The Premier League’s return is almost upon us. Doing this ahead of every season is a nice reminder of how quickly things can change in the relentless, dog-eat-dog world of top flight football. And each summer break throws up new and intriguing storylines too, with this year’s main themes including Arsenal’s near-impossible quest to dethrone Guardiola’s virtually unstoppable City juggernaut, the rest of the ‘Big 8’ all being incredibly hard to separate, new managers with big questions to answer at West Ham and Brighton, and whether the likes of Palace and Bournemouth can build on impressive early signs under their respective bosses.
On a slightly sour note, it feels as if the gap between the Premier League and the Championship has never been greater, and thus the whole pyramid system has never seemed so broken. Leicester, Leeds and Southampton all looked far, far too good for the Championship last season and yet two of them now return to the top flight looking short of quality compared to the rest of the division. Worse still, the impending points deduction for Leicester (because of yet more PSR breaches) renders the effort of getting promoted back at the first time of asking almost meaningless.
Anyway, the predictions. I didn’t do badly with my guesses last season, so here’s to hoping the following ends up being an accurate reflection of the season ahead!
20th– Nottingham Forest
Forest are one of those teams where it feels like they’ve avoided relegation almost by accident thus far, and that can never be sustained for long. Really, they should have gone down last season, with a poor tally of 36 points (not counting their -4 deduction for PSR troubles). They were just lucky that the three promoted teams were the worst ever trio in Premier League history, but this year I’d argue Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton all look better than Forest. Nuno is a solid, if unspectacular, manager but you just know he’ll be sacked as soon as they go on a winless run and I don’t see anyone else coming in to save them this time.
19th– Leicester
Leicester might have just had the most deflating title-winning post-season of all time. Firstly, their manager was poached by Chelsea, then their best player went with him. There is also the looming threat of a points deduction, which could prove too big an obstacle to overcome for a team that was always likely to be in the bottom third of the table anyway. Steve Cooper is a criminally underrated manager in my view, but he’s also not the inspiring appointment that their fans were craving. In a division as strong as this, they look set to be left behind.
18th– Southampton
I’m not as sure on this pick as I am the previous two, as Southampton look they like have a decent squad, with a promising young manager. I think their issue might be the same one that cost Burnley last year, and that’s their style of play. Playing a risky possession-based style works in the Championship when you have the better players, but giving the ball away in dangerous areas is footballing suicide in the Premier League. Man City 8-0 Southampton already has an ominous, inevitable ring to it…
17th– Fulham
I say it every year, but I swear I don’t have an agenda against Fulham! Their relative stability since promotion is a testament to the job Marco Silva has done, because every time I weigh up the prospects of the twenty teams, they always look like one of the weaker squads. The sale of Joao Palhinha is arguably a bigger loss than the departure of Mitrovic the year before, and they have an appalling away record. They’ll probably still pick up the odd big scalp at Craven Cottage, but they can’t keep chalking up defeats to the bottom half sides and hope to stay out of trouble.
16th– Ipswich
Ipswich are undoubtedly the most impressive story of the previous two years in English football. Kieran McKenna has taken them from the middle of League One to the Premier League in a little over two years, and has done it with an exciting and uncompromising brand of football as well. They arrive with the biggest feel-good factor of the promoted teams, further buoyed by McKenna committing himself to the club after strong interest from Chelsea and Brighton, and I can see them riding that momentum to an impressive start to the season. After Christmas will be tougher, but if the hype around McKenna is to be believed, then he could well lead them to an unlikely and hugely creditable survival.
15th– Wolves
Wolves exceeded expectations last time out, with Gary O’Neil doing a great job in stabilising the club after Julen Lopetegui’s acrimonious departure. However, they still only finished 14th and some untimely injuries in the latter stages of last season highlighted the lack of depth in their squad. Selling ever-present club captain Max Kilman to West Ham is another blow and all this means that they fall into ‘mid-table at best’ territory once again.
