Diego Simeone at Arsenal and 19 other predicted next Premier League managers | OneFootball

The regular season is nearly over, yet the World Cup still seems curiously distant for a thing that is a) supposed to be the biggest deal in our whole daft sport and b) actually less than a month away.

But that creates a problem. What do we talk about now? We’ve said everything we’ve got to say about this season – multiple times over – and nobody gives a shiny sh*te about the World Cup yet.

We’re pretty sure that will change, but until then we’re snookered. Unless we instead busy ourselves with features about entirely indistinct periods of time in a future ranging from ‘couple of weeks’ time’ to ‘years from now’. That’s what we need.

So here are our very scientific and entirely educated guesses for who will be the next managers of every current Premier League club. Even the ones who will only be current Premier League clubs for the next 10 days. Especially the ones who will only be current Premier League clubs for the next 10 days.

Who will be Arsenal’s next manager?

It really has been a long old time since Arsenal were on the lookout for a new manager. Arteta is now the second longest-serving current manager not just in the Premier League but across the top four divisions of English football. And he’s well up the list for Europe.

Only Pep Guardiola, as he closes in on a decade with Man City, has been around longer than Arteta’s six-and-a-half years with Arsenal. And now it looks like he might even add a really big trophy – very possibly two – to the single FA Cup he won with Unai Emery’s side back in 2020.

So who could possibly replace him? That’s one question, but the other factor we have to consider here is when might that happen. Because clearly that’s going to heavily impact the kind of names.

If he emulates Pep and ticks over the 10-year mark, who knows who might be in contention.

What is clear is that Arsenal love a dynasty. In modern management terms, Arteta’s six-plus years is an eternity, and it comes shortly after Arsene Wenger threatened to simply squat in the job for ever and ever. They’re closing in on 30 years with just three permanent managers. That’s ludicrous behaviour.

Even the doomed-to-failure Emery, drummed out of the club in double-quick time, lasted a year and a half. That’d be considered a good run at certain other clubs, naming no names, but Chelsea and Tottenham are two of them.

So what do we know of Arsenal? They like a manager who stays with one club for a very long time, and it turns out they were only pretending to enjoy Wenger’s pretty-pretty pastaball and instead prefer to be massive great sh*thousing bastards. We’re all for that personally, and are very excited to welcome to the Premier League at last Mr Diego Simeone, the man who ticks both those boxes a thousand times over.

Who will be Aston Villa’s next manager?

Whenever it happens, it does seem safe to assume Unai Emery will leave Aston Villa a far more enticing prospect than the forlorn, Steven Gerrarded relegation battlers he inherited back in 2022.

Since then there has been European adventure, at least one and almost certainly now two Champions League campaigns, and maybe – fingers crossed – even a real-life proper trophy for a team that did sit rather awkwardly after watching Newcastle and Spurs collect pots last season.

Fair to say neither of those two foolish clubs have particularly kicked on for the long overdue experience, but Villa will hope they can keep Emery in place at least for a little while longer yet to help keep this good thing going.

Given that other recent Villa managers have included Gerrard, Tim Sherwood, Steve Bruce and Roberto Di Matteo, you’d imagine that, when the time does eventually come, Villa’s plan will be to find an Emery-like replacement rather than some kind of alarming lurch in direction.

So it’s a manager hugely respected outside this relentlessly inward-looking island for his many good works on the continent but currently deemed an irredeemable clown on these shores due to one failure with a daft Big Six club. That’ll be Ruben Amorim, then.

Who will be Bournemouth’s next manager?

Call us mad fools if you must, but we’ve just got a hunch for Marco Rose here. Who can say why, but, fine, the fact Bournemouth have actually come out and said “By the way our next manager is going to be Marco Rose, okay?” is certainly a contributing factor.

We promise we’re not just saying this because we already now know the answer, but Rose would definitely have been on the list given his credentials as a progressive coach untested in the Barclays, which is what Bournemouth like now.

But while he would have been on our shortlist, can we truly say we’d have actually gone for him? We prefer not to speak.

Who will be Brentford’s next manager?

With some of these were going to go into great detail and do deep-dive research and even, lord help us, sometimes do something approaching some actual work. Some we’ll do banter of interest and amusement only to ourselves. Some of them, as above, we literally already know the answer.

And with some, we must accept it’s best for multiple reasons, our own sanity among them, to just accept the obvious low-hanging fruit on offer.

Brentford’s next manager will of course be current set-piece coach Stephen Rice. Nothing else needs to be said.

