Just for fun, here’s a list of the finishing positions of defending Premier League champions not called Manchester City over the last 15 years or so: 3rd, 5th, 12th, 10th, 7th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd.
You have to go back to Manchester United in 2009 for the last non-City Premier League title defence, and Chelsea in 2006 for the last (and only) non-Manchester example.
Now yes, we are pretending Football Was Invented In 1992 among vast amounts of other mischief here. Manchester City have defended all manner of Premier League titles in that time, as shown by just how few chances there have even been for anyone else to have a go at defending one. And it is extremely cheeky to just…remove all those City successes from consideration.
Still, though. Something in it, we reckon. Building a dynasty is hard. And even when you manage it – as Jurgen Klopp and Arsene Wenger absolutely did at Liverpool and Arsenal – it doesn’t mean you automatically hoover up a lovely run of league titles back to back.
Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola. They are the only managers to have done it.
Which brings us, as you’d probably guessed, to Liverpool and their current understandable yet absolutely vast levels of apparent optimism.
There are some – not all, never all, we must always stress this part – among their fans and perhaps even more among others starting to chat like next season’s title destination is already known.
We’re really not at all convinced. We’re extremely excited for next season precisely because we don’t think anything is that clear cut at all.
This feels like the least predictable Premier League season in quite some time, and that’s intoxicating.
And to be clear, we’re talking about that giddy pre-season all-things-possible perspective. It’s absolutely true that a great many confident predictions from last summer were massively and hilariously wrong; our point is that it was nevertheless possible to make those predictions with that confidence in a way it just isn’t after the wild 12 months of Barclays that’s just transpired. Last summer it was far easier to just assume City would defend the title than to say Liverpool or anyone else will surely prevail in 25/26.
Could Liverpool defend their title? Absolutely they could. They were much the best team in the country last season and have already done eye-catching transfer business. Nobody is saying they can’t or won’t win it.
But that in itself must not be allowed to become a ‘Well yeah of course they did’ achievement greeted with world-weary shrugs. It would be a massive achievement, elevating Arne Slot into the very top tier of Premier League managers after just two seasons here.
Which also brings us to the doubts. How do they cope with Trent Alexander-Arnold’s departure? Was the undeniably flat finish to last season entirely down to objectives having long since been achieved or was it something deeper? Can Slot deliver with a much-changed squad as easily as he could in his first season where continuity proved such a powerful and expertly harnessed asset?
There are definitely very compelling positive answers to all those questions and more, but they are questions that nonetheless exist.
We’re on the record as saying we think it actually is Arsenal’s year next year, and we still think that if they get the striker problem right. But we’re not sure of it at all. Not like we’ve been sure about Man City for the last few years.
And yes, then there’s City? What of those lads? Was last year the transition year, or was just a great team flaming out and next season is in fact the true difficult transition season? They’re third favourites right now which feels simultaneously absolutely right and correct, yet also something that could look just absolutely ridiculous by the first weekend of October.
The odds also have every member of last season’s top five to be there again. And we’re not at all sure about that, either. It really doesn’t feel like that’s such a closed shop after a year in which Nottingham Forest came so close and ahead of a year in which anyone confidently predicting what or even how Man United and Spurs might do after their genuinely outrageous league campaigns last time out.
Do we trust Chelsea? Or Newcastle? They’ve both got Champions League football to contend with this season as well. What do we think of Villa? Or any of the new mid-table middle-class teams? Do we really know what we’re going to get from any of them?
Even at the other end of the table, Leeds provide sufficient heft to give pause to the new normal of all promoted teams instantly getting enormously relegated.
It just all feels like a lot of talk around next season is tinged with an air of certainty that we just don’t feel at all. And for the avoidance of all doubt, that’s great. We don’t want certainty before the whole thing gets going, do we?
Our only confident prediction is that the F365 predictions will be even more catastrophic than normal. And frankly, that’s good for the game.