14th– Brentford
For the first time since they were promoted three years ago, Brentford endured some difficult spells last season. The storied return of their talisman Ivan Toney from a betting ban was a bit of an anti-climax in the end, as he endured a barren goalless run, whilst he seems to have talked himself out a move to a bigger side by over-estimating his own value. However, they are getting a lot of key players back from long-term injuries and Thomas Frank’s managerial nous combined with their flexible and awkward playing style should ensure they still have more than enough to survive.
13th– Brighton
Similarly to Brentford, Brighton were perhaps due an underwhelming season after years of over-achievement and the wheels appeared to come off a little bit after a sensational start to life under Roberto De Zerbi. Now the enigmatic Italian is gone, Brighton have made arguably their most “Brighton” decision yet by appointing the 31-year-old Fabian Hurzeler, whose only managerial experience is at German second-tier side, St. Pauli (albeit who he won the title with). Their ownership have more than enough credit in the bank to justify such a punt, but it feels as if others have gained ground on the Seagulls and perhaps a transitional and inconsistent first season under Hurzeler is to be expected.
12th– Everton
After years of chaos and successive last-gasp escapes from relegation, have Everton finally found some stability? Certainly not at board level, as the proposed takeover from the Friedkin group seems to have fallen through, fuelling further concern about their long-term future. On the pitch however, the reliable steering of Sean Dyche has made them a hard-to-beat outfit. They coped well with the points deductions last year, and with a clean slate this time around, as well as some exciting new additions, they should be able to finally start looking up the table.
11th– West Ham
West Ham were the hardest team to predict this year, by some way actually. That’s because it seems just as likely that they’ll be the ones to gatecrash the elite and push for a European place, as it does that they’ll be dragged into the relegation battle. David Moyes is gone, which has led to greater excitement, but also greater uncertainty. I personally think they could have been more ambitious than appointing Julen Lopetegui as manager, but if the near-daily rumours actually turn into confirmed signings, they could end up having the most exciting transfer window of any side. If I had to call it, I’d say a likely significant tactical adjustment will take time to implement and thus it will be a slightly deflating mid-table finish for the Hammers this time around.
10th– Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace have been in the top flight now for twelve consecutive seasons, but have surely never been as interesting. Oliver Glasner quietly revolutionised the South London club when he arrived in February and they finished the season looking as good as anyone. Since then, they’ve sold Michael Olise to Bayern Munich but have so far kept hold of their other star players and made some clever acquisitions of their own. There’s still too big a gap for them to dream about Europe, but Glasner has a reputation as a cup specialist, so perhaps that should be their main goal this year.
9th– Bournemouth
I said of Bournemouth last year: “This will either go one of two ways: Iraola will live up to some of the hype and become the next Pochettino or De Zerbi, or it will prove a disaster and he’ll be gone by Christmas.” Well, it was the former! After a rocky start, Iraola manged to instil a hard-pressing and dynamic style into this Bournemouth team and with a summer of minimal disruption, I think they’re best placed to be this season’s surprise package. If they do manage to better last season’s finish, expect Iraola to be poached by a bigger side, as he appears to tick a lot of the boxes the continent’s elite look for in their managers.
8th– Chelsea
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this negative about Chelsea going into a new season. Despite all the chaos of last year, we finally seemed to be making progress under Pochettino, ending the season with five straight wins… and then they got rid of him. Enzo Maresca is an intriguing choice to replace him, but he would have been nowhere near the Chelsea job had he not have once worked under Pep Guardiola. His appointment is just the latest divisive and reactive decision of the Boehly-Clearlake ownership, who, for all their talk of ‘the long-term strategy’, basically just copy whichever club is currently having success. Added to that, the disgusting treatment of home-grown talents Gallagher and Chalobah, seemingly to accommodate aggressively mediocre signings like Tosin and Dewsbury-Hall, means that we seem to have taken five steps back at the exact moment there was actually an opportunity to move forward.
