Arsenal title, Wolves proper start, Man Utd top six – revisiting our 25/26 Premier League targets | OneFootball

We’ve surprised ourselves this week by discovering we were apparently just so damn keen to move on from 2024/25 that before it even ended we’d already reeled off one of our favourite summer features of setting a target for each and every Premier League club in 2025/26.

So early did we go that we didn’t even have Sunderland in there because they weren’t even a Premier League club yet. Which, let’s be entirely honest, almost certainly prevented us showing our entire arse with some kind of ‘Beat Derby lol’ nonsense.

Really, though, the reason we truly like this particular feature is that when we get a club right we get to say ‘Hurrah, we were right’ and award ourselves two ego puff points, but when we get a club wrong we just go ‘Silly club didn’t do what it was told’. Perfect.

Anyway. Here’s a look back at what is an inevitably mixed bag of not-even-summer targets for the year ahead, and an updated one for whatever new reality each club now finds itself in.

Arsenal

Pre-season target for 25/26: Buy a striker, win the title

Mid-season target for 25/26: The second bit

There will be plenty of self-flagellation to come later so please allow us a small amount of early smugness here, even allowing for the fact the striker they signed has not yet been a particularly pivotal figure in the whole caper.

They bought a striker, they are top of the league, there are fewer doubts about them than everyone else. Ignore how much Viktor Gyokeres has actually contributed, the main point is: we were right.

Now Arsenal just need to finish the job. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy. Unless they make it difficult, difficult lemon difficult but for goodness’ sake, when has any Arsenal side ever done that from a really promising position at this stage of the season?

Aston Villa

Pre-season target for 25/26: Cement status in new Big Six/Seven/Eight

Mid-season target for 25/26: Qualify for Champions League

After a troubling start to the season, one where Villa were winless after five games and even goalless after four, they have ticked this off and then some. A run of nine wins in 10 Premier League games – including victories over both teams that are now apparently their title rivals – has transformed Villa’s season.

It really could now be a spectacular season, but we still suspect that Villa’s actual level sits somewhere between the two absurd extremes we’ve seen thus far. But also that it’s definitely closer to the ‘nine wins in 10’ bit than the ‘no wins in five’ part.

A sustained title challenge would be spectacular, but qualifying for the Champions League still feels like a far fairer and realistic ambition.

Worth remembering here, of course, that there are two ways Villa can achieve this and either would be entirely acceptable. A top four/five finish would represent serious progress and show ability to sustain themselves in that part of the table in a way no outsider in the Big Six era has managed for more than a couple of seasons in succession (looking at you, Newcastle) but winning the Europa League would probably be more fun. They do have the Premier League’s most ridiculous trophy drought.

And they almost certainly won’t have to finish 17th to do it.

Bournemouth

Pre-season target for 25/26: Keep hold of inspirational manager, finish mid-table

Mid-season target for 25/26: Keep hold of inspirational manager, finish mid-table

So perfectly on track that they’ve actually made the first bit that bit easier by continuing the Andoni Iraola trait of being an outrageously streaky team that is always in either Champions League form or relegation form but never under any circumstances anything in between.

Bournemouth won five and drew three of their first nine Premier League games, losing only at Liverpool long before anyone knew that was embarrassing.

Their subsequent six games? Two draws and four defeats.

And this is absolutely nothing new. Last season Iraola’s side followed an 11-game run featuring seven wins and four draws, culminating in back-to-back 4-1 and 5-0 eviscerations of Champions League-chasing Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, with a run of one win and five defeats in their next eight.

Even the one win was at Southampton, which doesn’t really count.

The year before, they won none of their first nine Premier League games and then won seven of the next nine. Then none of the next seven. Then four of the next five.

They’re just great fun, is what we’re saying here, but while those good streaks will always see Iraola linked with whichever Big Six/Seven/Eight club is currently committing a bed-sh*tting, the bad ones mean he really might never actually end up metaphorically boil-washing the besh*tted Man United/Spurs/Wherever bedsheets at all.

Pre-season target for 25/26: Keep hold of inspirational manager, finish mid-table

Mid-season target for 25/26: Finish mid-table

Unlike your Bournemouths and the Crystal Palaces of this world, Brentford were unable to keep hold of the manager who’d shifted the entire idea of what the club could be, with Thomas the Frank Engine choo-chooing off to the debatably greener pastures of Tottenham.

