The Annual Football Predictions 2025/26

Premier League Predictions 2025/26 Season

Every season for almost 20 years, I have tried to forecast how the forthcoming football season will pan out. Give a personal prediction of how my team (Tottenham) and others will fare in the months ahead. For many years, I did this with my mate Roger, but in recent seasons he has had his enthusiasm tempered by how his team (Everton) has underperformed.

This coming season could well be the most difficult to predict in years, mainly because there are genuinely four teams that could lift the title, although I feel one team has the edge and then who knows how close the gap is going to be between the next seven or eight teams…

Anyhow, here’s what I think is going to happen:

1^st – Liverpool

This team has properly recruited this summer. Most of their business has been done early and most of their players have had a long summer break. They simply beat the teams around them far too often allowing gaps to widen between them and the rest. It won’t be as easy as last season by a long chalk because the three teams below them have also recruited well. I do wonder how and where the Red Shite have got all this money they spent, but as we know the very top teams have a lot less scrutiny aimed at them than smaller clubs who won’t challenge fines and points deductions with the same gusto and money.

2^nd – Man City

To be honest, I very much doubt they will repeat last season’s failures. They will still lose, Pep sides always do. Therefore I suspect they will lose just too many games to be more than a relatively close challenger. I think it will come down to head-to-head results against the teams around them and there’s this question mark about whether Citeh has the mentality any longer to beat teams who take the game to them. They are still a team to be feared.

3^rd – Arsenal

I was almost tempted to say they’d finish 2^nd, but I think Citeh will have the edge over the Arse. This is another team that has recruited well [ptui], but, you know, the problem this team probably has more than anything else is Arteta. I just don’t think his team has the bottle. I think the one thing they lack is a genuine winning mentality. Despite another year of just about acceptable achievements, I suspect Captain Black will get the sack (at the end of the season).

4^th – Chelsea

I think winning the Club World Cup might be the thing that stops this team from being genuine title contenders. I expect the start of their season will define everything, and then further on in the season when their legs grow tired and there are more injuries, they will falter and start dropping points in games they shouldn’t. They will, however, go on a run of invincibility, only for it to end with a defeat against Sunderland at Stamford Bridge.

5^th – Aston Villa

There’s just something inconsistent about this team. They will do well in everything they’re in and might even win the Europa League. I just think they’re where Spurs were a decade ago, knocking on the Top 4 door, but something gets in the way. Unai Emery is a great coach, but he’s limited by his players at times. I don’t know if they’ve bought well or if they have enough young talent to fill in the gaps. If I was a Villa fan I’d be happy with 5^th.

6^th – Newcastle

The Champions League did for them the season before last and it could well do it again. At the time of writing it was unknown whether Alexander Isak will remain at the club and that is vitally important, because whoever the Bar Codes bring in will need to hit the ground running. I think they will play their part in the shake up for top 5 (UCL qualification), but maybe a lack of true quality will keep them in check, and they’ll always the one most likely team to drop out of it.

7^th – Tottenham

This is really more about hope than a genuine belief. I’d be happy with the League Cup and 10th to be honest, but, this forecast is down to the fact Spurs will lose games they should win, but nowhere near as many as last season. I think Thomas Frank is a good coach, but is he that good? Spurs also need to buy a few players, some upgrades and some extra – quality – bodies in midfield and that’s to be able to finish this high and make a bold show in the cups. Recruitment, so far, has been… controversial, but there is a belief in the club that the majority of this squad, free from injuries, would have performed much better last season, so recruitment may still end up being disappointing – Levy rarely delivers when we need it and with all the academy kids being loaned out like it’s going out of style, you have to wonder what happens if the wheels come off and we don’t have enough players?

Then, of course, a potential season-ending, possibly top class career ending injury happens to one of your main players pre-season and suddenly there’s urgency about getting bodies in that can’t be ignored, except it appears to be. I believe the squad is much better than last season’s 17^th suggests – they can’t be worse. Unless the club invests in a few more players, quickly, it could equally end up being a long season again, only considerably more disappointing.

8^th – Man Utd

Feels a bit weird having this team so low down in a prediction, especially with the resources available to them, but they have a long way to go to get back to where they were. The new recruits are great, but the question mark hangs over whether the players left can play the way Ruben Amorim wants to play and are good enough to break into the European places. They will be so much better than last season and will go far in the domestic cups, but like Spurs that isn’t hard to do.

