The Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ have huge summers coming up and all for very different reasons.
Arsenal must do enough to get themselves over the line, while Liverpool might have to replace their three best players. It’s going to be a big one, folks.
6) Arsenal
This summer will likely be one full of reflection for Arsenal, who will wonder how they let Arne Slot waltz straight in and win the Premier League at the first time of asking. If Manchester City were to have an off-season, it had to be Arsenal that took advantage. Instead, it was Slot’s Liverpool.
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We know Mikel Arteta will remain in charge. We know he wants to sign a defensive midfielder and a striker. We know Martin Zubimendi and Alexander Isak are his top targets. We know Zubimendi is a lot more likely to join than Isak, whose future seems dependent on Champions League qualification for Newcastle United. There is a concise plan but everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face (by a £150million asking price).
There will be no overhaul at the Emirates this summer. The sporting director stuff has been sorted, the foundations are already in place to sign Zubimendi from Real Sociedad and it seems set in stone that Thomas Partey and Jorginho will leave on free transfers.
Having a plan is fine but executing said plan is the important thing. There will be some very uncomfortable questions asked of Arteta if 2025/26 is another trophyless season for the Gunners. No rebuild is required, just do enough to win the Premier League, lads. There have been too many transfer windows where Arteta has been left short.
5) Chelsea
Further trimming the squad and bringing in a world-class player or two should do the trick for Chelsea. Unless the rest of their season is catastrophically bad, they will not move on from Enzo Maresca as head coach and the worst-case scenario is Europa League qualification because there is surely no conceivable way this team does not win the Europa Conference League.
As has been the case for the last five transfer windows, the Blues desperately need to sign a striker. Nicolas Jackson has his charms but as John Obi Mikel is so eager to tell us, ‘This is f**king Chelsea’. They need better and Christopher Nkunku does not appear to be that.
Being sensible is the priority for a very silly football club. They are no longer rebuilding but needing to establish themselves as a Champions League side again having not finished in the top four since 2021/22. That is an eternity for Chelsea.
4) Tottenham Hotspur
Nobody really knows what Tottenham Hotspur’s 2025/26 pre-season preparation will look like. Fittingly, not even Spurs know what the plan is. If they stick with Ange Postecoglou as head coach, they will probably be in the Champions League having won the Europa League and if that is the case, the Australian will be looking to bulk his squad up a bit and keep hold of his important players like Atletico Madrid-linked Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven.
Surely Spurs will not have a season with a freakish number of injuries again and with a fitter squad, there will be high hopes of a positive campaign in Europe’s premier competition under Big Ange.
The other side of the coin is grim. No Europa League triumph probably means Postecoglou loses his job and Spurs’ managerial searches are usually nothing short of shambolic. Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola is reportedly the leading candidate to replace the ex-Celtic boss if he is sacked, with Fulham’s Marco Silva and Brentford’s Thomas Frank also in contention. A managerial search alone would knock Spurs up a place or two in this ranking.
Whether it is Postecoglou or someone else, Champions League or no Europe, there will be some upheaval in the first-team squad. This team clearly needs more defensive depth – all across the back four – and an elite forward, with Heung-min Son struggling to make much of an impact in games. Mathys Tel and Wilson Odobert are very promising attackers and Dejan Kulusevski is brilliant when he is not run into the ground, so there is some hope in that department.
Hope is not a word synonymous with this football club and the uncertainty of where they will be come the end of 2024/25 makes them pretty hard to rank.
3) Manchester City
There is no guaranteeing Pep Guardiola’s future at Manchester City, even if he signed a new contract earlier this season. He could very conceivably walk at the end of 2024/25 because at the end of the day he really doesn’t need the stress, does he?
It has been a disastrous year for a club with six of the last seven Premier League titles. The champions caved in and gave up after Rodri’s season-ending ACL injury and now they are in a scrap to qualify for the Champions League with Brighton, Bournemouth and Fulham.
The rebuild started in January with the signings of youthful defenders Vitor Reis, Abdukodir Khusanov and Juma Bah, while Omar Marmoush has only recently turned 26 and Nico Gonzalez is 23. Over £150million was spent and we can see City splashing the cash again at the end of a terrible season.
There are obviously 115 reasons why nobody can predict the state of play for Man City in the summer – but it is a gargantuan one no matter what happens in court and on the pitch.
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2) Manchester United
Getting a bit boring now, isn’t it? It might be the second summer under their new owners but witnessing another summer rebuild that Manchester United Have To Get Right is going to be painful.
It would be less stressful telling you what Man United don’t need to do this summer because f**k me, where do we even start?
A lot hinges on Champions League qualification – which can only come via winning the Europa League. Playing in that competition means the transfer budget is significantly bigger and better players want to join. It really is that simple.
Ruben Amorim will be eager to bring in his Own Players, with the Portuguese head coach complicating the rebuild with his compulsion to use a 3-4-2-1 formation, which only a handful of players in his current squad suit.
His first signing was a wing-back in Patrick Dorgu and another one of those will be on Amorim’s shopping list, along with a striker, centre-back and a winger or two. Winning the Europa League is going to be bigger than we initially thought.
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If United fail to win that competition, they will not be in Europe next season and that feels like the second-best thing that could happen. Sure, Europa League still brings in revenue but it is incomparable to Champions League money and the Thursday-Sunday schedule is a killer. A year of no European football could be a godsend for United in another crucial transitional period. Focusing entirely on domestic football gives them a better chance of a high league finish and success in either cup competition.
No Europe also means Amorim’s squad does not need a big overhaul, which saves money on new signings. Yes, we have already identified that the current personnel are not suited to his system, but you can’t have it all in life.
1) Liverpool
Everyone thought last summer was going to be huge for Liverpool after Jurgen Klopp decided to step down but it was a case of less is more, with no squad overhaul necessary to ensure a seamless transition from the legendary German to Arne Slot. The Reds have reaped the rewards from a calm summer and are Premier League champions-elect.
We might have said similar last year but next season, we cannot see Liverpool competing for the title.
It will not be your usual second-season syndrome for Slot, who is definitely losing Trent Alexander-Arnold and maybe Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk as well. No biggie, just his three best players. For a combined £0. Yeah, everything is fine.
Slot can cope with the loss of Alexander-Arnold alone when Conor Bradley is Right There but club captain Van Dijk departing would create a huge void at the back, while Salah is as irreplaceable as any player in world football. The Egyptian is on course to break the Premier League records for both goals and assists this season, for crying out loud.
No matter who Liverpool sign to replace Salah and Van Dijk, they will be drastically downgrading. The only players capable of getting anything close to Salah’s numbers (27 goals and 17 assists in the league) are not coming to Liverpool. Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappe, Raphinha and Lamine Yamal come to mind but we all know the only place any one them will be seen wearing a Liverpool kit is on EA Sports FC.
The loss of Salah and Van Dijk makes sense to some in the Anfield boardroom, but on the pitch, it makes the best team in England significantly worse and top four/five contenders at best. At least they will have their 2024/25 Premier League winner’s medals to dry their tears with. Although that does sound painful.
