Why this Premier League season will be the G.O.A.T: Epic title-race, guaranteed goals, promoted teams up for the scrap

The Premier League is back and has all the ingredients in the mix for this season to have serious G.O.A.T potential.

For most of us the Premier League runs through our veins. Admit it, a little part of us has been missing these past few months. It is part of the fabric of society in this country – of why we all love this game.

Stadiums are packed as the world watches on. There’s a reason why.

Epic rivalries. Tales of heroes and villains. World-class talent. The best of the best competing for high stakes. And what that equates to is this league being able to produce moments like no other.

Wayne Rooney’s first Everton goal that meant his world would never be the same again. Thierry Henry turning it on against Liverpool, bewildering our very own Jamie Carragher along the way, to keep Arsenal on track in the title race.

David Beckham from halfway. Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira. Collymore closing in.

Aguerooooo.

Kevin Keegan loving it.

Andrea Bocelli, Claudio Ranieri and Leicester City.

Well, it’s time to create new moments that are stamped in our memory banks as the 2025/26 Premier League rolls into town. And all the ingredients have been added to the pot to make this season one of the greats.

Maybe the greatest.

A four-way title scrap on the cards

Let’s not sugar-coat it, Arne Slot’s impact at Liverpool made last season’s title race a non-event.

The title was all wrapped up by February as Liverpool roared clear in what was a one-horse race after beating Manchester City 2-0.

Not this season.

A more intense title battle will be on the cards.

A look at the betting provides such evidence. Rarely do you see a major league with FOUR teams priced up in single figures with Liverpool (13/8), Arsenal (2/1), Manchester City (3/1) and Chelsea (8/1) all taking up a huge percentage of the market.

Liverpool have gone again from a position of strength, signing potentially the most exciting creative talent on the planet in Florian Wirtz, Man City have rolled the dice in the market to try and start their new legacy, Arsenal have got their centre forward and Chelsea, who were 20/1 shots before the Club World Cup, have shown in the summer against Paris Saint-Germain they have the talent and mettle to compete with the best.

Rest assured, the 12 fixtures involving both of those teams will be ones to savour and already look to have six-pointer vibes about them. Box-office stuff.

Goals, goals, goals guaranteed as elite marksman arrive

Centre-forwards are back in fashion. And the best in the world are strutting their stuff down the Premier League catwalk.

This should have a positive impact on the league’s goals output.

Chances were being created last season but not taken. The 2024/25 season saw more “big chances” missed than any other Premier League season. That figure was at 1201 in total as the average goals per game dropped from 3.28 in the 2023/24 campaign to 2.93 last season.

Spending on new players by Premier League clubs is approaching £2bn with still a couple of weeks left on what has been a meaty summer transfer window of action.

Manchester United secured their man to spearhead Ruben Amorim’s system by splashing the cash to lure striker Benjamin Sesko. He is full of power, can receive and hold up the ball to an elite level, loves a shot and is a nuisance for defences with constant runs in behind. Viktor Gyokeres did all of these things and more at Sporting under Amorim and he now has the pressurised task of being the missing piece of the puzzle for Mikel Arteta at Arsenal.

There’s also the excitement about Hugo Ekitike at Liverpool, who without question has the ceiling to go to another level in the Premier League. Already quick and skilful, he showed in the Community Shield his finishing and all-round game has already developed. Throw Alexander Isak, Matheus Cunha, Erling Haaland, Omar Marmoush, Cole Palmer and Mohamed Salah into the mix and you’ve got yourself a league that guarantees goals.

The rapid rise of fast break football – can Pep adapt?

Blink and you’ll miss it. Taking your eyes off a Premier League game at any point isn’t recommended as this league is now the place to watch intense, counter-attacking tactics. Teams are happy without the ball and springing into devastating transitions.

This switch of style has been a trend taking over the Premier League in recent seasons. In the 2018/19 season there were 389 fast breaks (OPTA term for counter-attack) recorded. That figure rose to 775 last season. It’s almost doubled.

Of those 775 fast breaks, 112 of those ended with a goal being scored – that’s 31 more than was scored in the 2023/24 season.

The best team at it? Champions Liverpool, who with Salah to the fore recorded 52 shots and 14 goals scored from fast breaks. The best numbers by a team in any Premier League season over the past seven years.

Pep Guardiola has seen close up how his Manchester City team have fallen behind in this stylistic change. His possession-based game, centred around control and luring the opposition into making rash pressing decisions has become easier for teams to crack the code.

Chaos is now embraced.

The rise of quick and powerful wingers along with intense midfield play has played a huge role in City’s recruitment. They are heading down that avenue with the likes of Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki.

Seeing whether Guardiola can completely rebrand this Manchester City team and embrace such chaotic football is one of the most intriguing strands to this season where the counter-attack will surely be king again.

Newly promoted teams can buck worrying trend

The last two Premier League seasons have uncovered a worrying theme of the three promoted clubs being relegated straight back down to the Championship.

So, it’s unsurprising to see Burnley, Sunderland and Leeds head the relegation betting markets but things just could be different this year and anyhow is a sample size of two seasons really enough to make such a sweeping statement that the gap between the Championship and Premier League is impossible to bridge?

You only have to go back three years or so to show that Brentford, Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest and Fulham have recently shown it can be done.

And all these three teams coming up have something in common: they can build their home ground to be a fortress, something Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester failed to do, winning just six games between them.

Turf Moor, Elland Road and the Stadium of Light are ferocious places for away teams when rocking. That could just be the difference this year and lead to a much more competitive relegation scrap as teams feeling safe in mid-table could be dragged into a serious scrap.

Injury issues won’t be as big a factor

The inability of Liverpool’s closest title challengers to keep key members of their squad last season certainly played a part in Arne Slot’s team running away with the Premier League.

Tottenham, Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal all ranked in the top five when it came to value of players that missed minutes due to injuries last season. It’s going to be unlikely that Liverpool will have such an advantage this season despite Slot being a master of rotating his squad and keeping his players relatively injury-free.

An absence of a major tournament last summer has to bode well for players being fresher and more robust in terms of the avoidance of injuries. Just look at the form and injury record of Declan Rice, Phil Foden, Ollie Watkins, Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka at various stages last season. All went through various degrees of form wobbles following their prolonged summer helping to guide England to the European Championships.

The elite clubs should be able to get their big guns out in the pitch more this season which should mean Liverpool’s advantage form last season in that regard is diminished.

Carragher said: “The Premier League is on completely different level to anything else in world football.”

And that is why an epic title battle awaits.

See you all on Friday.

Hear the new Sky Sports Premier League soundtrack by Kasabian ft. Cristale: ‘G.O.A.T’ on Friday Night Football. The song itself will first play at 6.30pm on Friday night when the new title sequence of Sky Sports Premier League will play for the first time.