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:
1. Arsenal
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.
2. Manchester City
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.
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Aggressive moves are being made in the market to replace Silva and Rodri, though a checkered record of recruitment recently does not dissuade any doubts one might have over the youthful Ayyoub Bouaddi and the temperamental Enzo Fernandez. Beyond the injured Jeremy Doku and Antoine Semenyo, options out wide look shaky too. There is a lot of work still to be done before a ball has been kicked.
Two years ago Liverpool proved the value of keeping the core of the squad intact for just a while longer when their transformative coach left. It seemed they learned lessons from Manchester United and Arsenal over the previous decade. There is enough talent at the Etihad to ensure that City bottoming out looks different to those two giants but it feels more plausible that this team will drop lower than estimates rather than go higher.
3. Chelsea
You could probably throw a blanket over teams three, four and five. None look anything like the finished article. Most seem to have made shrewd moves in the off-season. The shrewdest of them all might be the appointment of Xabi Alonso by Chelsea. Though his time at Real Madrid was a challenge, the 44 year old has the aura as both a player and title-winning coach to command immediate respect in a Stamford Bridge dressing room that did for Liam Rosenior earlier in the year.
When Chelsea play well and avoid red cards -- they at least did the former with Maresca -- they profile as the third best team in the division and this summer looks to have rounded out the quality of their squad. Maxence Lacroix brings pace and experience to defense while the likes of Marco Palestra, Pep Chavarria and even Valentin Barco should allow Alonso to switch between a back three and four. If Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck have the right impact in the dressing room, the red card issue might just ease.
Morgan Rogers might be a huge overpay, a $158 million record fee for an attacker whose 25 goal contributions last season come with an xG and xA overperformance of a third, but this is the transfer window. Can you really expect Chelsea's owners not to get carried away?
That is half the worry when it comes to this club. Chelsea have been a deeply unserious endeavour since the BlueCo takeover of 2022. Can Behdad Eghbali and company be trusted not to do something 'disruptive' for the sake of it? A year of relative quiet without the strains of European football could see Chelsea build smartly for the future. It is just not clear that ownership can be trusted to let things ride out.
4. Manchester United
Adding a whole new attack to the equation last season brought delayed but ultimately impressive results as Bruno Fernandes excelled with his new supporting cast. Now Manchester United are trying a similar trick further back on the field with a much-needed overhaul of their midfield. In a market where nine figures is the going rate, Youri Tielemans looks a snip at less than half that. Andrey Santos probably won't be a star but a reliable depth piece who can mop up out of possession, never goes amiss.
These are shrewd pick-ups at impressive prices, none more so than the imminent arrival of Carlos Baleba, expected to arrive for a fee around $90 million but some way below the $136 million Brighton were asking for him last year. While 2025-26 was a challenging one for the 22-year-old, it is not a bad idea to bet on that being one unsettled by injuries and speculation over the move to United that did not happen 12 months ago.
CBS Sports A deeper roster will be necessary as Michael Carrick tries to juggle Champions League and Premier League football in his first season in the job. It seems likely that at some point they will run out of the steam that powered them down the stretch last season, much as it is probable that Fernandes won't quite replicate last season's highs. Lucky then that United have made smart moves such as Tielemans to mitigate that risk.
5. Liverpool
The triumph of Liverpool in the Klopp era was that of an organisation whose every aspect seemed joined up to the other. Coaching staff had a style of play, the recruitment team found the perfect players to implement it. That seemed to go awry when the likes of Michael Edwards left the first time and even more off-kilter when he and Richard Hughes got hold of the squad again. The empowering of those above the manager ultimately led to signings and squad management with little rhyme and reason. The errors of the last few years are far from addressed.
Swapping out Ibrahima Konate for talented youngster Jeremy Jacquet and the error-prone Ronald Araujo is a gamble. Arne Slot spent much of his final season hammering his best player, Dominik Szoboszlai, into a right back-shaped hole and yet Araujo is the only addition who might cover that spot. Midfield seems to work off the assumption that Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister will always be who they were in the title-winning season. Unless they are, losing Curtis Jones to Inter seems a strange call. All that and Mohamed Salah's spot on the right flank has gone unfilled. Can Bradley Barcola learn a new league and a new position at the same time? If Liverpool get their man at the price PSG want then they might need him to.