Brentford then chose to gamble on a rookie continuity candidate in Keith Andrews in a summer otherwise devoid of continuity. Frank took several other members of his coaching team with him to Spurs, while the playing squad lost key players in Yoane Wissa, Bryan Mbeumo and Christian Norgaard.

Remarkably, though, the ‘finish mid-table’ part remains absolutely bang on as a reasonable target with Brentford approaching the always-pivotal Busy Festive Period at a fascinating crossroads; six points away from the bottom three, six points away from the top five.

Brighton

Pre-season target for 25/26: Bother the top six again

Mid-season target for 25/26: Bother the top six again

Almost everyone outside the most stifling heat of the relegation fight has had a go at bothering the top six this season. For several weeks now it’s felt like all the positions between fourth and 14th are simply being handed out on some kind of rota basis at the end of each round of matches, and Brighton have certainly had their turn.

Such is the congestion below the top three that you could certainly argue half the division are hitting a target of ‘bothering the top six’ but it’s nevertheless a ‘yes, this is fine, continue being fine’ half-term appraisal for a Brighton side currently eighth and two points below the top six.

There are also two ways to take ‘bother the top six’.

Reading what we wrote in May, it’s very clear we meant in terms of your own league position. But beating three of last season’s top six in the space of your first eight games of this season must surely also score ‘bother the top six’ points? It’s our feature and our rules, anyway, and we say it does.

Burnley

Pre-season target for 25/26: Try not to embarrass yourselves like last time

Mid-season target for 25/26: Okay, you’re not embarrassing yourselves but now get some actual points yeah?

You can tell just how weary we had grown of the naff efforts made by promoted clubs over the previous two seasons with this one, our assessment also featuring the words ‘dread prospect of a year of ritual Premier League humiliation’ and also – truly incongruously now just seven short months later – the words ‘Sheffield’ and ‘United’.

It doesn’t feel like Burnley are in fact embarrassing themselves like last time. They’ve been competitive more often than not and been unfortunate to come out on the wrong side of some close finishes.

But they are also 19th and on track to finish the season with 25 points. Last time they were in the Premier League they finished 19th with 24 points.

Chelsea

Pre-season target for 25/26: Reach the end of the season with genuine confidence the right manager is in place

Mid-season target for 25/26: Reach the end of the season with genuine confidence the right manager is in place

Would have seemed absurd just a couple of weeks ago, this one, with Enzo Maresca manoeuvring Chelsea nicely onto the shoulders of the leaders as well as being crowned actual world champions in the summer.

But those nagging ‘small-time’ concerns are re-emerging, with the fear after ropey results domestically and in Europe over the last couple of weeks that the manager has once again succeeded in self-fulfillingly talking Chelsea out of contention for things by insisting that little old them could never be in contention in the first place.

Particularly maddening on this occasion given that just before this latest wobble Chelsea had so compellingly displayed their bona fides by battling to a point against Arsenal having played the last hour with 10 men.

It’s now looking like two seasons in a row that Chelsea’s title campaign is going to hit the rocks at the exact moment it began to look truly compelling and, for a manager who – despite that Club World Cup bauble – does need to prove he can challenge for the actual top honours in the game it is worrying for it to become something that starts to look like a trend.

Crystal Palace

Pre-season target for 25/26: Top-half finish

Mid-season target for 25/26: Top-half finish, win Conference League

Not even finally breaking through the 50-point ceiling could get Palace higher than 12th last season, something that quite literally nobody cared about when they also went on to win the FA Cup. Which was absolutely correct of everyone.

They’re trending for an even better return than last year’s 53 points but a top-half finish would still represent success in a season where they’ve also had to juggle Conference League commitments.

That’s been a challenge for them and they still have work to do just to make the knockouts of the Conference, but any English side in that competition has to have winning it as an obvious and achievable season target, even if in this specific case more silverware one year after your first ever silverware feels kind of greedy.

Palace are currently fourth in the Premier League which makes Champions League qualification a perfectly acceptable stretch target but, as we’ve said, you do have to remember that all positions between fourth and 14th are currently being allocated at random week-by-week. They don’t actually mean anything, and Palace are still only four points above the bottom half right now.

