The World Cup feels like it only just finished, and here we are again. The Football League gets going this weekend, the Community Shield lands in Cardiff on Sunday, and the Premier League itself kicks off the following weekend. After a summer of extra-time epics, penalty shootouts and record-breaking Harry Kane headers, it is time to swap international shirts for club colours.
This has been one of the strangest close seasons in years. Three managerial merry-go-rounds, a genuine relegation battle at a "big six" club that only got resolved in the final weeks, a title won for the first time in 22 years, and the small matter of half the division trying to manage players who spent their summer at the World Cup rather than on a beach. Here is everything you need going into the new campaign.
Before a ball is kicked in the league, we get the traditional curtain-raiser between the Premier League champions and the FA Cup holders. This year it comes with genuine intrigue attached, because it is also the first competitive look at Manchester City under a manager who is not Pep Guardiola for the first time in a decade.
The Shield is heading to Cardiff for the first time in 20 years, with Wembley unavailable because of concert bookings. Arsenal go in as newly-crowned champions after ending a 22-year wait for the title, and there is a small footnote of history at stake: Arsenal have won this fixture against City before, on penalties in 2023, but the bookmakers rate this one close to a coin flip. Arsenal are marginal favourites, but there is barely daylight between the two sides in the betting markets.
Whatever the scoreline, this is everyone's first proper look at the shape of the season to come. Two ambitious, well-run clubs, one with a brand new manager, both looking to set the tone before the real business starts the following weekend.
It took Mikel Arteta the best part of six years to get Arsenal over the line, but last season they finally did it: Premier League champions for the first time since 2004, ending one of the longest title droughts of any traditionally "big" English club. Having assembled one of the best squads in Europe to do it, Arsenal have not stood still this summer, even if the business has been more about smart additions than wholesale change.
Piero Hincapié's loan from Bayer Leverkusen has been made permanent for around £34.5m, giving Arteta a defender who started the Champions League final. Christos Tzolis arrives from Club Brugge for around £34m after scoring more than 20 goals in consecutive seasons there, addressing the left-wing area Arteta identified as needing an upgrade. Bruno Guimarães has finally joined from Newcastle, a midfielder Arsenal first targeted years ago. Illan Meslier has come in from Leeds on a free transfer to round out the goalkeeping options behind David Raya.
Out has gone Leandro Trossard, sold to Beşiktaş for around £15.3m after 36 goals in 174 appearances — a player who leaves as a Premier League champion having scored plenty of important goals along the way. Jakub Kiwior's loan at Porto has been made permanent, and Christian Nørgaard has departed for Everton.
One saga worth watching: Arsenal were strongly linked with Aston Villa's Morgan Rogers earlier in the summer, but that move instead went to Chelsea in a club-record deal. Arsenal remain linked with Aston Villa's Ezri Konsa as the window edges towards its close.
The Guardiola era is over. Ten years, 20 trophies, and a legacy that will never be repeated in English football, and City now enter uncharted territory with Enzo Maresca in the dugout. Maresca is not a stranger to the club — he coached City's academy side to the Premier League 2 title, was Guardiola's assistant during the 2023 treble-winning season, and has since managed Leicester and Chelsea, the latter ending with a Club World Cup triumph and a January exit.
There is a lovely bit of history on this podcast attached to this appointment. Back on our very first World Cup series episode, Sam's wildcard "one mad prediction" for the summer was that Manchester City would appoint Maresca as manager. It has actually happened. We are taking full credit.
City's summer has been a genuine changing of the guard. Bernardo Silva has left for Real Madrid as a free agent after nine trophy-laden years, John Stones has been released and signed for Inter Milan, Nathan Aké has joined Fenerbahçe for £7m, and James Trafford has departed for Leeds United in a £45m deal. That is a huge amount of experience walking out of the door at once.
