Football betting tips: Premier League 26/27 outright
1pt Arsenal 1st, Man City 2nd, Chelsea 3rd straight Tricast at 40/1 (bet365)
1pt Arsenal 1st, Chelsea 2nd, Man City 3rd straight Tricast at 50/1 (bet365)
1.5pts Nottingham Forest top 6 finish at 17/2 (Paddy Power)
0.5pt Nottingham Forest top 5 finish at 16/1 (BetVictor)
3pts All three promoted teams to be relegated at 4/1 (General)
1pt e.w. Cole Palmer to be top scorer at 40/1 (General 1/4, 1-4)
0.5pt e.w. Igor Jesus to be top scorer at 150/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/4 1-4)
Arsenal finally, finally got over the line last season to win their first Premier League title since 2004, ultimately finishing seven points clear, leaning on the division's meanest defence for stability.
All season I was saying that the Gunners' have the highest floor of any team in the top flight, though Manchester City's ceiling was higher. While City struggled for consistency, Arsenal's 60% performances were still good enough to beat two-thirds of teams.
I'm glad for Mikel Arteta that he won a first title while Pep Guardiola was still around, avoiding the inevitable asterisk of a title win in a Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp-less Premier League. He no longer has to worry about either of them, with a huge shake-up in the hot seats at the top end of the division.
City have replaced Guardiola with Enzo Maresca, Chelsea have appointed Xabi Alonso and Liverpool sacked Arne Slot, replacing him with Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola. That follows Manchester United and Tottenham appointing Michael Carrick and Roberto De Zerbi during 25/26 too.
Add that to managerial changes at Bournemouth, Fulham, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest and continuity could be a huge asset this term, especially at the start as new coaches get to grips with their players and, for some, a new league.
Newly-promoted Ipswich also made a managerial change to take the overall tally to nine this summer - a new Premier League record - and they, alongside Championship winners Coventry and play-off winners Hull, will be aiming to replicate Leeds and Sunderland in staying up last season. A tough ask.
Gunning for Tricast glory
Given the upheaval around them it's really hard to see anything other than ARSENAL retaining their title. The best side in the league last season has been strengthened by signing Bruno Guimaraes, and winger Christos Tzolis is arguably an upgrade on Leandro Trossard.
They had the best underlying process in the division, and managed situations and the pressure extremely well. All of that alongside deep cup runs, reaching the final of both the Carabao Cup and Champions League, as well as the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.
The squad at Arteta's disposal is loaded with excellent players, two for every position, so another tilt at multiple titles has to be at the forefront of their minds, especially given most of their challengers could well be in transition seasons.
Last season's runners up, MANCHESTER CITY, have undergone the monumental change of Guardiola leaving but former assistant Maresca should be a safe-ish pair of hands.
He has a fantastic squad to make the transition as smooth as possible and the former Chelsea manager takes over a team who won the domestic cup double last term. More importantly, no sign of any of those 115 charges... yet.
Liverpool suffered a severe drop off from their 24/25 title win, finishing fifth and scraping Champions League football. While I'm a big fan of Andoni Iraola, he has a massive job on his hands - I've gone into more detail on the Reds in my Deep Dive. I wouldn't be surprised to see them fall further this season.
Tottenham will improve but have a mountain to climb to even get back into the top six mix having finished 17th in back-to-back seasons, though no European football does help, while Manchester United have Champions League commitments and are easily left out of the title conversation.
The Red Devils played only 40 games in total last season, benefiting from no midweek football to finish third under Michael Carrick. It will be very different this season, with at least another eight games in a worst case scenario for them. More likely it'll be another 15.
Back Blues bounceback
Perhaps Chelsea can replicate what United did and take advantage of their lack of European football to get back into the top four. I certainly think they will.
Xabi Alonso is a fantastic appointment and it seems as though BlueCo have finally grown up and appointed someone with a track record of being an elite manager.
Alonso heads to Stamford Bridge with the club in need of a period of stability having gone through too many managers since the new ownership took over, with Alonso their seventh in the last four seasons, not including multiple interim boss Callum McFarlane.
The fact that the club are seemingly backing him with transfers that suit his system has to be seen as a positive too. Morgan Rogers is an excellent acquisition who can play alongside Cole Palmer in the dual-10s Alonso likes to operate with in a 3-4-3, while it looks like the Blues are shopping for the experience they've sorely missed over the past few seasons, with Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson coming in as culture setters after Chelsea's serious ill-discipline problem last season.
