Premier League Preseason Predictions: Winners and Losers
Predicting a Premier League season is a mug’s game at the best of times. The 2026-27 campaign feels even more volatile than usual.
Arsenal snatched the title from Manchester City last season. Tottenham Hotspur flirted with relegation. Now nine clubs, including City and Spurs, have changed managers. Squads have been ripped up and rebuilt. Any attempt to lean too heavily on last year’s table already looks flimsy.
So eyes turn, as they always do in July and August, to preseason. The most misleading guide in football, but also the only one we have.
Some players and clubs have ridden the early wave. Others are already swimming against the tide.
WINNERS
Wonderkids: Dowman, Ngumoha, Madjo
Preseason doesn’t really exist without a new batch of teenagers to obsess over.
Max Dowman is already there. The 16-year-old Arsenal winger somehow made the PFA Young Player of the Season shortlist last year despite starting only one Premier League game. He’s still juggling school exams, but he looks increasingly ready for the grown-up stuff.
Against Girona in a 4-1 win this month, Dowman lit it up: one goal, one assist, constant menace. The hype is familiar. He turned heads last summer too with sharp cameos in Asia against AC Milan and Newcastle United. The question now is whether Mikel Arteta trusts him beyond cameos and Carabao nights. Preseason has made the case. It hasn’t guaranteed the minutes.
At Liverpool, Rio Ngumoha is pushing for that same leap. Supporters were already calling for him at the back end of last season; Andoni Iraola has given them more to cling to. The 17-year-old has started three of Liverpool’s four friendlies, helped by Cody Gakpo’s delayed return from the World Cup, but he hasn’t wasted the chance.
Ngumoha grabbed the only goal in a 1-0 win over Wrexham on the club’s U.S. tour and has looked lively throughout. Direct, sharp, unafraid. Liverpool’s attacking depth means he may still have to wait his turn, yet his preseason has nudged him closer to the real thing.
Then there’s Brian Madjo, who has gone beyond promise and straight into production.
Aston Villa paid £10 million to Metz for the striker on his 17th birthday in January, then had to watch him sit out because of FIFA rules blocking international transfers for under-18s. That roadblock has now gone. Villa successfully appealed the decision this summer, and Madjo has exploded onto the scene.
Four goals in preseason friendlies: a brace against Walsall, one against Real Sociedad, another versus an Indonesia league All Stars side. Then came Salzburg and the UEFA Super Cup against PSG, where he scored Villa’s only goal in a 2-1 defeat and could easily have had more.
Context matters. Ollie Watkins has been on an extended post-World Cup break, leaving a clear path for Madjo to lead the line. But form is form. Unai Emery now has a teenager who looks ready to step into the Premier League as soon as he decides the time is right.
Nottingham Forest’s relentless No. 9: Igor Jesus
Igor Jesus barely left the Nottingham Forest team sheet last season, regardless of who picked it. Nuno Espírito Santo, Ange Postecoglou, Sean Dyche, Vítor Pereira — four managers, one constant up front.
Six goals in 37 Premier League games is hardly headline stuff. Yet the story of his season changed late on. Four of those goals came in the final eight league matches. Something clicked.
He has carried that into preseason. Jesus has scored in four consecutive games, including in a 2-1 defeat to Sporting CP, and looks sharper, more ruthless, more certain of his role. Forest need a reliable scorer to avoid another year of turmoil. Jesus is making his case to be that man.
Manchester City’s creator-in-chief: Antoine Semenyo
Antoine Semenyo barely had time to breathe. He played in all four of Ghana’s World Cup matches as they reached the round of 32, exiting against Colombia. Then he came straight back to Manchester City and into another demanding summer.
No easing in. No rust.
Semenyo assisted five of City’s six preseason goals across games against Inter Milan (1-1), K-League All-Stars (3-1) and Atlético Madrid (3-1). He has been the final pass, the clever cut-back, the whipped cross. The winger was already a revelation last season, hitting 17 Premier League goals across spells with Bournemouth and City and adding four assists.
If this is how he looks in July, City’s new era under Enzo Maresca may still have a very familiar attacking engine: a wide forward who never stops producing.
Xabi Alonso settles into Chelsea
Some managers walk into chaos. Xabi Alonso has walked into something closer to a controlled experiment at Chelsea.
Appointed in May and officially starting on July 9, he has enjoyed what most new Premier League bosses crave: time. Time to study the squad, time on the training pitch, time with his key players actually available.
While rivals scrambled to reintegrate World Cup returnees, Alonso worked consistently with João Pedro, Cole Palmer and Estêvão. Senior figures such as Levi Colwill, Wesley Fofana, Jorrel Hato and Robert Sánchez have also been on deck.