9^th – Nottm Forest

I’d like to see them relegated, but that’s more to do with their chairman than Forest as a team. I also like the fact that Nuno is proving some of his Spurs doubters’ wrong. The thing is, whatever European trophy they’re in, it’s going to take its toll on a squad top heavy in quantity rather than quality. Like Brighton and West Ham when they flirted with the top and got European football, it has ended up having consequences.

10^th – Brighton

I expect they will flirt with the top half at times, they could have a good start to the season and yet still find it difficult to finish higher than this, but the Premier League is becoming so difficult and Brighton get found out far too often. It depends on what secret new talents they’ve unearthed during the summer to play with a team that works extremely well as a unit but falls apart too often.

11^th – Crystal Palace

In the grand scheme of things, as I type this they still own Guehi, Wharton and Eze, whether that’s the case on September 2^nd is up for debate. Whatever happens in the transfer market, Palace under Oliver Glasner is capable of stringing good runs and halting top teams. No longer one of the team’s you could easily write off but also equally not really a team you see going forwards either.

12^th – Fulham

This could be the age of where finishing 12^th is seen as a good thing. The relegation battle this season could be considerably tighter than in previous years and while Fulham won’t be in it, even if they play as well as they did last year, it’s going to be much tougher to pick up wins. I think Marco Silva is a good coach, but I don’t think he’s a top class one. I reckon they’ll probably end up with 12 wins, 13 draws and 13 defeats – you heard it here first.

13^th – Bournemouth

They will always be ahead of the teams below them, but the Cherries are prone to long losing runs and bad results against top teams. In this extremely difficult season to come, they will be happy to finish above the dog fight. Andoni Iraola is touted for big things, but I think he’s a bit flaky and not consistent enough, despite getting a tune out of a relatively poor squad.

14^th – Wolves

Wolves can be a good team, they play some good football and they will get some great results, but they aren’t going to win enough, not without Matteus Cunha, to challenge the top half. I don’t think they’ve recruited well, but I do think Pereira will get a better tune out of his players than the teams below them. This is a club that strikes me as being more than happy to finish 14^th every year.

15^th – Everton

In the race for the top of the bottom half of the table, David Moyes’ team probably would have had the edge, but they’ve been unable to strengthen their squad well, which makes them doing much more than surviving a tough job. However, they have their new stadium and it would be nice to see a team move to a new stadium and make it a fortress. The reality is they’re always going to be flirting with the bottom 6 but could finish top of that particular mini-league.

16^th – West Ham

Will Graham ‘Harry’ Potter finally become the magician we’ve been led to believe? I want to see them finish higher because my wife and brother-in-law are both Whammers, but I don’t think they have the quality and I don’t think they’ve done well in this transfer window. Might do well in the domestic cups, but this is going to be a squeaky bum season. Potter will be one of the first managers sacked.

17^th – Leeds United

They will just be good enough and will pip it on the final day. This won’t be like their first season back, but equally it won’t be like the season they went down. They will do enough, but the relegation zone is going to be every team from 15^th down and I think there just might be enough in this team to be better than the three below them.

18^th – Brentford

I predict this with a heavy heart, but I don’t know if this team is good enough without its best players (and they’ve lost a few of them) and their old manager, who has moved to Spurs. The Bees new coach is an unknown quantity; he might be the next Pep, but I think he needs to be Jesus to even keep his job. I don’t know if there’s enough to keep them in a league they’ve very much earned the right to be in.

19^th – Burnley

The kangaroo team of the era. They are too good for the Championship but not good enough to stay in the Premier League. They will make a fist of it, Scott Parker will be more canny than Vincent Kompany’s Burnley, but ultimately they will fall short. I can’t see who they will be able to beat.

20^th – Sunderland

I have good friends who are Macams and I’d love to be more positive, but I think this is going to be a long slog with little to be happy about. They’ve been busy in the transfer window but quantity isn’t always quality. The fans will be great. I’m loathe to suggest they might be way out of their depth, but this could be a season that they’ll wish was over by Christmas.

 

FA Cup: Man City

Carabao Cup: Spurs

Champions League: Barcelona

Europa League: Aston Villa

Conference League: Palace if they’re in it.

Championship: Coventry (Wrexham to finish 11^th)

Scottish League One: Stenhousemuir to finish 5^th and lose in the play-offs.

First Manager sacked: Keith Andrew (Brentford), Daniel Farke (Leeds) or Graham Potter (West Ham)