Everton

Pre-season target for 25/26: Enjoy the new digs in a stress-free campaign

Mid-season target for 25/26: Continue enjoying the new digs in a stress-free campaign

Our argument back in the summer was that the unknown quantity of a move to a new stadium, even (especially?) one as spectacular as the Hill Dickinson, could nullify home advantage for Everton and thus that standing still and remaining clear of any kind of relegation unpleasantness would represent progress.

Seems fair now to note Everton have overshot that target already. They’ve even flirted at times with the idea of being actual fun. Love that for them.

Even if we remember that at this time all league positions between fourth and 14th are the same thing, we still can’t help but enjoy the fact they were fifth for a bit at the weekend. Fifth! Everton! Like it’s the 80s or something! Marvellous.

Fulham

Pre-season target for 25/26: Keep going for a full season

Mid-season target for 25/26: Start going

Been quite sh*t for a lot of this season, really, and at times it’s looked like it really could threaten the nice quiet life they’d carved out for themselves as the Premier League’s mid-tablest club.

Back in the summer, we wanted more from a team that when you asked how much more mid-table they could the answer was none. None… more mid-table.

Especially as all those mid-table finishes had been accompanied by slow meandering finishes that gave the game away a bit about survival still being the main target and Fulham simply becoming a club that was able to achieve that easily and quickly without ever really feeling it necessary to explore any loftier ambition.

We still think They’ll Be Fine, but, while defeats to Man City and Crystal Palace need not signify the imminent falling in of the sky, they have left Fulham in some danger of dropping out the back of the mid-table peloton that absolutely feels like it’s their natural habitat and into a relegation dogfight. Especially as, unlike recent years, it does look like at least one of the relegation places is going to involve an actual meaningful fight.

Leeds United

Pre-season target for 25/26: Survive

Mid-season target for 25/26: Survive

Back in May our concern really was not so much what Leeds would do as who they could realistically drag in to a relegation battle.

Leeds, West Ham and Wolves have all played their part here. Leeds are currently outside the bottom three and with every chance of remaining there. And that should still constitute a perfectly acceptable first season for any promoted team, even one of Leeds’ size where it can quite rightly only ever be stage one of a grander plan of establishing yourself as a top-flight force.

Liverpool

Pre-season target for 25/26: Prove the 24/25 season was the start of something, not the end

Mid-season target for 25/26: Top-four finish

Ah. Here’s what we said in May:

That’s all looking uncomfortably accurate for a Liverpool squad also trying to cope with the unspeakable tragedy of Diogo Jota’s death.

We’ve all had our fun with Liverpool’s on-field crisis this season, but the elephant in the room throughout it all is the fact this is a group of players, a club, still working its way through a grieving process in the full glare of the Premier League spotlight.

Perhaps not even Slot or his players themselves would be able to accurately weigh how big a factor it’s been in their on-pitch struggles.

But the reality is that Liverpool do find themselves in precisely the sort of place we feared for them, one in which 24/25 starts to look like a freakish one-off season where a new manager working with the old manager’s squad was able to bottle lightning.

Salah and Van Dijk have looked old and tired this season, with the former now at loggerheads with the club where his legendary status has long been assured. The yearning to replace Trent Alexander-Arnold’s unique right-back skillset has seen Dominik Szoboszlai thrown in there more than once just to try and capture that playmaker’s spirit from such an unusual area of the field.

Their title defence is already over with the gap to Arsenal a yawning 10 points. But the gap to Crystal Palace in fourth is only three. There remains absolutely no reason why Liverpool can’t go on the kind of run that, while coming up short of propelling them into the title race, leaves them nevertheless well clear of the remaining European chasers.

Man City

Pre-season target for 25/26: Title challenge

Mid-season target for 25/26: Title challenge

We’re not entirely sure quite how they’ve done it, but being second and somehow only two points behind Arsenal after 15 games isn’t just ‘title challenge’ areas for Pep Guardiola Manchester City but tremendously familiar title challenge areas for Pep Guardiola and Manchester City.

They’re actually better off than they were 15 games into either the 2022/23 season, when they trailed the Gunners by five points at this stage, or 2023/24 season when the gap was six points.

Man United

Pre-season target for 25/26: Top six

Mid-season target for 25/26: Top six

This target was actually for us back in May by Manchester United themselves. We thought it a silly target and took the p*ss.

And where are they now? Sixth. Listen, fair play.