Alonso will be looking forward to working with and moulding this squad, but he already has a first-class midfield duo in Enzo Fernandez (at the time of writing) and Moises Caicedo, while in forward areas they have plenty of quality with Rogers joining Palmer, Joao Pedro and Estevao. That latter trio should be raring to go, likely with a chip on their shoulders, having been snubbed for the World Cup too.
Defensively they have made improvements and there is enough there, in my opinion, for that not to be an issue this term. I would like to see them sign a better goalkeeper though...
Alonso has been incredibly successful in his short managerial career, and even impressed at Real Madrid despite getting sacked. He took over Bayer Leverkusen after two months of the 2022 season when they were second bottom of the league after their worst start in over 40 years and duly led them to a sixth-place finish and a Europa League semi-final.
The following campaign saw him lead Leverkusen to their first ever Bundesliga title alongside the DFB-Pokal, going unbeaten in the domestic season and losing just once all campaign, that coming in the Europa League final. That season saw Leverkusen break the European record for the longest unbeaten run in all competitions (51).
Despite leaving Madrid after seven months, Alonso's record was excellent, returning a 70.6% win rate and losing just six of 34. This is a serious coach we are talking about, and Chelsea are lucky to have him. He should take the Blues to a new level, and while they finished 10th last season, the data had them ranked fifth on expected points, suggesting not much is needed to get them into the top four.
Arsenal to win the title is 6/4 which I think is a value single for those interested in tying up money for nine months on that sort of price, and the same can be said of Chelsea top four which is 10/11.
Alternatively, I've got punchy 40/1 and 50/1 TRICASTS which will hopefully go close. I'd be hugely surprised if the top three wasn't ARSENAL, MANCHESTER CITY AND CHELSEA given everything discussed, and given how bullish I am on the Gunners repeating, we'll flip City and Chelsea for two darts at the tricast.
So that's ARSENAL 1ST, MAN CITY 2ND, CHELSEA 3RD at 40/1 and ARSENAL 1ST, CHELSEA 2ND, MAN CITY 3RD at 50/1.
Forest can be a force
If Alonso's appointment ranks top of the managerial changes made this summer, then Nottingham Forest's scalp of Oliver Glasner is a close second. The Austrian has been pound-for-pound one of the best managers in the Premier League over the last two seasons, delivering two trophies for Crystal Palace.
Forest, who finished seventh in 24/25 under Nuno Espirito Santo, had a chaotic 25/26 season with four different managers, ultimately finishing 16th and reaching a Europa League semi-final, with the latter showing the quality squad Glasner will inherit.
Qualifying for Europe this season will be the remit, and no doubt he'll be going big, with his goal likely to be qualifying for the Champions League. I think in this season of all seasons it is possible.
We've touched on Liverpool (fifth last season) and Man United (third) who could be vulnerable in the top five, while Aston Villa (fourth) look to be rebuilding having seen high-profile exits. All three have Champions League football to balance, as well as high expectations.
Bournemouth (sixth) have a manager new to the Premier League and Sunderland (seventh) massively overperformed their underlying numbers, couple that with European football and I'd expect both to regress, while the last time Brighton (eighth) had European football to balance they finished in the bottom half.
Glasner's former side Palace also have European commitments to juggle, and after doing some digging, I found that over the last four seasons non-big six sides' league position (apart from Aston Villa) dropped on average 5.67 spots from the season they qualified for Europe to the season in Europe. So the door is wide open and we could see three completely different teams fill the spots from sixth to eighth.
Of the remainder of the league, Leeds and Brentford are two other sides who could be in the mix, but I'd back Glasner over those two other coaches, and I think Forest's squad is superior as a whole to both. They also have recent experience of being in the European mix down the stretch of the season, sitting in Champions League spots for most of 24/25.
It looks well set up for an outsider to pounce, and we'll back FOREST TOP SIX FINISH at 17/2 and FOREST TOP FIVE FINISH at 16/1.
Three up, three down
On to relegation and it's no surprise that the three promoted sides head the betting, with Hull as short as 1/6 for an immediate return to the second tier.
Last season saw two of the promoted teams stay up very comfortably, ending a run of back-to-back seasons where all three promoted sides went straight back down.
I think we return to that, making the 4/1 for ALL THREE PROMOTED TEAMS TO BE RELEGATED look like great value.
The case for Hull is pretty straightforward in the sense that they are one of the worst teams ever to be promoted to the top flight according to the data and various team ratings. Even if we say their playing style skewed the data a touch, they still come up as a mid-to-bottom-half Championship team and have an enormous gap to bridge to even get close to their fellow promoted sides.
