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Premier League 2026/27 Gameweek 1 Preview | ScoreBadger
Premier League Intelligence
9 min read
Gameweek 1 Preview: Nine New Managers and a Season Nobody Can Call
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ScoreBadger
Most seasons open with a reasonable idea of what is about to happen. This one does not. Nine of the twenty clubs have a manager who was not there in May, which is the highest turnover the Premier League has ever had going into a season. Pep Guardiola has gone. The British transfer record has been broken, then broken again. And Coventry City are playing top-flight football for the first time since 2001.
If you are putting scorelines on all ten matches this weekend, that is a lot of new information and very little evidence. Here is what is actually known, fixture by fixture.
What the market thinks
Arsenal go in as champions and as favourites to stay there, around 3/2. Manchester City are next at roughly 5/2, then Liverpool around 11/2 and Manchester United around 6/1. Those drift about between bookmakers and will have moved again by Friday, so treat them as a rough shape rather than gospel.
The interesting part is where the models disagree with the market. Squawka's model makes Arsenal about 30% to retain and Manchester City about 27%, which is a much tighter gap than the prices suggest. In other words the market is pricing in more disruption at City from the managerial change than the underlying numbers support.
Worth holding onto when you predict City's matches: the squad that won 2022, 2023 and 2024 is largely still there. New voice, same players.
Nine new dugouts
The list is genuinely remarkable:
Manchester City: Enzo Maresca, replacing Pep Guardiola after nine years
Liverpool: Andoni Iraola, replacing Arne Slot
Chelsea: Xabi Alonso
Manchester United: Michael Carrick
Newcastle: Matthias Jaissle
Bournemouth: Marco Rose, after Iraola left for Anfield
Crystal Palace: Pierre Sage
Fulham: Alvaro Arbeloa
Brentford: Keith Andrews
For prediction purposes the honest answer is that opening-weekend results under a new manager are close to noise. There is no form line. Pre-season tells you almost nothing, because the team that plays in July is not the team that plays in August. We have written about before, and the short version is that it is real but it is smaller and slower than people think.
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What does carry over is squad quality. When you have no idea what the manager will do, predict the players.
The money
Two British records fell inside one window. Elliot Anderson went from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City for about £116m, which stood as the record for a matter of weeks until Morgan Rogers moved from Aston Villa to Chelsea for around £117m, making him the most expensive British footballer there has ever been.
Newcastle went the other way and cashed in, with Sandro Tonali to Tottenham and Anthony Gordon to Barcelona bringing in something in the region of £180m between them. That is the sort of summer that reshapes a season, and Newcastle happen to host Liverpool on Sunday.
A word of caution on reading too much into fees. A £117m signing does not score more goals than a £40m signing in August. New players at new clubs are usually worse in their first two months than they will be by Christmas, and the ones arriving from abroad often take longer still. Big spending is a reason to rate a side more highly in March, not necessarily in gameweek 1.
The promoted three
Coventry City came up as champions by eleven points, and it is their first season in the top division since 2000/01. Ipswich Town are straight back after finishing second. Hull City won the play-off final in the 95th minute and return after a decade away. They replace West Ham, Burnley and Wolves.
Promoted sides are the single most over-predicted group in any prediction game. The instinct is to write them off, and the instinct is wrong often enough to cost you. Our numbers on how promoted teams actually perform and on their opening fixtures specifically both point the same way: they lose more than they win, but they draw far more than people expect, and the heavy defeat everyone predicts is rarer than the narrow one.
Fixture by fixture
Arsenal v Coventry City, Friday 20:00
The champions open at home against a side playing its first top-flight match in 25 years. Everything points one way, and that is exactly the sort of fixture where people talk themselves into 4-0 and get nothing. Arsenal won plenty of matches by a single goal last season. A promoted side's first game is usually the one where they are still organised and still fresh.
Hull City v Manchester United, Saturday 12:30
Michael Carrick's first league match in charge of United, away at a newly promoted club, in the lunchtime slot. Hull have waited ten years for this afternoon and the ground will be loud. United under a new manager away from home in August is not a fixture to be confident about.
Nottingham Forest v Leeds United, Saturday 15:00
Forest have just banked £116m for Elliot Anderson. How they reinvested it, and whether the midfield still functions without him, is the question of their season and you get the first answer here.
Ipswich Town v Sunderland, Saturday 15:00
Two clubs with big support and recent Championship history, and probably the most evenly matched fixture of the weekend. If you are hunting a draw to predict, this is the one.
Everton v Crystal Palace, Saturday 15:00
Pierre Sage's first competitive match at Palace, who have sold Maxence Lacroix to Chelsea. New manager, reshaped defence, away from home.
Brentford v Tottenham, Saturday 17:30
Keith Andrews takes charge of Brentford against a Tottenham side who have spent very heavily in midfield. Brentford at home have been awkward for exactly this kind of opponent for several years running.
Manchester City v Bournemouth, Sunday 14:00
The first Manchester City league match since 2016 without Guardiola in the dugout. There is a neat subplot too: Bournemouth are managed by Marco Rose because Andoni Iraola left them for Liverpool. City at home in August against a mid-table side is still one of the most predictable fixtures on the card, whoever is in charge.
Brighton v Aston Villa, Sunday 14:00
Villa have just sold the most expensive British player in history. Whether that money is on the pitch yet will tell you a lot about their season.
Newcastle v Liverpool, Sunday 16:30
The pick of the weekend. Newcastle have lost Tonali and Gordon and appointed Matthias Jaissle. Liverpool have replaced Arne Slot with Andoni Iraola. Two new managers, one selling club, one club expected to challenge, under the lights at St James' Park. Almost impossible to call, which is exactly why it is worth thinking about properly rather than guessing.
Fulham v Chelsea, Monday 20:00
Alvaro Arbeloa against Xabi Alonso to close the weekend, two managers taking their first Premier League fixtures on the same night. Chelsea have spent the most of anyone. Monday-night London derbies to open a season are rarely the free three points the away side's price suggests.
One thing that has changed on ScoreBadger
Predictions now close for the whole gameweek when the first match kicks off. That means all ten of these need to be in before 20:00 on Friday, not just the Arsenal match. You cannot do the Sunday games on Sunday morning any more, and you cannot see how Friday went before deciding on the rest.
It is the same model Fantasy has always used, and it exists for the obvious reason: predicting Newcastle v Liverpool on Sunday lunchtime, knowing four results and where you sit in your league, was never really the same game as predicting it on Thursday.
Practically, it means opening weekend needs about ten minutes of thought on Thursday or Friday rather than a running commentary across four days. For the first gameweek we are sending everyone reminders at three days, 24 hours, 6 hours and an hour before the deadline, so it is quite hard to miss.
If you only take one thing
With nine new managers, three promoted sides and a record-breaking window, there is more genuine uncertainty in this opening weekend than in any in recent memory. The temptation is to respond by predicting boldly, because it feels like anything could happen.
Do the opposite. When information is thin, the scorelines that come up most often come up more often still. 1-0, 2-1, 1-1 and 2-0 cover a huge share of Premier League results, and August, when nobody is fully fit and nobody quite knows their system yet, is not the month for 4-1. Save the adventurous picks for October, when you actually know something.
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