Pedro has taken centre stage. Five goals in preseason, including a hat trick against Western Sydney Wanderers and a brace versus AC Milan, have underlined his importance in Alonso’s plans.
Not everything has gone Chelsea’s way. A 2-1 defeat to Tottenham in Sydney and a 1-0 loss to Juventus in Hong Kong have reminded Alonso how quickly optimism can be punctured. But in terms of structure, familiarity and tactical bedding-in, Chelsea look ahead of schedule. Their new manager will start the season knowing far more about his team than most of his counterparts.
LOSERS
Liverpool’s patched-up back line
Andoni Iraola’s first problem at Liverpool is brutally simple: he doesn’t have enough defenders.
Conor Bradley, the first-choice right-back, is still out with a knee injury. Joe Gomez has picked up a muscle problem during preseason. Jérémy Jacquet, the €60 million signing meant to reinforce the back line, has yet to play after a long-term shoulder issue.
The club moved to bring in Ronald Araújo on loan from Barcelona, a significant stopgap who should steady things. But the anchor of the defence remains Virgil van Dijk, now 35, who played a staggering 6,051 minutes across 68 games for club and country last season, including the World Cup.
Liverpool are asking him to go again. The question is whether his body can keep answering at the same level.
Preseason’s cruel side: injuries
For some, preseason is about rhythm, fitness, and a fresh start. For others, it shuts the door before the season even begins.
Junior Kroupi falls firmly into the second category. The Bournemouth forward broke out last season and was heavily linked with a big-money move to one of Europe’s elite. That conversation has stopped.
On a preseason tour of Austria, the 20-year-old suffered a foot injury that required surgery. He faces up to four months out and may not feature again until January. A second Premier League season that was supposed to be a launchpad has turned into a rehabilitation slog.
Aston Villa have their own injury cloud. Midfielder Amadou Onana ruptured his ACL in July, ruling him out for a long spell. John McGinn gave Villa another scare when he landed awkwardly on his knee in a friendly, though scans and assessments have cleared him to start the season. New signing Johan Manzambi, injured at the World Cup with Switzerland, is also dealing with a knee problem and could miss the opening weeks.
Not every scare has brought bad news. Newcastle United winger Anthony Elanga was stretchered off after a nasty tackle from Valencia’s José Gayà, who was sent off on the spot. Fears of a serious layoff faded quickly: Elanga was diagnosed with a bruised shin and is expected to be fit for Newcastle’s Premier League opener.
Preseason giveth fitness. It also takes away careers’ momentum in a single mistimed challenge.
Enzo Maresca and the Guardiola shadow
Replacing Pep Guardiola at Manchester City is a job that borders on impossible. Enzo Maresca has accepted it anyway. His first weeks have underlined just how awkward the transition will be.
City’s squad is loaded with stars, but many of them have barely been in the building. The club’s players racked up just under 5,000 minutes at the World Cup, and a core group — Erling Haaland, Jérémy Doku, Rodri, Marc Guéhi, Nico O’Reilly and new signing Elliot Anderson among them — went deep into the tournament.
Most only returned to full involvement this week. Their first real chance to play under Maresca comes in the Community Shield against Arsenal. For a manager trying to install new ideas, structures and pressing triggers, this is far from ideal.
Maresca has still found a way to win two of City’s three preseason games. The disruption isn’t his fault. But he starts the campaign with less tactical groundwork than he would have wanted, and with the Guardiola comparison hanging over every decision.
Jack Grealish and James Maddison: stuck in neutral
In another timeline, Jack Grealish and James Maddison are strolling back into preseason as England heroes after a deep World Cup run. Reality is harsher.
Both missed the tournament with injury. Both have seen their careers stall at precisely the moment they should be peaking.
Grealish’s year has been especially stop-start. A foot injury wiped out the final four months of last season and cut short his loan from Manchester City to Everton. He returned to training last month but did not travel on City’s preseason tour of Asia, staying in Manchester to work on his fitness instead.
His future remains unresolved. As of July 29, no decision has been made on where he will play next season. His contract at the Etihad runs until 2027, but his role is unclear. So is his readiness.
Maddison’s path has been just as frustrating. An ACL injury kept him out for almost all of last season. A minor hip issue has then denied him any preseason minutes at all. No rhythm, no match sharpness, no clear sense of where he fits when the competitive games start.
Both are too talented to be written off. But as the new season looms, they are watching others grab the spotlight while they fight simply to get back on the pitch.
The Premier League’s curtain is about to rise again. Some of these preseason stories will fade by September. Some will define the year. Which ones stick will decide who is celebrating next May — and who is left wondering where it all slipped away.