Newcastle

Pre-season target for 25/26: Remain in Champions League qualification mix, make better job of Champions League itself

Mid-season target for 25/26: Return to Champions League qualification mix, continue better job of Champions League itself

Brutal, but Newcastle will remain the flimsiest contender for Big Eight status until they can stitch two good league seasons together.

And they haven’t yet managed it, with the current pattern from an admittedly small sample size being qualifying for the Champions League, then struggling with the added workload, then qualifying again with a reduced workload, then struggling again.

Obviously – as has become a recurring theme throughout this update – we must not become too distracted one way or the other by current league positions. Unless you’re in the top three or bottom five it’s all basically the same.

Newcastle are 12th, which is bad, but also three points off a probable Champions League position, which is fine. At some point, the current mid-table gridlock will disperse with obvious winners and losers, with no reason Newcastle can’t be among the former. Though they might want to stop chucking away points.

In the Champions League itself, it’s been better than their last effort with a play-off spot almost certain and a strong likelihood of being seeded in that play-off round. Two wins and it could still be a top-eight finish, but that does require winning away at PSG.

Nottingham Forest

Pre-season target for 25/26: Don’t be one-season wonders, make decent stab at whichever lesser European comp they’re in

Mid-season target for 25/26: Drag themselves sufficiently clear of relegation shemozzle to have decent stab at Europa League

Of all the teams who simply didn’t listen to our sage early-summer advice, Nottingham Forest are among those who didn’t listen the hardest.

Did we say fall out with the manager who made you good? No. Did we say then appoint the manager who took Spurs down to 17th to get you out of a nascent relegation fight? No. Did we say to then sack that manager and bring in Sean Dyche a few weeks later? Well, to be fair, by that point yeah we did kind of think that was probably for the best. But bloody hell.

The only way to avoid one-season-wondering themselves now is to steer sufficiently clear of relegation trouble that they can laser-focus on the Europa League across the last four months of the season a la Tottenham.

We’re really not sure they’ve got it in them.

Sunderland

Pre-season target for 25/26: N/A but let’s be fair, we’d have completely f*cked it

Mid-season target for 25/26: Just keep on keeping on

We’re going to be very honest and say our pre-season target for Sunderland would definitely have involved the word ‘Derby’. The only way that could possibly now work is if the target involved beating Newcastle.

Which it now absolutely could. Sunderland are slap bang in the middle of the big mid-table bottleneck, and staying anywhere near there would constitute a staggering success.

Tottenham

Pre-season target for 25/26: Restore sanity

Mid-season target for 25/26: Please?

Look, the Spursy thing is overplayed isn’t it? Obviously it is. But at the same time… there really isn’t anyone else like them. What other club could end the most infamous trophy drought in English football, have a massive f*ck off great cathartic party afterwards, and then less than six months later be in a position where they’ve sacked the manager, sacked the man who sacked the manager and found themselves in a position where the fans hate the players and the players hate the fans?

The maddest thing about Spurs’ complete and utter failure to deliver anything remotely like what we asked of them – despite appointing the most sensible manager in all the land to try and do it – is that when we asked them to please be sensible they didn’t even yet have the advantage of winning the Europa League and creating an environment where sensible really did become a viable option.

Haha Spursy nonsense go brrrrr

West Ham

Pre-season target for 25/26: Don’t give promoted clubs any reason to be optimistic

Mid-season target for 25/26: Don’t give promoted clubs any more reason to be optimistic

Let it never be said, though, that Spurs are London’s only nonsense comedy club.

West Ham f*cked this within about three weeks of the season starting and are still scrambling to repair the damage after at least having the good sense to pounce on Nottingham Forest’s identity crisis and bag themselves a Nuno Espirito Santo to put them back on an even keel in the latest instalment of West Ham’s relentless Be Careful What You Wish For lurching between safety first, low ceiling-high floor managers and high-ceiling-but-no-floor at all punts.

Wolves

Pre-season target for 25/26: Start properly, don’t require managerial change by November

Mid-season target for 25/26: Try to at lea… ah, forget it.

You didn’t do the thing we said! You did the exact opposite of the thing! Why would you do that, Wolves? Why?

Look at how close we were to this summer punchline paying off in full, though.

But still. Vitor Pereira getting his marching order on November 2 makes it all feel just a bit too on the nose despite the near miss regarding his replacement.

Having asked Wolves to start the season ‘properly’ they have instead out-Wolvesed even their own propensity for bad starts by delivering the worst Premier League start ever.