Premier League return’s predictions and storylines: Title race, relegation fight and Haaland’s goals record – The Athletic
The Premier League returns this week after the final international break of the calendar year.
At the top, Arsenal are four points clear but have suffered further injuries, including to key defender Gabriel, before the north London derby against Tottenham on Sunday.
Second-placed Manchester City visit Newcastle on Saturday evening, with Eddie Howe’s home side as close to rock-bottom Wolves in points terms as they are to Pep Guardiola’s team.
With eight more rounds of matches to cram in between now and January 1, our writers explore which clubs are really in the title race, who belong in the relegation discussion (and if that latter list includes Newcastle), whether City striker Erling Haaland can beat his own 36-goal Premier League single-season scoring record, which managers are under most pressure, and the other key issues to look out for over the weeks ahead.
Let us know who you think has got it right and give us your own predictions in the comments below.
Who is in the title race?
Sebastian Stafford-Bloor: Arsenal and Manchester City.
Arsenal are the best team in the division, and there is a clear gap between them, City and everyone else. There’s criticism of Mikel Arteta’s dependence on set pieces, but within a congested calendar, when your team are competing across four fronts, that’s really not a bad strength to have. If Arsenal can win games without playing well, then they should be champions in May.
But City are City and something is beginning to stir; there’s a menacing rhythm to them which, because of everything they have achieved under Pep Guardiola over the past decade, we’ve learnt to accept means trouble for everyone else.
And these Arsenal injuries. Viktor Gyokeres does not seem quite as durable as hoped when he signed in the summer, Kai Havertz has not played since the season’s opening weekend in August and now Gabriel is returning from international duty with Brazil facing a month or two out.
Arsenal are better than in previous seasons, no question, but because they are yet to make it to the top of the mountain, it’s natural to question their ability to get there.
Nick Miller: Arsenal and City. Arsenal are a relentless points-guzzling cyborg that needs your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle. City are a bit weird, in that they’re clearly the best of the rest but will just randomly lose to a Fulham or similar — results that will happen often enough that they will finish about 10 points behind Arsenal.
I would love to put Chelsea there, but they’ve got enough of a glass jaw that they’re not going to trouble the top two, and I actually fancy Liverpool to figure things out soon enough, but there’s already too much of a gap for them to close up.
Liam Tharme: Arsenal and City.
I’m ruling Chelsea out on the basis that Enzo Maresca has a young side who still have disciplinary issues. They have definitely shown a capacity for long stretches of wins and good performances, but as previous iterations of Liverpool and City have proven, it takes near perfection and defensive solidity to win the Premier League these days.
Really, this title is Arsenal’s to lose, even if there are numerous instances of them starting previous campaigns this well and falling away. Fine, City probably will peak in the spring, as they often do, but Arsenal are so defensively watertight and so possession-dominant that teams are scared to play against them now. Losing 1-0 to Arteta’s side has become respectable.
Arsenal are on for a 90-point season right now. Nobody else is matching that.
Carl Anka: This season feels like Arsenal’s moment. The squad have learnt their lessons from three consecutive second-place finishes and attacked this campaign with a similar relentless fury to Liverpool when they won it in 2019-20.
Critiques of their set pieces miss the point; Arteta has built a robust football machine that should avoid the mini-implosions that undermined previous campaigns. Sit deep against Arsenal and they’ll get a goal from a corner. Then you open up to chase a game, and they’ll go through the gears and drop the hammer on you.
If they don’t win the title this season, it’ll be through horrible injury luck or (another) freakish winning streak from City. Guardiola appears to be figuring out his tactical response to a more counter-attack-focused Premier League, but he’s without Rodri again and may need another 18 months to decide on a proper solution.
I feel Chelsea will have plenty to say in the title race, but more as gatekeepers, rather than outright competitors. They are a young team, still coming together, and prone to erratic performances. Chelsea have historically been at their most compelling when they emerge as surprise disruptors to the best-laid plans of others (see their two Champions League triumphs). I envision them as a banana skin that the top two need to prepare for.
How many teams are in the relegation battle?