What this means is Andoni Iraola has been bequeathed a challenging situation. His experience at Bournemouth may well have readied him for that. Certainly he proved himself to be tactically adaptable on the south coast. Whether he will be afforded the same time to make mistakes at Anfield, where he is succeeding a coach sacked one year after winning the title, is an open question.
6. Brentford
From here down to at least 14th, maybe lower, take your pick, have fun with it. Half a non-penalty expected goal per game separated last season's sixth best team by that particular metric, Brighton, and the 17th, West Ham United. The margins between sixth and 10th were even finer, both in the table and by more advanced metrics. Really then you are looking for one of that group that might have kicked on.
Brentford make as interesting an option as any for this position. For once, the Bees did not lose a key player in the summer window and that has afforded them opportunities to deepen a roster that delivered above-average performances until it was about time to don their flip-flops for the final weeks of the season-ball.
CBS Sports There have not been a lot of incomings and Burnley winger Jaidon Anthony probably is not going to rock anyone's world. Club record signing Mamadou Sangare, however, had a lot of recruitment circles abuzz last season and could add the sort of all-round midfield presence, both in terms of shots and ball-winning, that elevates this team.
7. Brighton & Hove Albion
Without wishing to offer an immediate riposte to, well, myself, there is one problem with boxing every team from sixth to 15th-ish together. Last season Brighton, in xG terms, were significantly better than most of them, nearer to the richest sides in the league by those measures. If we're expecting some regression by the Aston Villas of the world, why shouldn't the Seagulls be the one to snap up the riches on offer?
CBS Sports Two reasons stand: the demands of European football and of rejigging a squad that has lost several senior players. Baleba might have had a down year but his 1668 Premier League minutes will need replacing; at the time of writing it looks like it will have to be done internally at least in the short term. The same is true of Danny Welbeck, whose Indian summer has now taken him to Chelsea. Swapping out Jan Paul van Hecke for Luka Vuskovic might prove to be the sort of shrewd long-term play that Brighton are masters at. However, you suspect in 2026-27 the Dutchman will be more value to Tottenham than Brighton's new signing is to them, even though Vuskovic was one of the best defenders in the Bundesliga last season.
8. Tottenham Hotspur
Instinctively this feels lower than it ought to for a team with Tottenham's wealth, over $300 million of which has already been invested in the squad before a ball has been kicked. Most of it looks to have been wisely spent. In defense, Andy Robertson offers the sort of veteran leadership that the departed Cristian Romero never did, while new center backs Van Hecke and Marcos Senesi address some of the chronic passing issues that this club had let fester in their obsession with recruiting for physical profiles. Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes could do similar in midfield.
That is five good rather than great Premier League players and the prospect of more to come, potentially Cody Gakpo, Savinho and Omar Marmoush. What do you get when you add them to a club who have legitimately been one of the four or five worst in the top flight for successive seasons? Much of 2025-26 proved that the previous year had not been a fluke, that Tottenham really had got that bad. At least it probably did. Or maybe it was just a case of more terribly timed injuries. No wonder they found ball progression and chance creation to be agonising when James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski were sidelined.
CBS Sports In their final seven games under Roberto de Zerbi, Spurs found legitimate form. A confluence of their own desperation and opponents with altogether less to play for? Or a coach of real quality who was able to coach above league average? It still feels like we need more evidence to get a convincing read on last season. How can we confidently predict next?
9. Aston Villa
What initially looked like being a reload job, cashing in on a few valuable assets to strengthen Unai Emery's hand for the long haul, has rapidly become something altogether crueller for Aston Villa. Rogers, Tielemans and Lucas Digne have gone. Ezri Konsa will soon follow, while there are doubts over the future of Emiliano Martinez. For now the word is that Villa remain resolute in their insistence on keeping Ollie Watkins amid interest from Al-Hilal, a forward they could really do with to help shepherd them through the rebuild.