Who will be Brighton’s next manager?

Carlos Cuesta is the youngest manager across Europe’s top five leagues having taken the Parma job at 29. He’ll have barely turned 31 at the start of next season.

That should be all the information you need, frankly, but having five years on Mikel Arteta’s coaching staff at Arsenal doesn’t do any harm.

Fabian Hurzeler has done a fine job at Brighton, but time waits for no man. He’s 33 now, for crying out loud. Yesterday’s news. Practically a timelord. Time to move on. Enjoy your retirement. Spend time with the grandkids.

Who will be Burnley’s next manager?

Last time we did this we took our inspiration from the PFA Premier League Team of the Year 2011/12 as it is obvious Burnley were doing the same. They’d ticked off Vincent Kompany and Scott Parker, which left Kyle Walker as an obvious next step. Perhaps even in a player-manager role, even though player-manager roles seem to have died out with white dog sh*t, which is a shame.

The lack of player-managers, we mean. Never really understood the nostalgia for white dog sh*t.

But have we perhaps been guilty of too narrow a focus here? Seems unlikely, what with all the talk of white dog sh*t, but perhaps we need to widen our lens here slightly. It might just be PFA Teams of the Year in general that Burnley really enjoy.

And you know whose been in more Premier League-era PFA Teams of the Year than anyone else? That’s right, it’s Steven Gerrard.

Perfect choice. And entirely apt that Gerrard should take on a Championship promotion push just as Frank Lampard embarks on a Premier League survival bid, because as we all know, when ever one goes the other must stay.

He’s also odds-on with the bookies and it will very much actually be him.

Who will be Chelsea’s next manager?

Gary O’Neil innit. Adorable to see Chelsea fans and media talking excitedly about Xabi Alonsos or your Andoni Iraolas or the Xavi Hernandezes of this world when none of those people even work for Strasbourg.

The only doubt is not whether O’Neil will be the next Chelsea manager, but whether he’s metamorphosised from a PFM to a LinkedIn caricature. Because what if it’s actually Strasbourg that does that to a man? Can’t be ruled out. Because everyone says Liam Rosenior wasn’t always like this.

Imagine Gary O’Neil, the zenith of ‘spoke well on MNF, I thought’ comes back to Blighty talking about limiting limitlessness or respecting the ball or even ageing men. Gary O’Neil spoke bafflingly at his unveiling, I thought.

Who will be Crystal Palace’s next manager?

The fact Andoni Iraola is such a solid favourite with the bookies here has frankly rattled us into the shadow realm. It’s even briefly made us doubt our other prognostications here, even though they are all absolutely rock-solid guarantees that you can take directly to the bank.

Because… why? Why would he do that? We’re not having a go at Crystal Palace here, it just seems an entirely pointless move that is, at its most generous reading, sideways. And at a literal reading of the Premier League table, very much down.

Crystal Palace are an attractive option for a coach looking to prove himself, and have every chance of winning the Conference and getting the Europa League football they should have had this season with a shiny trophy as a bonus. That’s great.

But Iraola doesn’t need that ‘good club to prove yourself’ move because he’s already done that bit, with knobs on, at a Bournemouth side now a gnat’s cock hair away from securing Champions League football next season.

Iraola deciding this chapter of his managerial career is finished is sad but understandable. Moving to Palace, where Oliver Glasner is leaving because he grew so frustrated by the inevitable limitations of it all, would make no sense whatsoever.

Can’t happen, won’t happen. Surely. But that does mean we need an alternative, and we’ve spent all this time talking about who it shouldn’t be even though it seems it very well might be.

So in the end the next Crystal Palace manager is, oh, let’s say, Cesc Fabregas.

There’s a decorated former Arsenal midfielder in their recent managerial history in among all the Roy Hodgsons (it could, of course, just be Roy Hodgson again – never rule that out) and while there’s a decent chance Fabregas’ reputation and work with Como means he can skip the mid-tier Premier League club appointment altogether it still strikes us a decent shout for all concerned.

Who will be Everton’s next manager?

History tells us that the answer here is already known. It’s Roberto Martinez sometime in 2036 after a trophyless but mechanically impressive decade of Moyesball stability for the Toffees.

And who are we to argue with history? Nobody, that’s who, which is just as well, because otherwise we’d have to note that history at this point would also be handing David Moyes the Manchester United job and we’re really not sure about that at all to be honest.

Who will be Fulham’s next manager?

