2026/27: Before A Ball Is Kicked

Arsenal won it. Good. Now they need to do it again. That is a different game. Title campaigns take something out of a squad. The good ones find what they lost in pre-season. The rest find out in November.

City will come. Liverpool will come. One of them will push Arsenal to the final day. The other will finish third and spend the summer telling you they were the better side. Spurs will convince themselves they are in it until March. You will back them at some point. You always do. Not my problem.

Three clubs are up. Coventry first. Championship pedigree. Premier League ambition. A squad about to be tested properly for the first time. Pace and belief travel. Depth does not.

“Hull will surprise two or three sides. Beyond that, I have my doubts.”

Ipswich are back after one season away. Up, down, up again. That is not a rhythm. That is a club still searching for its ceiling. The squad is thin. That fact will run the season.

Hull went to Wembley. McBurnie. Ninety-fifth minute. That is football the way it should be. The Premier League is not football the way it should be. It is brutal, relentless, expensive. Hull will surprise two or three sides. Beyond that, I have my doubts.

Wolves went down quietly. When a club goes down quietly, they already knew. That squad needed a rebuild two seasons ago. They get one now. In the Championship.

Burnley know the second tier. They have been there before. They will be competitive. West Ham had European nights not three seasons back. They went down on the final day when Spurs beat Everton. The table had not been lying about them. It rarely does.

Eight clubs are worth backing in the right fixture this season. Four are worth avoiding regardless of the opposition. The rest require reading. I have done the reading. You will see it from GW1.

The Gaffer is ready. You are the variable.