Long term, their business might deliver promise. Zion Suzuki and Johan Manzambi were two of the most hyped young players going into the transfer window and could eventually prove to be upgrades on Martinez and Rogers. If Brian Madjo's debut is anything to go on, then he will eventually be a rival to or foil for Watkins. Eventually, however, is the operative word. Bringing down the average age of their veteran squad had long seemed round the corner for Villa but this rather seems to have been done in more of a rush than is ideal.
10. Nottingham Forest
So long as Nottingham Forest remain the Premier League plaything of Evangelos Marinakis, it is going to be a mug's game predicting what might happen. If we set aside trying to read the mind of one of English football's most capricious owners, then what do we have? A squad that does not want for talent even after the departure of their best player in Anderson. A new head coach in Oliver Glasner who has a proven track record of delivering good performances in the Premier League. Recruitment that has secured talent, versatile players that would fit ideally into their manager's back three but could thrive if something changed. Ousmane Diomande and Xaver Schlager already look primed to make a big impact.
It has to be said, Forest were really quite bad for a lot of last season, rarely putting together a run of points, goals or xG that would suggest they are a league-average team. This time, though, it is easier to argue against the analytics. This club went whiplashing from Nuno Espirito Santo to Vitor Pereira via the almost diametrically opposed Ange Postecoglou and Sean Dyche. If they can just give themselves a year of continuity, then 10th or even higher seems completely achievable. Big if though.
11. Bournemouth
One of the model clubs when it comes to replacing their players, can Bournemouth do the same for a head coach? Bringing in Marco Rose to fill Iraola's shoes at least points to more joined-up thinking; if you want to carry on with the all-action pressing of the last two seasons, then you could do a lot worse than a coach whose RB Leipzig side ranked third in the Bundesliga for the proportion of opposition touches to which they applied pressure. A swashbuckling attack was another of Bournemouth's hallmarks and, well, they just beat Genoa 10-1 in a preseason friendly. If you can take anything from those games, it is that that is pretty, pretty good.
The challenge for Bournemouth will be how they retain their energy -- they were second in the league in proportion of opposition touches to which they applied pressure last season -- Thursday to Sunday, travelling to the somewhat far-flung locales that the Europa League will introduce them to. So far they have not deepened their squad to compete on two fronts but instead replaced the players they have lost: Antonio Silva for Senesi, Juanlu Sanchez for Alex Jimenez and Alvaro Rodriguez for Enes Unal.
12. Crystal Palace
Their fans wouldn't appreciate it being framed in these terms but there is a bit of the Brightons to where Crystal Palace find themselves at the start of this season. One of the darlings of the analytics community, the Eagles even proved themselves able to soar (for a while) when they lost Marc Guehi midway through the season. Can they do the same without Glasner and Lacroix?
There has not been a great deal of many available to give new head coach Pierre Sage many fresh tools, with Anan Khalaili and US forward Zavier Gozo the only players to be signed for a fee. Then again Oscar Mingueza and, if fit, Takehiro Tomiyasu promise to be steals of free transfers and there is even a case to be made for Dwight McNeil coming in for Brennan Johnson. The more orthodox wing profile of McNeil fits a little better alongside Jean-Philippe Mateta, Jorgen Strand Larsen and, so long as he stays, Ismaila Sarr.
13. Everton
This seems a rather uninspiring assessment of Everton as they look to build on successive 13th-placed finishes. It is worth saying that they could go higher, particularly if Hayden Hackney gets anywhere close to replicating his Championship form in the top tier. Just look at all the ways in which he was elite compared to his positional peers in the division.
CBS Sports The midfield that surrounds Hackney looks well balanced. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and James Garner excelled last season; Christian Norgaard is a robust replacement for Idrissa Gana Gueye and Merlin Rohl has won rave reviews in preseason. If the new man can fulfil some of his promise, then this is a player who the Toffees could make multiple times their money on.
