2026-27 Premier League Predictions: Winners and Losers
Predicting the 2026-27 Premier League season is a fool’s game. Last year Arsenal outlasted Manchester City, Tottenham flirted with disaster at the wrong end of the table, and this summer nine clubs changed managers. Whatever you think you know, the league tends to rip it up by October.
Preseason, though, always offers a few clues. Not a blueprint, not a guarantee — Andreas Pereira’s “Preseason Pirlo” era at Manchester United proved that — but hints. Patterns. Players catching fire, others breaking down. With the new campaign closing in, some stories already stand out.
WINNERS
Wonderkids: Dowman, Ngumoha, Madjo
Preseason lives on hype, and this summer the kids have supplied plenty.
Max Dowman is 16, has just finished his first set of school exams and already owns a PFA Young Player of the Season nomination after starting only one Premier League game for Arsenal. That nod owed as much to his age and promise as his minutes, but he’s done his bit to justify the buzz.
Against Girona, he looked like he belonged. A goal, an assist, a 4-1 win, and another spike in expectation. Arsenal fans have seen this movie before, though. Dowman turned heads last summer in friendlies against AC Milan and Newcastle United, then barely featured when the real stuff started. This might be the year he breaks through. It might not. The talent is obvious; the pathway is not.
At Liverpool, Rio Ngumoha is trying to force that same door open. Supporters spent the end of last season demanding more of the 17-year-old winger, and Andoni Iraola has at least given him a look. Ngumoha has started three of Liverpool’s four preseason games, helped by Cody Gakpo’s late return from the World Cup, and he has not wasted the opportunity.
His biggest moment so far: the only goal in a 1-0 win over Wrexham on the club’s U.S. tour. Sharp, direct, busy. He looks ready for more than cameos.
Then there’s Brian Madjo, who has treated preseason like a personal goal challenge. Aston Villa signed him from Metz for £10 million on his 17th birthday in January, a bold fee for a teenager who then couldn’t even play. FIFA rules on international transfers for under-18s kept him out of action at all levels until Villa successfully appealed this summer.
Once cleared, he erupted. Two goals against Walsall, one against Real Sociedad, another against an Indonesia league All Stars side. Four already, and then came his biggest stage yet: the UEFA Super Cup in Salzburg. Against PSG, Madjo scored Villa’s only goal in a 2-1 defeat and could easily have added more.
Context matters. Ollie Watkins has been on an extended break after the World Cup, which has opened up minutes and responsibility. But Madjo has done the one thing that always cuts through preseason noise: he has scored, repeatedly. Unai Emery now has a decision to make about when to let him loose in the Premier League.
Igor Jesus: Forest’s slow burner heats up
Nottingham Forest churned through four managers last season — Nuno Espírito Santo, Ange Postecoglou, Sean Dyche and Vítor Pereira — but one constant up front was Igor Jesus.
His return of six goals in 37 Premier League games did not frighten anyone, yet the trend line tells a different story. Four of those goals arrived in the final eight league matches, and that late surge has rolled straight into the summer.
Jesus has hit four goals in consecutive games for Forest, including one in a 2-1 defeat to Sporting CP. The finishing looks sharper, the movement more confident. For a club that lived on the edge of the relegation battle, a striker finding rhythm early might be worth as much as any new signing.
Antoine Semenyo: City’s creator-in-chief
Most players would have taken a breather after a World Cup run to the round of 32. Antoine Semenyo barely paused.
The Ghana forward featured in all four of his country’s games in the tournament, then came straight back into Manchester City’s preseason and immediately took charge of their attack. City scored six goals across friendlies against Inter Milan (1-1), K-League All-Stars (3-1) and Atlético Madrid (3-1). Semenyo set up five of them.
He was already one of last season’s breakout stars, hitting 17 goals in 37 Premier League appearances across Bournemouth and City, plus four assists. Now he looks like a player ready to step from “pleasant surprise” to “fixture in the front line.”
If this is how he looks in July and August, defenders know what’s coming when the real thing starts.
Xabi Alonso settles in at Chelsea
New managers usually complain about time. Not enough of it, not the right kind of it, not with the right players. Xabi Alonso cannot make that argument.
Chelsea appointed him in May, with his official start date set for July 9. That gave him a rare luxury: weeks to assess, plan and then work with a squad that, unlike many rivals, has not been decimated by late World Cup returns.
Key figures such as João Pedro, Cole Palmer and Estêvão have been in his hands for most of preseason. So have Levi Colwill, Wesley Fofana, Jorrel Hato and Robert Sánchez. The result is a team that, at least structurally, already looks like it belongs to him.
Pedro has led the charge. Five goals in preseason — a hat trick against Western Sydney Wanderers, two more against AC Milan — underline his potential as the focal point of Alonso’s attack.