Coming in: Elliot Anderson arrived from Nottingham Forest for a British record £116 million after an outstanding World Cup, and academy sensation Jeremy Monga — the 17-year-old who broke Jude Bellingham's record as the youngest ever Championship goalscorer — has also signed. Mathys Détourbet has joined from Troyes but been sent straight back out on a season-long loan to Monaco. The far bigger story is unfolding in midfield: Rodri looks set to leave, with reports differing on whether his next stop is Real Madrid or Barcelona, and City are working on a replacement, with Lille's Ayyoub Bouaddi and Chelsea's Enzo Fernández both strongly linked as the summer enters its final weeks.
If City's close season was a change at the top, Liverpool's has been closer to a demolition. Arne Slot won the title in his debut season in charge, then oversaw a genuinely alarming collapse: a trophyless campaign, a fifth-place finish, and enough poor results across the season that the board eventually acted. Andoni Iraola, who built a reputation for high-intensity, vertical football at Bournemouth, has been handed the keys.
The headline departure dwarfs everything else. Mohamed Salah has left Anfield after nine years and well over 200 goals, his contract cut short by mutual agreement. Ibrahima Konaté left for Real Madrid on a free transfer and Andy Robertson has also departed, stripping out a huge amount of experience from the spine of the team. In have come Jeremie Frimpong and Victor Muñoz so far, with reports linking Liverpool to PSG's Bradley Barcola and Brighton's Yankuba Minteh as they search for a way to replace Salah's output, though nobody replaces nine years and 200-plus goals with a single signing.
The more eye-catching piece of business is a loan deal for Barcelona's captain Ronald Araújo, signed for the season with an option to buy at around £47m. Liverpool aren't even paying a loan fee — they're covering his wages in full for the year — and it addresses a defence that has been light on numbers with Joe Gómez, Giovanni Leoni and Jérémy Jacquet all working their way back from injury.
Iraola has been candid in press conferences that he needs more additions before the window shuts, and has urged patience from supporters given the scale of the rebuild. The style shift alone — from Slot's more controlled, possession-based approach to Iraola's high-press, high-energy game — is a significant adjustment for a squad that has known one way of playing for two years.
Chelsea's managerial history under BlueCo ownership reads like a fever dream: Graham Potter, Mauricio Pochettino, Enzo Maresca, an interim spell for Liam Rosenior that lasted 107 days, and now Xabi Alonso, appointed on a four-year deal that gives him genuine influence over recruitment rather than just team selection. After winning an unbeaten Bundesliga title at Bayer Leverkusen and a brief, turbulent spell at Real Madrid that ended in a January sacking, Alonso arrives in west London with something to prove — and by most accounts, this has been Chelsea's best transfer window in years.
The headline arrival is Morgan Rogers, a club-record signing from Aston Villa after his standout World Cup with England, beating Arsenal to a deal many had expected to go to the Emirates. Geovany Quenda, Emmanuel Emegha, Marco Palestra, Dastan Satpaev and Denner have all signed too, continuing BlueCo's now-familiar pattern of recruiting promising players on long contracts.
What's different this summer is the pivot towards experience. Chelsea have gone out and signed Danny Welbeck from Brighton and Jordan Henderson, giving Alonso two players with genuine Premier League pedigree to steady a dressing room with an average age of just 23.8. There's a lovely story behind the Henderson deal: Rogers and Henderson struck up a close bond during England's World Cup campaign, with Rogers calling him "the best guy I've ever come across in football" — and Chelsea signing him appears to have been, in part, a deliberate move to help their record signing settle in.
One deal that didn't happen: Granit Xhaka's reunion with Alonso. Chelsea had an £8m bid rejected by Sunderland, whose manager Régis Le Bris later declared the matter "closed," with Xhaka reaffirming his commitment to the club that made him captain.
This is the wildest story of the close season and it deserves more attention than it has had. In the spring, Tottenham were fighting relegation. Genuinely fighting it — one point above the drop zone with seven games to go, on their fourth manager of the season after Ange Postecoglou (sacked despite winning the Europa League), Thomas Frank, and Igor Tudor lasting just 44 days. Roberto De Zerbi came in from Marseille with the club's Premier League status hanging by a thread and somehow steadied the ship.