Kieran McKenna leaving Ipswich is a bitter blow for them, and the appointment of Gary O'Neil is not a good one in my opinion, while I still have my question marks around Frank Lampard's coaching ability at this level.
The bottom line though is that the three sides coming up are a long way off the existing Premier League teams, and no existing top-flight side have been circling the drain like Wolves and West Ham had been. None of the promoted trio are anywhere near as good as Leeds were, nor have they spent like Sunderland did either.
The Black Cats are the fourth favourites for the drop and could well be dragged into things as Nottingham Forest were last season given their poor data in 25/26 and the fact they have the distraction of European football, but they should have enough when eliminated from Europe to pull clear of any trouble.
After them it's Fulham (11/2), Palace (6/1), Leeds (6/1), Brentford (9/1) and Newcastle (9/1). The latter three won't be going down, they will be looking up rather than down, and while Palace have European football and a new manager, they should collect more than enough points to avoid the drop.
Fulham under Alvaro Arbeloa have the potential to get dragged into things given his inexperience as manager, but their squad and XI is excellent and, ultimately, if things start going wrong for an established top flight club they will just change manager which usually sparks a revival.
Even if the newly-promoted clubs make a managerial change, the impact isn't anywhere near as big because of the gap in squad quality.
Count on Cole
Erling Haaland is the understandably short 4/6 favourite to win the Golden Boot for a fourth time in five seasons, with the Norwegian, fresh off an excellent World Cup debut, having scored a mind-boggling 112 goals in just 132 appearances.
This could be a season where he is beatable, though. For that to happen Haaland would have to miss games through injury and I think there is an increased chance of that happening.
Haaland played in the Club World Cup last summer, a ton of minutes for Manchester City across all competitions and then played five 90 minutes at the World Cup in taxing conditions - all told he played 5,301 minutes from the start of the CWC last season, which is 58.9 lots of 90 minutes, surely increasing his chances of picking up injuries.
So, who do we take him on with? Second favourite Alexander Isak has his own injury concerns, Igor Thiago looks a fair price at 12/1 after finishing second last season when sent off at 100/1, Chelsea striker Joao Pedro could be in the mix at 16s, as could Viktor Gyokeres at 20s.
But the player I'm drawn to at the prices is Joao Pedro's team-mate, COLE PALMER. The Englishman is 40/1 to be TOP GOALSCORER and that looks a big price based on what we have seen previously from him, and the fact that he is fit and potentially more raring to go than ever after being snubbed for the World Cup.
Palmer played only 26 league matches last season as he struggled with his own injuries, not helped by his own lack of a decent summer break having reached the finals of Euro 2024 and the 2025 Club World Cup.
He still scored 10 times in a struggling Chelsea team, averaging 0.48 xG per 90 in what was a quiet year by his own high standards. Those attacking metrics, though, matched the season prior (0.49 xG per 90) when he scored 15 times. Only in 23/24 has he blown those figures away, scored 22 goals and averaging 0.62 xG per 90 to finish second in the Golden Boot standings.
With Chelsea fancied to do well, it makes sense to back their star man to be leading the charge, and the bonus for us here is that Palmer will be on penalties, which is always nice for a season-long goalscorer bet.
Igor's just too big
A long shot that I like the look of, given that I am pro-Forest this season, is IGOR JESUS TO BE TOP GOALSCORER at 150/1. The Brazilian is just the kind of striker Glasner loves: a hard worker who offers a threat in behind and isn't afraid of being physical.
Jesus is exactly that, and he looks to be the perfect spearhead for Forest. He managed only six goals in the league last season and averaged an admittedly poor 0.26 xG per 90, but it does take players time to adapt to the English top flight and I'm betting Jesus vastly improves in his second season.
He did net 16 times in all competitions and averaged a much more palatable 0.40 xG per 90 when taking into account matches in the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Europa League, with the latter where he did most of his damage.
He netted seven times on the continent (0.79 per 90) and averaged 0.76 xG per 90 in Europe's secondary competition, so if he can translate some of that form onto the domestic stage he will be a force, especially in a Glasner system that is set up to create lots of chances for the number nine.
Glasner's striker at Palace, Jean-Philippe Mateta scored 16, 14 and 12 league goals under him, averaging 0.43, 0.46 and 0.59 xG per 90 in those seasons, meaning Jesus should get plenty of opportunities. While we take pre-season with a pinch of salt, he has scored in three of his four outings at the time of writing.
At 150/1, he looks well worth a swing.
Odds correct at 16:30 BST (12/8/26)
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