Stafford-Bloor: Everybody from 15th downwards, but with Everton (currently 13th) added in.
The issues with the bottom five are clear enough, and it’s difficult to see them getting significantly better in a hurry. Everton are a concern because of how strong their dependence is on Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye. How much football can Grealish be expected to play this season, given the stuttering nature of his career before this loan from City? And what happens to this side while Ndiaye is away at the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal from the middle of December?
Between them, those two account for 10 goal involvements this season. The rest of the Everton squad combined have 11.
Miller: I reckon everyone from 13th down, including Newcastle… although they’ll almost certainly set themselves right soon enough.
Wolves are done: you’ll probably need a point per game from here to survive, which means they already basically need to operate at mid-table form for the remaining 27 matches, which feels unlikely. The promoted teams have obviously been much more competitive than last season’s trio (though three ham sandwiches would be more competitive than that lot), but I fear Burnley and Leeds will eventually fade.
West Ham are on the way to full Nuno-fication and Forest are already showing strong signs of being Dyched, so they will probably both be fine.
Tharme: Newcastle need to desperately find some away form, otherwise this is going to quite quickly become a seven-team scrap over four survival spots.
It is easy to consider Eddie Howe’s side too big and too recently successful to be dragged in, but this is a season where they lost Alexander Isak, new signing Yoane Wissa is yet to kick a ball as his potential replacement up front, they can barely score in, let alone win, a Premier League away game, and have to juggle Champions League football — an extra demand which ruined their 2023-24 season.
The three promoted sides are making a real go of it, even if Burnley’s defensive underlying numbers are awful, while West Ham and Forest have some green shoots under new head coaches, and squads of a mid-table quality at least.
Anka: Oh, what a difference two managerial changes can make. Last month, West Ham and Wolves looked destined for the drop, with a handful of clubs squabbling over avoiding 18th. Back-to-back wins for Nuno Espirito Santo at the London Stadium have thrown the cat among the pigeons, while Sean Dyche appears to be getting a tune out of Forest again.
Everyone from 15th down is in danger, and I envisage busy winter windows for West Ham, Wolves and Fulham before the scramble begins properly.
Will Haaland break his own Premier League goals in a season record? And who will finish second behind him?
Stafford-Bloor: I’ll say no, but only because of supply issues. When Haaland set that record in his 2022-23 debut season, City were endowed with such an array of talented creators. Kevin De Bruyne had 16 assists, Riyad Mahrez had 10, Grealish and Bernardo Silva had a further 12 between them. This season’s team are already sharing those duties around, but Haaland is an outstanding taker of chances, rather than a player who fashions goals for himself; he needs outstanding, reliable support, and it’s not entirely clear who can fill that role.
It doesn’t stop City from being an outstanding team. Maybe even a better one in time. But the situation doesn’t seem to lend itself to volume goalscoring (even if, with Haaland, that is an incredibly reckless thing to say). As for who finishes second? I’ll say Hugo Ekitike of Liverpool.
Most goals in a Premier League season
PlayerClubSeasonGoals
Erling Haaland
Manchester City
2022-23
36
Andrew Cole
Newcastle
1993-94*
34
Alan Shearer
Blackburn
1994-95*
34
Mohamed Salah
Liverpool
2017-18
32
Luis Suarez
Liverpool
2013-14
31
Cristiano Ronaldo
Manchester United
2007-08
31
Alan Shearer
Blackburn
1995-96
31
Alan Shearer
Blackburn
1993-94*
31
*42-game seasons
Miller: Yes. Buy shares in tomahawk steaks. Haaland is nearly halfway to the magic number after less than a third of the games, and while he doesn’t quite have the supply chain that he did in previous years, he’s almost to the point now that he doesn’t need them. As for second-best, Bryan Mbeumo is a bit of a wildcard, but he’s looked so good recently and is Manchester United’s main source of goals. Of the Arsenal attackers, Bukayo Saka is the most likely in theory, but he’s probably already missed too much time with injury.
Tharme: At worst, he’s going to get very close. His minutes per goal and expected goals per 90 numbers are better than in his first City season, where he netted 36.
