. We’re expecting stability, while we are expecting a slight step back from the one team it is jumping over.

Adding Anthony Elanga is nice, and it seems like the club might hold onto Alexander Isak. The club still isn’t spending money like it could, though. It finished fifth last season owing to goal differential, but that means it has to play Champions League football this year. That’s good for Newcastle, but even the slightest slip could drop the club to sixth. Especially if Isak (or Anthony Gordon) does end up elsewhere.

Two of England’s top clubs, clubs that used to finish near the top of the table, finished quite low last season. Spurs finished 17th! It also won Europa League. Of the two clubs in question, we expect much more from Tottenham Hotspur, who should be fine. One, the polarizing Ange Postecoglou is gone, replaced by Brentford’s Thomas Frank, a steadier presence. Kevin Danso and Mathys Tel, who were with the club on loan late last season, are now part of the club proper. Mohammed Kudus has joined on a big transfer. Spurs may not be back to contending for a top-four spot, but it will be in the top half of the table.

We thought about dropping Forest further. Chris Wood can’t keep up the goal-scoring magic forever. Anthony Elanga is with Newcastle. The club hasn’t really added much talent. However, consider this a vote of confidence in Nuno Espirito Santo as manager. Also, in truth, a vote against a few of the teams that finished close to Forest last season.

Last year, things started lackluster for Palace, and we thought maybe Oliver Glasner’s tenure had started off with a Plexiglass Principle bounce. And we thought maybe the loss of Michael Olise was just too much to overcome. Cut to the London club picking itself up to finish 12th and win the FA Cup. For now, the club has been able to keep the guys like Marc Guehi, Eberechi Eze, and Adam Wharton. If that holds true, the top half of the table awaits.

Moyes in! Everton was struggling last year, fighting off relegation. The Toffees moved on from Sean Dyche and brought David Moyes back as manager. Moyes, who has become underrated as a floor-raising manager, got the club up to 13th by the end of the campaign. The club has struggled to score goals for a while now and relied way too much on Jordan Pickford to save the day, but we think Moyes, floor raiser he is, can get Everton to 10th. Then, when they top out at eighth or so and spend a few seasons in the mid-table, fans can get fed up and get Moyes sacked. It’s the circle of life.

Brighton hired a guy in his early thirties to be the manager prior to last season, which signaled a potential acceptance of taking a step back, maybe even two. Instead, Brighton finished comfortably eighth. However, it was comfortably eight in terms of distance ahead of ninth and behind seventh. It’s not so much we think Brighton gets worse. We think it will be relatively the same. We just think three clubs that finished behind Brighton last season are going to be better.

Well, it’s better than 15th. We don’t see Man United making a Spurs-style leap. Manchester United had a worse goal differential than Tottenham Hotspur last season, and it can’t claim a new manager will stabilize anything. While United was once the best club in the world, it’s been poorly run for a few years now. Any improvement is going to have to be steady.

Like Everton, West Ham fired a manager mid-stream last season and climbed up the table a bit. However, while Graham Potter got the Hammers up to 14th in the table, they had a minus-16 goal differential, which was 17th. West Ham hasn’t really added anybody, but as noted lost Kudus to Spurs. Potter could find himself the sacked manager being replaced during the season this time.

Brentford has been well-run, and analytically-inclined, which helped the club rise through the ranks and return to the top flight for the first time in decades upon decades. Not only that, but Brentford has stayed in the Premier League since promotion, which is truly impressive. That being said, it was Frank who oversaw that promotion, and kept Brentford from constantly battling relegation. Now, Frank is managing Spurs. The club has promoted Keith Andrews to manager, and it is his first managerial job. Oh, and Brentford has lost its keeper, a key defensive midfielder, and its top goal scorer. We don’t think the Bees get relegated, but this could be a tough campaign.

Bournemouth got by losing Dominic Solanke early last season. We don’t think the Cherries will manage two important losses this offseason. Dean Huijsen and Milos Kerkez were the club’s best players last year. The former is now with Real Madrid and the latter with Liverpool. I expect more goals against Bournemouth this year, and a drop down the table.

Hey, at least we aren’t predicting Fulham to get relegated this time. The club just doesn’t inspire any enthusiasm. Ever. It finished 11th last season with an even goal differential. Same manager. Basically the same team. Other clubs have improved. Fulham hasn’t. The club is going to stick around in the Premier League, because I think two of the teams that will be relegated are obvious. It’s just going to be an utterly unremarkable season.

Leeds has earned promotion, and we don’t think it will be easy, but we think it won’t be another three-for-three yo-yo situation. Leeds was the best team in the Championship. Unlike Leicester last season, Leeds has held onto its manager in Daniel Farke. The club has also managed to keep most of the key players from the promotion, while adding through transfers with that promotion money. Leeds has invested in not getting relegated. We think it makes it happen.

For a second there, Wolves was down in the relegation zone. In the end, the club avoided relegation. Honestly, though? We saw one of the worst collection of promoted teams in Premier League history. That isn’t the case this year, even if, as you likely have realized, we have two clubs going right back down. It will be harder for Wolves to fight off Leeds than Leicester. That is especially true because the club has now lost Matheus Cunha and Rayan Ait-Nouri. Wolves brought in plenty of transfer fee money. It will need that money to help get promoted back up next season. Or so we predict.

The yo-yoing continues. Promotion, relegation, promotion, and, if our prediction is correct, relegation. Now, we do believe this time that manager Scott Parker won’t pull a Vincent Kompany and try to make the same thing that worked in the Championship work in the Premier League. That being said, Burnley’s success in the Championship was largely predicated on the goalkeeping of James Trafford. Trafford was so good that he’s now with Manchester City. Josh Brownhill, who scored 18 goals last season, has moved on as well. It’s hard to envision Burnley preventing goals well enough to avoid relegation.

Sunderland is finally back in the Premier League. After the club got relegated following the 2016-17 season, it fell on hard times. Sunderland was in League One as recently as the 2021-22 season. It earned promotion through the Championship playoff, but let’s be honest. How often does a team win the playoff and then avoid relegation? It happens, but it isn’t the norm. Sunderland has spent quite a bit of money, including bringing in Granit Xhaka, a move that says, “If we’re going to get relegated, a lot of guys are going to be kicked in the shins first.” Going from 76 points and a plus-14 goal differential while finishing fourth in the Championship to avoiding relegation is a big leap, though. We don’t see that happening. Maybe Sunderland finishes ahead of Burnley, though!