Premier League 2026-27: Arsenal and City as Favourites

The new Premier League season has not even cleared the transfer window, yet the conversation at the top already feels familiar. Arsenal and Manchester City out in front. Everyone else scrambling to keep pace.

Across a division reshaped by new managers, new ideas and looming transfer business, one verdict cuts through the noise. For Jamie Carragher, there are only two clubs who can look at the trophy and genuinely believe it is within reach.

“Where we are right now… I can only see Arsenal or City,” he said, framing a title race that, in his eyes, is already narrowing before a ball is kicked.

Arsenal the champions, City the constant

Arsenal enter the season with something they have not had for a generation: the weight and swagger of reigning champions. Last year’s title, ending that long, anxious wait, has altered the mood in north London. This is no longer a project chasing City’s shadow. It is a benchmark for everyone else.

Their consistency in 2025-26 has become the reference point. The expectation. They didn’t just win the league; they sustained a level that now underpins every prediction.

And yet City, stripped of Pep Guardiola but not of their aura, remain welded to the conversation. A decade of dominance does not evaporate with a signature on a farewell contract. The squad is still stacked, the standards still brutal. The question is not whether City are good enough. It is what they will look like under Enzo Maresca.

Maresca’s City: the great unknown with a familiar edge

Maresca steps into the most unforgiving job in club football: following Guardiola at the Etihad. It is a role that would intimidate most coaches. Carragher, though, sees something different in the Italian.

He has watched Maresca’s work closely, especially in those Chelsea games against Liverpool when Arne Slot’s side were on their way to the title.

“I’m a fan of Maresca in terms of what he does on the pitch… watching him tactically and how he set up,” Carragher said. “The problems they caused Liverpool at times… I was looking at them and thinking, ‘This fella knows what he’s doing’, and I think he’s very capable at the level he’s coaching at.”

That tactical clarity, that ability to unpick elite opposition, feeds the belief that City’s transition might be evolution rather than rupture. A new voice, yes. A new era, certainly. But not necessarily a step backwards.

And that is why, when pushed to pick a champion, Carragher still leans towards the blue half of Manchester.

“I think City,” he admitted. “The reason I think City is that I think they were still close last year. I know Pep’s gone, I get that. When you’ve had the same manager for 10 years… just something a little bit new, a little bit fresh.”

For him, the core of a title-winning machine remains intact. At least, for now.

The Rodri question that could flip the title race

There is, however, one name that hovers over City’s prospects like a storm cloud: Rodri.

The midfielder has been the metronome, the safety net, the structure and the soul of City’s dominance. Take him out and the entire geometry of their team changes. That is why the ongoing links with Real Madrid feel so significant.

“If Rodri stays or goes that could be a huge factor,” Carragher warned. It wasn’t a throwaway line. It was the hinge on which his prediction swings.

Right now, with Rodri still in sky blue, he backs City. Remove him, and the balance shifts. The margin between Arsenal and City is already fine. Without their midfield anchor, it might disappear altogether.

Liverpool reset, but not ready

If the top tier looks crowded with detail and nuance, Liverpool’s position in these early projections is brutally simple.

“Right now I don’t think Liverpool are equipped to be thinking about a title,” Carragher said. No dressing it up. No romantic nod to Anfield’s history. Just a cold reading of where they stand.

Last season hurt. A poor 2025-26 campaign, followed by another reset in the dugout, has left Andoni Iraola with a squad that feels more in flux than in contention. The rebuild is real, the work heavy, and the clock is ticking on the window.

“Who knows what’s going to happen over the next month but I don’t think they’re close to that,” Carragher added. The caveat about transfers is there, but it doesn’t dilute the message. Liverpool, in his view, are chasing stability before they can chase silverware.

Concerns over recruitment only deepen the uncertainty. The pursuit of Bradley Barcola has raised questions over direction and priorities at a time when clarity is vital. Liverpool have been here before: linked with talent, searching for identity, trying to knit it all together on the fly.

United on the fringes, not the front line

Elsewhere, Manchester United barely enter the title conversation. Michael Carrick’s side, at least, appear to be edging away from the old, damaging obsession with marquee names – the kind of headline-chasing strategy that has muddied planning at Old Trafford for years.

That shift might help them build something more coherent. It does not, for now, drag them into the group of genuine contenders. United, like Liverpool, sit outside the inner circle Carragher has drawn.

Two clear favourites, and a league waiting for a twist

So the early picture is stark. Arsenal, the champions, armed with continuity and belief. City, reshaped on the touchline but still loaded with talent, their fate tethered to the future of Rodri. Behind them, big names and big clubs, but not yet big arguments for a title tilt.

The market can still change things. One marquee signing here, one shock departure there, and the axis of the season tilts. For the moment, though, the 2026-27 Premier League title race looks like a straight line between north London and the Etihad.

Someone will have to do something spectacular to bend it.