It has not all been smooth. A 2-1 defeat to Tottenham in Sydney and a 1-0 loss to Juventus in Hong Kong show there is work to do. But Alonso has had something precious in modern football: time on the grass with his best players. Chelsea will expect that to show when the season starts.
LOSERS
Liverpool’s defense creaks before a ball is kicked
Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool is still an idea more than a finished product, but one thing is already clear: he has a defensive headache.
At right-back, Conor Bradley remains sidelined with a knee injury. Joe Gomez has joined him in the treatment room after picking up a muscle problem in preseason. The club’s big defensive signing, €60 million Jérémy Jacquet, has yet to feature as he continues his recovery from a long-term shoulder issue.
That lack of options forced Liverpool into the market for Ronald Araújo, who has arrived from Barcelona on a season-long loan and should add quality and aggression. Yet the anchor of the back line is still Virgil van Dijk, now 35, coming off a brutal workload.
Last season, for club and country, including the World Cup, Van Dijk played 68 games and racked up 6,051 minutes. Asking him to repeat that level of reliability, physically and mentally, is a huge gamble. Iraola needs solutions fast, or Liverpool’s season could be defined by what happens when the captain finally hits his limit.
Preseason injuries: Kroupi’s cruel blow and Villa’s knee crisis
Preseason is supposed to be about rhythm and conditioning. It often ends up being about damage.
No one has felt that more harshly than Bournemouth’s Junior Kroupi. The 20-year-old striker broke out last season and was heavily linked with a big-money move to one of Europe’s elite. This was meant to be his launchpad summer.
Instead, a foot injury on a preseason tour of Austria has halted everything. Surgery followed, and the prognosis is grim: up to four months out. Realistically, Kroupi might not start his second Premier League campaign until January. The transfer talk will have to wait.
Aston Villa have their own nightmare. Midfielder Amadou Onana suffered a ruptured ACL in July, a devastating injury that will keep him out long term. John McGinn gave the club another scare when he landed awkwardly on his knee in a friendly. He is expected to be fit for the start of the season, but it was a reminder of how quickly things can turn.
New signing Johan Manzambi is also dealing with a knee problem, picked up while playing for Switzerland at the World Cup, and could miss the start of the campaign. For a club balancing domestic ambition with European demands, losing that much midfield and squad depth so early is a serious setback.
Not every injury scare has ended badly. Newcastle watched in horror as Anthony Elanga was stretchered off after a brutal tackle from Valencia defender José Gayà, who was shown a straight red card. The initial fear of a major layoff eased quickly: scans revealed only a bruised shin. Elanga should be available for Newcastle’s Premier League opener. For once, preseason offered a rare bit of good news.
Enzo Maresca’s awkward start at Man City
Replacing Pep Guardiola at Manchester City is the most daunting job in club football. Enzo Maresca knew that the day he signed. What he could not control was the calendar.
City’s squad was stretched deep into the World Cup, with stars such as Erling Haaland, Jérémy Doku, Rodri, Marc Guéhi, Nico O’Reilly and new arrival Elliot Anderson all logging heavy minutes and long runs at the tournament. Collectively, City players racked up just under 5,000 minutes there.
Many of them only reported back this week. Their first taste of real action under Maresca will come in the Community Shield against Arsenal. For a coach trying to imprint a detailed positional game, that lack of shared time is a major early obstacle.
To his credit, Maresca has still found a way to win two of City’s three preseason matches. The disruption is not his fault. But when the bar is set by Guardiola, “not your fault” does not buy much patience. The new manager will have to accelerate the bedding-in process on the fly.
Grealish and Maddison: fitness races with no momentum
In another timeline, Jack Grealish and James Maddison would be strolling back into preseason after starring for England at the World Cup. Instead, both are still trying to piece their careers back together.
Grealish missed the tournament and the final four months of last season with a foot injury so severe that his loan from Manchester City to Everton was cut short. He returned to training last month but stayed behind in Manchester while City toured Asia, working alone on his fitness rather than building match rhythm.
His future remains unresolved. As of July 29, according to reporting from ESPN’s Rob Dawson, no decision had been made on where Grealish will play this season. His contract at the Etihad runs until 2027, but his role is anything but clear.
Maddison’s story is just as frustrating. An ACL injury wiped out almost all of his last campaign. A minor hip issue has now denied him any preseason minutes. For a player whose game relies on sharpness, timing and confidence on the ball, starting a season cold is far from ideal.
Both still have the quality to change narratives quickly. The question is whether their bodies — and the clubs around them — will give them the platform to do it in time to matter in a title race, a top-four push, or even just to reclaim their place among the league’s leading lights.