7th– Aston Villa
The latest disruptors of the increasingly immaterial “Big 6” are Villa, under the outstanding stewardship of Unai Emery. However, as Newcastle found to their cost last season, qualifying for the Champions League is both a blessing and a curse, with the unfamiliar addition of high-level midweek games often leading to a dip in league form. More frustratingly, the flawed nature of the league’s financial rules effectively punishes those team who over-achieve, and Villa have had to sell Douglas Luiz and Moussa Diaby to comply. The margins at the top are so small that even such minor inconveniences can cause you to be leap-frogged by the league’s big boys and that could well be the case for Aston Villa in 2024-25.
6th– Newcastle
As they enter the third full year of their Saudi ownership, Newcastle have hit something of a crossroads. Like Villa, they had to sell to keep their finances in order (as ludicrous as that is for the richest club in the world); Eddie Howe seems a strong choice for the vacant England job, and they endured a topsy-turvy, but ultimately disappointing, season last time around. With no European football as a distraction this time, I expect them to be more consistent, with their high-energy playing style better suited to only playing once a week. Champions League qualification probably hinges on if Alexander Isak can stay fit. If he can, they’ve got an outside chance.
5th– Tottenham
Ah, Spurs. Always a bridesmaid and all that. After years of stagnation and huge disenchantment within the fanbase, Tottenham finally seemed to have turned a corner last year when Ange Postecoglou took the league by storm (until October anyway). It all ended with a whimper in the end, as it so often does with Spurs, with questions being asked of Big Ange’s high-risk tactics. In comparison to those around them, they’ve had a fairly stable pre-season and that should stand them in good stead for another crack at the top four. The problem is that when the crunch comes in April/May, you just know they’ll fall short one way or another.
4th– Manchester United
United’s last four league finishes: 2nd, 6th, 3rd, 8th. What the hell do you take from that?! If you follow the pattern, then they’re due an improvement on last year’s dismal placing. Apparently it’s a “new” United now, thanks to the takeover and immediate revamp of the footballing operations by Jim Radcliffe. However, they’re still coached by Erik Ten Hag, who has shown that an FA Cup win has enough merit to excuse an abysmal league season (or was there just no-one else available…) and the same inconsistent figureheads remain the key men: Fernandes, Rashford and somehow even Sancho! Mocking aside, United do seem best placed to benefit from the disjointed (or downright self-destructive) summers of their rivals and should be a decent bet for a return to the top four.
3rd– Liverpool
The team with the biggest change to deal with are surely Liverpool, if mainly on an emotional level, with the departure of Jurgen Klopp. His successor is the somewhat unheralded Arne Slot and it’s inevitable there will need to be a period of adaptation, mainly because Klopp had been there so long that the entire team was built in his image. However, I would argue Klopp actually did some of Slot’s rebuilding for him last summer, with a complete midfield overhaul. Unlike when Ferguson and Wenger left United and Arsenal respectively, Klopp has gifted Slot a very exciting and well-rounded squad to work with and the Dutchman would disappoint if he didn’t match last year’s third place finish.
2nd– Manchester City
Yes, I know. This is like betting against Kim Jong Un being President of North Korea. We are in an unprecedented period of dominance within the English top division and whilst City’s significant financial might has a lot to do with it (and potentially their rule-bending tendencies…) it is also due to the relentless perfectionism of Pep Guardiola. The incomparable Catalan has hinted this could be his final season, which is fantastic news for the rest of the league, but worryingly he’ll surely want to end on a high. If I was actively trying to find reasons they might not win for a fifth year in a row, it would maybe be the age of some of their key players. Ederson, Walker, Stones, Kovacic and De Bruyne are all now 30+, but that is the definition of clutching at straws.
1st– Arsenal
If it doesn’t happen for Arsenal this year, then it never will. They’ve made notable improvements year-on-year, both in improving their team and squad and in terms of mentality and playing style. They had the best defence last year and have now added Ricardo Calafiori to their ranks, as well as basically having Jurrien Timber as a second new signing, after his ACL injury in the opening games of last season. Most people consider their only weakness to be the lack of a 20-goal striker, but they still managed to score 91 goals as a team last year, so they’re not exactly short of firepower. Mikel Arteta joked that it would take 114 points to guarantee the title. 100 should be enough, but anything less than that and you’re in the Guardiola danger zone once again.
George F Brown 