And Guardiola’s side might be worse off overall for their reliance on the Norway international, with it notable that Haaland’s Premier League assists have been dropping every season since his arrival in Manchester. There is no other side, perhaps with the exception of Crystal Palace and Jean-Philippe Mateta, who are so built around their talisman.
While it is easy to look at this City team and see less superstar power than their treble-winning side of three years prior, the creators are there.
Tijjani Reijnders’ off-ball runs are the key ingredient to making the half-space cutbacks for Haaland; Jeremy Doku, increasingly consistent, can create from his dribbles; Rayan Cherki has an eye for a final ball that looks as good as De Bruyne’s. And then there’s the repurposed Matheus Nunes, whose crosses from right-back are devilish.
For second place, stock in Igor Thiago at Brentford looks good right now. Eight league goals, a great range of finishes, and playing ahead of a creative midfield trio — their No 10 Mikkel Damsgaard, especially. Keith Andrews’ patience with his Brazilian No 9 is paying dividends.
Premier League top scorers this season
PlayerClubGoals
Erling Haaland
Manchester City
14
Igor Thiago
Brentford
8
Jean-Philippe Mateta
Crystal Palace
6
Antoine Semenyo
Bournemouth
6
Danny Welbeck
Brighton
6
Bryan Mbeumo
Manchester United
5
Anka: Let’s pause a moment and take in how absurd it is to ask whether a footballer can score 37 goals in 38 Premier League matches.
And then pause again to watch so many people tie themselves in knots coming to an answer more sensible than “Maybe?”.
There’s a goal Haaland scored in his very first Premier League match, in August 2022, where I felt like a dinosaur looking up at the approaching asteroid as I watched. He’s put through on goal against West Ham and makes a small adjustment to get the ball onto his left foot and deliver a shot. It’s the sort of movement a 1.95m (6ft 5in) man shouldn’t be able to make that quickly.
If he doesn’t reach 37 goals this season, it’ll have more to do with injury, early substitutions and the creative skills of his supporting cast, rather than his own goalscoring prowess. That Doku appears to be finding a new level of form is an interesting wrinkle. The Belgian might become Haaland’s supplier in chief, but may also become a goal threat of his own, scoring five or 10 goals that his striker may need for the record.
As for second place in the scorers’ table? It shouldn’t take too much for a Liverpool player to self-right and enter a purple patch, but Mohamed Salah will depart on AFCON duty soon and so miss some games. I’m going for Mateta to steadily chip his way past 15 goals.
Which managers are now most under pressure?
Stafford-Bloor: Nobody seems on the verge of losing their job — and nobody should be. Arne Slot at Liverpool has a winnable run of games coming with which to calm his critics and Manchester United’s Ruben Amorim, while never more than half an hour away from crisis, has a relatively easy six weeks ahead.
Thomas Frank? That’s an interesting situation. He was appointed by a Tottenham chairman (Daniel Levy) who has since been dismissed, to work under a sporting director (Johan Lange) whose power has been diluted by the appointment of another (Fabio Paratici). Given the shifting dynamics at the club, the chances of political tension seem high. In addition to this, there’s an element of the Spurs support already disenchanted with the product on the pitch.
It’s much too early to talk about Frank’s job security. Given his squad’s limitations and absentees, it would be disingenuous. Nevertheless, there’s a negative energy at the club that a bad performance away to Arsenal on Sunday will only make worse.
Miller: Howe’s situation is really interesting. Newcastle oscillate between looking really good and looking really, really bad, and while they’ll pull clear of true relegation trouble soon, you wonder whether that will be enough to satisfy the owners. He probably won’t get sacked, though, so the most likely is now Daniel Farke. There were rumblings that the Leeds hierarchy weren’t convinced about him after he delivered promotion last season, so if they really get dragged into the mucky stuff, then he’ll be in trouble.
Tharme: Pressure on Thomas Frank is bigger than it should be. They have massive problems creatively — only playing four through balls in 11 league games, for instance — but the injuries which have kept Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison out all season so far are key reasons for that. He shored up the defence massively and made them much more stable than under predecessor Ange Postecoglou.