Not applicable, because Marco Silva is Fulham manager and Marco Silva must always be Fulham manager. We will not budge on this.

Who will be Leeds United’s next manager?

Just got a sneaky feeling that Leeds, emboldened by this season’s success, are going to try and do something unbelievably flash and big-clubbish at some point. We’re all for it, because it will either work spectacularly or fail spectacularly and both those things will be spectacularly watchable.

It won’t be just yet, of course, because Daniel Farke has done a job this season that, frankly, many snarky little gobsh*te websites thought beyond him at this level. At least we’re still right about Scott Parker and don’t have to do any thorough introspection.

We’ve decided that Leeds’ next move, when it comes, will be to appoint someone from the top 10 available coaches list. Luckily for us and unluckily for them, the name that instantly leaps off that particular page is definitely Ange Postecoglou.

Who will be Liverpool’s next manager?

There’s a Starmer-ish element to Arne Slot in that while, sure, we can agree that the culture of short-termism that sees a leader so swiftly under pressure after securing a huge mandate can’t be in the long-term interests of anyone, they are also quite boringly doing quite a bad job and it would be more interesting if someone else had a go now, please.

That’s where the comparison falls down, because while there is absolutely no interesting option to be the next prime minister that isn’t also utterly terrifying, for the much more important job of next Liverpool manager there is Xabi Alonso right there ready to go. Surely we all want to see that.

And it would be a legitimate scandal if in persevering with a manager who has lost the confidence of the fans and, we suspect, himself Liverpool allowed another Barclays club to pounce on such a perfect candidate.

Who will be Manchester City’s next manager?

There are whispers again that this could be the end of Pep Guardiola’s time in Manchester. Personally, we can’t see it. Not right now. Not after letting a second (relatively) weak Premier League champion walk off with the prize that should be his by right.

Liverpool were excellent last season, as Arsenal have been this season. But both recorded the sort of points totals that would have had them irrelevant and distant second-place finishers in City’s absolute pomp.

Our suspicion remains that Guardiola will want one more Premier League title before he finally leaves. His legacy doesn’t really need it, but it would enhance it to have success with this new look, post-De Bruyne side.

But it’s also clear the end is coming relatively soon. Guardiola has been here so long that David Cameron was prime minister when he was appointed. He’s on his sixth prime minister; Sir Alex Ferguson only had five prime ministers during his Man United reign.

To put it in football terms, Guardiola as Man City boss has known 20 Watford managers. How many more of them can he see off? Not many. Maybe no more than another five or six.

Anyway, this is all a long-winded way of filling some space because the answer does, rather boringly, appear to just be: it’s Enzo Maresca. We can’t get excited about that at all, if we’re honest. Not even enough to make a weak joke about baldness.

What we desperately hope is that Guardiola actually holds on long enough for it to be Vincent Kompany because that is far more interesting.

Who will be Manchester United’s next manager?

Technically the answer is Michael Carrick, isn’t it? Is that good enough for us? Yes, yes it is. No? Fine, Luis Enrique then. But we’re not expanding on that for even a single paragraph because you’ve annoyed us now.

Who will be Newcastle United’s next manager?

We’ve all been waiting for Newcastle to do a great big mental managerial appointment. We’ve spent years desperately trying to convince the world that Eddie Howe is in imminent danger, because Eddie Howe being Newcastle manager was always just a bit safe and boring.

With Howe in charge, Newcastle are never going to do one of the two interesting things available to a PIF-funder disgrace: dominate the league, or implode and get themselves entirely relegated again. They’ll have good seasons when they finish fourth, which they will follow with a relentlessly competent but largely pointless Champions League campaign that ends in the first knockout round while scuppering their hopes of getting back into the thing the following year. A mid-table Premier League finish and no European commitments allows the cycle to continue again the following year.

All the while having to sell one of your best players every year and scramble like mad to replace them with someone very, very expensive because other teams know you have the case, but not as good because, well, you’re Newcastle.

It’s a dreary old existence to have sold the entirety of your soul for. Newcastle must do something big and bold, and they must do it now because even before the Saudis started getting bored with their other sporting vanity projects there was already a sense they’d grown weary of this one.

That’s what Eddie Howe will do to a man.

Until a couple of weeks ago, we’d have concluded here: So appoint Jose Mourinho, you cowards. That ship has sailed now, because Real Madrid are crazy.

So we need another big-name, volatile and combustible manager who has managed both Chelsea and Spurs – who between them represent the southern versions of the two sides to Newcastle’s character – and will make Newcastle much more interesting, one way or the other.