Bigger questions for Everton lie in a defense that has seen no investment despite the fact that they had to ride another fine shot-stopping season from Jordan Pickford to keep the goals conceded column at 50. The issues are not necessarily entirely personnel related (though a new right back would not go amiss) and more to do with the passivity that Everton showed without the ball. Only Burnley and West Ham allowed more passes to get through their lines in their defensive third. That is not what one would historically expect from a David Moyes team. If it does not change, then the ceiling for this team will be worryingly low.
14. Newcastle United
It is not just that this summer Newcastle have lost their best attacker, their two best midfielders and their head coach. That would be bad enough. The worry for the Magpies, the sort that could lead to them dropping a fair way lower even than this worrying spot, is how they have replaced them. Every one of the six new signings they have made is 24 and under. Combined they have played 71 games in Europe's top five leagues, none in the Premier League.
The fearlessness of youth could carry them a long way. Bazoumana Toure is said to be a thrilling young winger and Sean Steur was wanted by a host of top clubs before he left Ajax. These youngsters will have to click. After all they were signed for combined fees of over $200 million, not all of the money Newcastle got for Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes. This at a time when they cannot count on owners PIF to push the envelope.
Managing this reforged squad, the head coach is a 38-year-old who has previously managed in Austria and Saudi Arabia, enjoying notable success at the latter given that Al-Ahli were not necessarily the best equipped of the Pro League's big four. Matthias Jaissle will be taking over a club in that most perilous of emotional states, one that only recently believed that the sky was the limit and has now had its place in the pecking order repeatedly hammered home this summer, as it did last.
15. Leeds United
Leeds United are looking for a man in football, 6ft 5in, blue eyes, trust fund. Actually, to be honest, the last two aren't that much of a deal breaker. They just want them tall. There is so much to admire in the way that Daniel Farke's side came up from the Championship last season having swashed so many buckles, took a look at the way the game was heading and concluded that it was time to line all the tall boys up at set pieces. It really worked and they have gone back to that well again this summer, 6ft 2in Nico Elvedi following the giant Tarik Muharemovic, 6ft 4in, through the door. You'll never guess how tall new goalkeeper James Trafford is? Ding ding ding, 6ft 6in it is.
CBS Sports Steady growth seems to be the focus for Leeds this season, their budget not unduly stretched with a shade over $100 million in expenditure. For all the hope that the back half of the last campaign engendered, their manager is keen to set expectations at a measured level. Everyone is talking of Europe and trophies, but it's important we stay humble and grounded," Farke said.
"In the last 25 years our highest Premier League finish has been ninth, so we need to go step by step. The second year after promotion can be difficult and dangerous, but we are hopeful we can have a good season."
16. Sunderland
Now we are in the danger zone. Any of the five teams listed from here on out could go down and it is easy to see why Sunderland are the non-promoted team that bookmakers deem the most likely to drop down to the Championship. They might have finished seventh last season but at both ends of the field the expected goals for and against column told a very different story. The Black Cats had the fourth most shooting goals added, a metric that assesses the value of shots after they are taken against the value before the ball is kicked, and their opponents had the 18th most in the league.
It is hard to make much of a case for even the most talented teams running so hot at both ends. Sunderland almost certainly aren't one of those. Brian Brobbey, Wilson Isidor, Chemsine Talbi: this is not a list of the best finishers in the game. It is a collection of forwards who got hot enough last season to take their team to the Europa League. At the moment, that looks as much a headache for Regis Le Bris as the joy it will be for supporters. Veteran fullback Thomas Meunier is the only addition to deepen the squad.
CBS Sports Why not pick them to go down then? Ultimately it is easy to trust in the Sunderland organisation. After all they took a squad that had reached the Premier League against the odds and imbued them with just enough youthful quality that a season where the breaks went their way meant more than just a 20th-placed team getting to 18th. Le Bris had his attack trending in the right direction as last season ended, perhaps trusting in the team that delivered such a dream season will be vindicated.
