For 22 years, the Premier League trophy stayed out of Arsenal’s hands. Then, in May 2026, it finally came home. The Gunners were crowned champions with a game to spare, sealing their first English league title since the Invincibles of 2003-04 and their 14th English championship overall. After finishing runners up in each of the previous three seasons, Mikel Arteta’s side stopped being the nearly team and became the standard everyone else now chases.
So the question that frames the entire 2026-27 season is a simple one. Who, if anyone, can stop them?
- 6/4 : Arsenal’s odds to retain the title, the shortest price of any club heading into the new campaign.
The champions who finally arrived
Arsenal did not stumble into this title. They finished on 85 points, kept David Raya between the posts as the league’s meanest goalkeeper, and rode out a run of injuries to Kai Havertz and Martin Odegaard that would have sunk a weaker squad. Viktor Gyokeres needed a few months to settle after his move from Sporting, yet the Sweden striker found his rhythm when it mattered most.
That resilience is the frightening part for everyone else. Arsenal won ugly when they had to, and they did it while their two most creative players spent long stretches in the treatment room. If Odegaard stays healthy and Gyokeres builds on a strong finish, the champions could be even better next season than they were this one.
There is one warning sign, though, and it is a loud one. Arsenal have not successfully defended an English league title since the 1930s. Winning once is hard. Doing it again, with a target on your back and the whole league gunning for you, is a completely different test.
Manchester City and the Maresca question
The biggest story of the summer had nothing to do with a transfer fee. After 10 years and a haul of silverware that reshaped English soccer, Pep Guardiola walked away from Manchester City. In his place stands Enzo Maresca, a man who knows the club from the inside out.
Maresca coached City’s academy, then sat on Guardiola’s staff during the treble season of 2022-23. Jamie Vardy, who played under him at Leicester, called him a clone of Pep. City still have Erling Haaland, still won both domestic cups last season, and still finished second. On paper, they remain the most complete challenger in the field.
- 27 goals : Haaland’s tally last season, the most in the league and a reminder that City’s ceiling never really dropped.
The doubts are real all the same. Maresca’s spell at Chelsea ended in chaos when he resigned on New Year’s Day and forced his way north, and the 115 charges hanging over City have not gone away. Replacing a legend is hard enough without that kind of noise in the background. The blueprint is there. Whether Maresca can run it under this much pressure is the season’s great unknown.
Liverpool, Chelsea and the great reset
If Arsenal represent stability, Liverpool represent everything that can go wrong when you spend big and still fall short. Champions in 2025, the Reds collapsed to fifth a year later, scraped into the Champions League on the final stretch, and dismissed Arne Slot despite a summer outlay north of £446 million. It was one of the sharpest falls a defending champion has suffered in years.
Andoni Iraola arrives from Bournemouth to rebuild, and his heavy, aggressive style feels far closer to the Jurgen Klopp years than to Slot’s calm control. But he inherits a squad in the middle of a transition. Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson left as their contracts expired, Ibrahima Konate joined Real Madrid, and Iraola is already demanding defensive reinforcements after a bruising preseason. That is a lot of rebuilding for a title tilt in year one.
Chelsea, meanwhile, have handed the reins to Xabi Alonso after their own managerial soap opera. The Spaniard brings genuine pedigree and the promise of stability that Stamford Bridge has been crying out for. Yet a first season is rarely a title season, and Alonso is learning a new league at the same moment he is learning a new dressing room.
Do not forget Manchester United. Michael Carrick took a broken team in midseason, won 12 of his 17 games, and dragged them all the way back into the Champions League. Now confirmed as the permanent manager, he has real momentum. What he does not yet have is the squad depth to grind out a title over 38 games.
Why this could be Arsenal’s moment, or their trap
Here is the case for Arsenal simply running away with it. Every serious rival is starting over. City are learning life without Guardiola. Liverpool and Chelsea have new managers and squads only half rebuilt. United are ahead of schedule but still short. Arteta, by contrast, has continuity, a settled spine, and a group that has just learned how to win the biggest prize of all.
And here is the case against. The Premier League has produced three different champions in three straight seasons, a sign of just how fine the margins have become at the top. Arsenal’s attack still needs sharpening, the fixture list shows no mercy, and recent history says defending this title will be the hardest thing this group ever attempts.
- 3 : different Premier League winners in the last three seasons, proof that nothing at the top is guaranteed anymore.
The season kicks off on August 22, barely a month after the World Cup final, with tired legs and rushed preseasons everywhere you look. That kind of chaos tends to favor the team carrying the fewest questions. Right now, that team is Arsenal.
So, can anyone stop the champions? Manchester City have the striker and the blueprint. Liverpool have the money and the history. Chelsea and United have promising managers and rising trajectories. But until one of them proves it can beat Arteta’s side over a full campaign, the smart money stays exactly where the bookmakers have placed it. In north London.