Survival secured, Spurs have spent the summer like a club with something to prove. Sandro Tonali arrived from Newcastle for £100 million. Mateus Fernandes, Jan Paul van Hecke, Andrew Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka have all followed, with Bournemouth's Eli Junior Kroupi still linked. This is by a distance the busiest transfer window of any Premier League club this summer.
Manchester United finished third last season and will be looking to turn that into a genuine title challenge rather than a false dawn — reports of talks with Real Madrid over Aurélien Tchouaméni, in an €80 million deal, suggest serious ambition if it gets over the line. Aston Villa continue to punch above their perceived weight, finishing in the top four in two of the last three seasons despite modest resources, and Unai Emery's side are once again fancied as the best of the rest. Bournemouth and Sunderland qualified for the Europa League last season, Brighton for the Conference League — nine Premier League clubs in European competition this season, which brings both prestige and a genuine squad-depth challenge from September onwards.
Coventry City return to the top flight for the first time in 25 years under Frank Lampard, having won the Championship title. Ipswich Town are back after a brief absence. Hull City complete the trio, promoted via the play-offs after finishing sixth in the Championship. They replace Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley and West Ham United, all relegated last season.
The early betting is brutal on all three, but especially Hull: bookmakers have installed them among the heaviest favourites for an immediate return to the Championship of any promoted side in recent memory, with some models giving them an 80%+ chance of going straight back down. Coventry, playing their first top-flight football in a generation under a manager who knows how to organise a team, are given a fighting chance. Ipswich face the challenge familiar to every yo-yo club: consolidate or bounce straight back out.
There is a subplot running underneath the entire opening month of this season that deserves its own mention. Every club with a player who went deep into the World Cup — and after England's run to the semi-finals, that is a lot of Premier League players — is managing a squad with a shortened pre-season and tired legs. The delayed start to the season, pushed back to create recovery time after the 19 July final, only partially solves the problem. Players who reached the semi-finals and third-place play-off returned to training weeks behind schedule.
That is a genuine factor for early-season form. Expect City in particular, with a new manager on top of returning internationals, to take time to find rhythm. The same applies to Arsenal, Chelsea and anyone else whose players were still playing competitive football in the middle of July while their Premier League rivals were already deep into pre-season training.
The champions get the honour of opening the season at home, against a Coventry side back in the top flight for the first time in a generation. Elsewhere across the opening weekend: Manchester City host Bournemouth in Maresca's first competitive league game in charge, and Newcastle host Liverpool at St James' Park in Iraola's first Premier League match as Liverpool boss — about as difficult a starting assignment as the fixture computer could have handed him.
| Fixture to circle | Date | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Man United vs Man City | Sat 12 Sept | The Manchester derby, only four games into the new City era |
| Arsenal vs Chelsea | Sat 5 Sept | An early measure of Alonso's Chelsea against the champions |
| Liverpool vs Man City | Sat 10 Oct | Anfield always brings the noise — Maresca's first proper away test |
| Arsenal vs Man City | Sat 28 Nov | Could be a title-race measuring stick already by late November |
| Man City vs Arsenal | Sat 30 Jan | The reverse fixture — huge if the title race is still tight |
Most of the expert previews and supercomputer models we have seen land in a similar place: Arsenal to retain the title, City to push them close in second, Manchester United and Liverpool scrapping for the other Champions League places alongside Villa, and Hull as the most likely of the promoted three to go straight back down.
Here's where we land on it. Arsenal deserve favouritism — champions, still adding to the squad, no upheaval in the dugout. But this league has a habit of humbling certainty, and every one of the "big six" enters this season with either a new manager, a rebuilt spine, or both. City's transition, Liverpool's total overhaul, Chelsea's fresh start and Tottenham's spending spree all carry genuine chaos potential in both directions.
If we've learned anything from a summer of football that gave us Scotland's first World Cup goal in 28 years, Australia beating Turkey, and Cape Verde nearly knocking out Argentina, it's that this game refuses to go to script. Buckle up. It's a long season, and it starts this weekend.
We go through all of this and more on the pod — Community Shield predictions, our full title race calls, and what it all means for England's stars heading into the new season.
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