Results-wise, Fulham plateauing and starting to slide down the table would be a fair argument for Marco Silva’s tenure being at risk. However, he has received very little financial backing, with the exception of the €40million (£35.3m/$46.2m at the current rates) spent to bring 22-year-old Brazilian winger Kevin from Shakhtar Donetsk. They lost big players in the two summers prior (Joao Palhina to Bayern Munich in 2024, Aleksandar Mitrovic to Al Hilal the year before that) and, with injury issues limiting minutes for chief creator Antonee Robinson, are performing about as well as can be expected.
Arne Slot must be under pressure, not to lose his job, but to turn around Liverpool’s poor form and find a solution to the long-ball strategy that opponents keep exploiting.
Anka: Four sackings before Christmas this season mean the Premier League has settled into place quicker than expected.
I feel the next section of the managerial switcheroo will likely focus on teams looking to avoid the drop, rather than anyone aiming to push for the Champions League positions. Farke has lost 41 of his 60 Premier League games across two clubs, and Leeds face Aston Villa, City, Chelsea and Liverpool in their first four games after this international break. Gulp.
What other storyline are you keeping an eye on?
Stafford-Bloor: Howe and Newcastle, because is he not entitled to his frustration? The last player the club signed who truly raised the team’s ceiling was Sandro Tonali, which was two years ago now, and the Italy midfielder has been unavailable for much of that period. The Premier League’s PSR rules have applied plenty of drag to Newcastle’s progress, but so has the blurred definition of the club’s sporting infrastructure, which remains difficult to understand.
Howe’s side are better than their league position suggests, but with City coming to town this Saturday, a visit to Everton seven days later and matches against Tottenham and Sunderland on the horizon — and both of those pairs of fixtures during congested, Champions League-filled weeks — this might get uglier before it gets better.
Miller: Other than seeing how far promoted Sunderland can take this extraordinary start to the season, Fulham are really interesting, which isn’t something you say that often.
They seem keen to extend Silva’s contract, but they aren’t in great shape at the moment and are slipping towards trouble at an alarming rate. Silva has been there since 2021, and while five seasons doesn’t seem like a lot, you wonder whether this is potentially the end of that cycle.
Tharme: Two things. Firstly, Sunderland’s excellent start (the best by a promoted team in 17 years), with massive credit to head coach Regis Le Bris for how, socially and tactically, he has integrated a huge number of new signings so quickly. Their adaptability and capability to compete in all phases — playing out, playing long, pressing, defending deep, set pieces at both ends — is a different blueprint to how promoted teams are stereotyped.
Secondly, the Brentford rebuild project under Andrews. They have identical results now to the first 11 games of 2024-25 (five wins, one draw, five defeats) and have dealt so well with the departure of Frank and club captain Christian Norgaard, plus the 39-goal hole created by selling Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa.
Anka: In day-to-day travails as a Manchester United reporter? How will Amorim tweak his team after losing Mbeumo, Amad and Noussair Mazraoui to the Africa Cup of Nations next month? What happens next for Kobbie Mainoo? How does the team cope in the minutes where Casemiro is benched/rested?
In my day-to-day travails as a fan of football? Can Emiliano Buendia continue his recent good form and power Aston Villa to a Champions League place? Will Silva walk away from a Fulham project that’s in danger of growing stale? How will Dyche’s Forest develop, and will he look to protect Elliot Anderson from burnout ahead of the World Cup? Which English player is going to win the battle to be at left-back in Thomas Tuchel’s starting XI in June?
Name your top five and bottom three in order, based on what we’ve seen so far
Stafford-Bloor
Top five: City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Villa
Bottom three: Forest, Leeds, Wolves
Miller
Top five: Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Chelsea, United
Bottom three: Leeds, Burnley, Wolves
Tharme
Top five: Arsenal, City, Chelsea, Liverpool, United
Bottom three: Burnley, Forest, Wolves
Anka
Top five: Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Chelsea… Villa?
Bottom three: Burnley, Leeds, Wolves.