17. Ipswich Town
The Championship has not really delivered a team on the level of Leeds United this season and, as we noted above, even the best and brightest from the second tier had to rip up their gameplan to close the gap between them and the regulars in the richest league in the world. The likeliest conclusion to this season is that the three that came up went back down; that I have not predicted them is less a ringing endorsement of what Ipswich have done than some very profound doubts about the team below them.
Having said that, Ipswich do seem to have made some shrewd moves to ready themselves for a very different challenge. Florentino Luis is no one's idea of a midfielder who runs the game from deep but when the matches are being taken to you as often as they will be to the Tractor Boys, you might as well have someone who can win his tackles. Cede possession down the flanks, let the opposition lob crosses in and trust that Cedric Kipre, Issa Diop and the giant Kjell Scherpen can deal with enough that you turn the odd one-goal defeat into a draw. Daizen Maeda might even nick you three points at the other end.
Presiding over it all is Gary O'Neil, who won't win you much in the way of style points but at both Bournemouth and Wolverhampton Wanderers proved himself able to parachute into a hostile environment at a moment's notice and deliver the 16th or 17th best team in the Premier League. Ipswich have done everything you could ask of a team whose best bet is being just about good enough. Perhaps it will work out.
18. Fulham
For Ipswich or Coventry to survive it will take one incumbent having got their summer disastrously wrong. Might I offer Fulham as that team? The loss of Marco Silva was always going to be keenly felt, as were those of Raul Jimenez and Harry Wilson. Neither of those two players are necessarily elite Premier League player, but their output will need replacing. In Fulham's case, that's 19 goals and 10 assists you've got to find from somewhere.
Do a few youngsters plucked from the fringes of Real Madrid offer that? That Gonzalo Garcia and Cesar Palacios managed to take the field at the Santiago Bernabeu means we can assume they are competent but it is a very different role picking up the odd minute here and there for a title contender as opposed to being key figures in a side who will have to battle against relegation. You could say the same of new head coach Alvaro Arbeloa. The 43-year-old certainly kept the dugout warm during the second half of last season at Real Madrid.
The commitment to a youth movement that was apparent both in Shahid Khan's unveiling of Arbeloa and the further signings of Jonah Kusi-Asare and Shea Charles is admirable. For it to be effective, these talents cannot be asked to cover for the loss of nearly half of a team's goals. This could really backfire.
19. Coventry City
Given the crises of near bankruptcy and homelessness that Coventry have suffered in the quarter century since they last played Premier League football, it is perhaps easy to understand why their recruitment business has the look of a team trying to toe the line between a real swing at survival and gearing up to conquer the second tier if they return.
"For teams who get promoted, we know what the gap is, history tells you that," manager Frank Lampard said. "We knew we had work to do. We tried to strike the balance working smartly and strategically in the window. We are stepping up a big level now and need competition both in training and game time. The rigours of the Premier League mean we've had to add players in different areas."
Gustavo Hamer is the archetypal too good for the Championship but not quite Premier League player. Frank Onyeka and Loum Tchaouna might fulfil the criteria too. It will be intriguing to see whether Carl Rushworth can make the step up after an impressive season on loan. Caleb Yirenkyi and Sidiki Cherif have caused something of a buzz in recruitment circles. Around $170 million spent and the Sky Blues have a puncher's chance. It might just be that there are not quite enough bad teams in the league this season to make a gap for them.
20. Hull City
Hull City began the 2024-25 season under a transfer embargo. The top scorer in the previous year's battle against the drop had departed. They would go on to concede 66 goals, the fourth most in the Championship. The only team with an expected goal difference worse than them were Sheffield Wednesday, battered and bruised by points penalties. If you only knew that, would you not imagine Hull might be spending this season in League One? Instead, a miraculous run of results culminating in a playoff final win over heavily favored Middlesbrough has them back in the top flight.
The new faces are interesting -- Australian center back Lucas Herrington was tracked by Barcelona and Liverpool but Hull were the first to press ahead and secure a deal -- but on paper they don't look like a group that can turn some of the worst analytics in the Championship into the 17th best team in the top flight. Hull are living proof that miracles can happen in sport. They do not, however, tend to be continually visited upon the same individuals.
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