Ergo: appoint Antonio Conte, you cowards.

Who will be Nottingham Forest’s next manager?

Don’t think we’re giving too much away when we note that Vitor Pereira’s fine survival-securing finish to this season will be followed by a winless start to next season that tests even the famously lengthy patience of Mr Marinakis.

Somewhere between four and eight games without a win, perhaps incorporating an embarrassing second-round Carabao exit, all Pereira’s good works from the second half of this season will be swiftly and entirely forgotten and he will be out on his arse within 17 minutes of a 3-1 home defeat to Coventry.

Forest are not the only club with a former Tottenham manager kink, but they are a prominent one. Maybe it’s because there are just so many former Tottenham managers out there. Anyway, this one is obviously Thomas Frank.

Who will be Sunderland’s next manager?

Fair to say Regis Le Bris was an out-of-character and wildly successful punt for Sunderland, who had spent the previous decade subsisting on a meat-and-potatoes diet of British PFM managers after having their fingers burned by your Dick Advocaats and Gus Poyets and the Paolo Di Canios of this world.

From Advocaat’s departure in 2015, their list of permanent managers reads: Sam Allardyce, David Moyes, Simon Grayson, Chris Coleman, Jack Ross, Phil Parkinson, Lee Johnson, Alex Neil, Tony Mowbray, Michael Beale… Regis Le Bris?!

That’s a sensational collection of names. Bonus points, of course, for pulling off the Allardyce-Moyes back to back.

But it makes the next move incredibly hard to decipher. Clearly, there is absolutely no desire to move on from what Le Bris is doing because it is working its absolute arse off. And what happens next will, one suspects, depend largely on how Le Bris’ time at Sunderland ends.

Is it in disappointment? They wouldn’t be the first team to fly high in their first post-promotion season only to crash back to earth in the following campaign.

Or is it triumph? Picked off by a bigger beast after further success on Wearside with a ‘couldn’t stand in his way’ send-off and a search for another similar manager to continue his good works.

If it’s the former then it’s Welcome, Sean Dyche and back to the pies.

If it’s the latter, then surely another trip to the Ligue 1 market is on offer. Let’s go with Pierre Sage, because taking any team that isn’t PSG to second place in Ligue 1 now qualifies you at best for a mid-table Premier League appointment.

Who will be Tottenham’s next manager?

The elephant in the room is massive and covered in all Sky Bet logos. We’re going to go ahead here and say that Spurs have got relegated and, to the shock of absolutely nobody, Roberto De Zerbi is less keen to hang around than he said he would be in such a situation.

Meanwhile, following a harrowing and humiliating early exit from the World Cup and all manner of all-caps Truth Social posts from the tangerine toddler-in-chief, Mauricio Pochettino is out of a job and in a bad place.

As has always seemed inevitable at some point in some way, he and Spurs find their way back to each other to try and rekindle what they once had having both been broken and bruised in the meantime.

It equally obviously does not work even a tiny bit.

Who will be West Ham’s next manager?

There’s a similar but much smaller elephant here. And much more of a sense that Nuno Espirito Santo would hang around in the event of it being the slightly less funny but still monumental sight of West Ham rather than Spurs tumbling through the Championship trapdoor.

He’s got Championship promotion experience from Wolves, of course, and would be as good a shout as any to deliver the expected and necessary instant return to the top flight for the London Stadium dafties.

But if things don’t start well in the second tier, then former Hammer and Championship promotion specialist Scott Parker is right there.

If on the other hand West Ham do pull off a great escape then it all becomes much less certain.

Obviously, Nuno would be gone by November for it is the history of the West Ham, but if they’re in the Premier League when they’re looking for a new manager it could be literally anyone. Which is why we’re sticking with them having gone down. Even though we have also relegated Spurs.

It’s our feature we can do what we like. We are not bound by the rules of your universe.

Who will be Wolves’ next manager?

Surely long overdue another Portuguese manager, so let’s bring Sergio Conceicao back from Saudi purgatory because English football is absolutely sufficiently high on its own supply to be able to entice a man with three Portuguese titles on his CV as well as a stint in charge of Milan to come and have a go at securing Premier League status for Wolves.

Doesn’t really matter whether that happens to take place when the goal is promotion or survival. But it’s probably slightly more likely to be the latter after Rob Edwards does the necessary next season before getting the axe after failing to win any of the first eight games of the 2027/28 Premier League season, in keeping with the finest Wolves traditions.