Premier League best bets: Season-long predictions for 2024-25

Summer breaks often feel interminable. The Premier League wraps up in mid-May and doesn't return until mid-August, after all; even if there is, say, a World Cup or a European Championship to follow in that gap, it only lasts for a few weeks. The rest of the dog days of summer tend to be empty.

Well. "Tend" is an important word, because that wasn't the case this summer, now was it? Manchester City won the 2023-24 Premier League on May 28, Real Madrid won the Champions League on June 1 and from there we toppled headlong into the busiest summer in soccer history. The Euros opened up with Germany dismantling Scotland on June 14. The Copa America followed suit with Argentina beating Canada on June 20. By the time the two wrapped up —incredibly, on the very same day — it was less than two weeks until the start of the Olympics, where the men and women of professional soccer showed up again to contest their respective gold medals. Those tournaments ended mere days ago.

So: without a breather, without a vacation, without even a hint of the boredom that usually comes from a summer break, we're preparing for everything to start all over again. The English Premier League returns on Friday, Aug. 16, and with it comes 38 distinct matchdays of competition. We're tired over here, and run a little ragged from the busy schedule of the summer, but we still can't wait. Can you blame us? Internationals are great, but the Premier League just hits different.

Much of the Premier League will look just as we left it in May; Manchester City and Arsenal remain title contenders, Aston Villa remains a surprise Champions League challenger, Chelsea remains in crisis. But there are a few key changes this season that have us rubbing our hands together in anticipation.

First: the promoted sides. We lost Sheffield United, Luton Town and Burnley at the end of last season (rest in peace to each of them) but received Leicester City, Southampton and Ipswich Town in return. Leicester is a storied Midlands club that pulled off the shock of the century when it won the Premier League outright in 2015-16 (at 5000 to 1 odds, no less.) It's fallen on hard times since but has clawed its way back into the big time. Southampton got relegated as the worst team in the league in 2023 but bounced straight back up after on year in the second division. And Ipswich? It's been 22 long years since Ipswich Town was in the Premier League, and it's a genuine honor to have it back.

But beyond the new teams, there are also some new faces. Jurgen Klopp left his post at Liverpool at the end of last season to make way for Arne Slot, a blunt Dutchman who looks set to shake things up in the North. Chelsea took one look at its massive, expensive squad, decided its coach was the problem, and promptly fired him; it hired Enzo Maresca, architect of Leicester City's promotion and Pep Guardiola look-alike, as a replacement. (We're not sure what Maresca sees in this Chelsea mess besides a paycheck but we're excited to find out.) We've lost Julian Alvarez and Michael Olise; we've gained Ian Maatsen and Daichi Kamada. In short: there's plenty of freshness here to add a new layer of intrigue to the league.

We'll get into our regular rhythm of best bets and "Game of the Week" posts as the matchdays begin. But first, let's take a look at the season as a whole. Here's what we're watching as the Summer of Soccer fades into the Fall, Winter and Spring of the Premier League:

Arsenal showing up in a big way. Arsenal's off-season moves have been spectacular: it's signed Italian defender Riccardo Calafiori and number-one goalkeeper David Raya. Both are excellent moves. But Arsenal's best move is likely let to come. It's in the market for a big-name striker and has sold or loaned all the right players to free up room for that signing. Will it be Napoli's Victor Osimhen? Sporting Lisbon's Viktor Gyokeres? Or someone else? We'll find out in the coming weeks, but either way it looks incredibly promising for the Gunners.

Arsenal, you see, now has a clear top goalkeeper in Raya, a world-class defense in Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel and the aforementioned Calafiori, one of the best defensive midfields in the world in Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard, and some of the most exciting attackers in the league in Bukayo Saka, Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz. Add that mystery new center forward signing into the mix and this Arsenal side starts to look scary. It just missed out to Man City in the title race last season; with Arsenal strengthening considerably and City making precious few movements in the offseason, we're inclined to back an Arsenal title victory this time around at +187.

No certainties for Chelsea beyond Cole Palmer. In preparing for this piece, we took a deep dive into Chelsea's squad ... and it was indeed deep, as Chelsea has a whopping 42 players on its roster right now. (Arsenal, by comparison, has just 24.) Chelsea has so many people futzing around its locker room that it's next to impossible to predict how it will perform next season. We don't even know who will be playing! It's got eight goalkeepers on the books!

The only certainty for Chelsea is England wunderkind Cole Palmer —new coach Enzo Maresca rates him highly and will build his attack around him. And that makes sense: Palmer is young, has a good eye for goal and is unselfish with his build-up play. We don't know who will be lining up alongside him (probably some combination of Raheem Sterling, Nicolas Jackson, Mykhailo Mudryk, Christopher Nkunku and Armando Broja) but we know Palmer will be on hand to feed them balls on a silver platter. He finished second in the Premier League assist standings last season; we're backing him to do one better with Chelsea's revolving door of talent and make the most assists of anyone at +1200.

Brentford breaking down. We're big fans of Thomas Frank and Brentford around these parts, but we're nervous about their chances in 2024/5. The lovable Bees struggled mightily last season and don't appear to have improved over the break.

As Brentford finished last season in 16th, its biggest asset — in more ways than one — was Ivan Toney. The controversial striker was Brentford's ticket out of the relegation dogfight: it planned to sell him to another English club and use the tens of millions of pounds to strengthen the rest of its squad. Brentford even bought another striker, Brazilian Igor Thiago, at a bargain to replace Toney in advance of his eventual sale. But Thiago injured his meniscus in preseason and is now expected to stay out injured into January or February of next year, meaning that Brentford, once reliant upon the money from Toney's transfer, is now instead reliant upon him staying and replacing Thiago's goals.

It's an unprecedented mess, and we don't envy Thomas Frank one bit. We hate to say it, but we're backing a shock Brentford relegation at +900.

The English Premier League kicks off on Friday, Aug. 16 when Manchester United take on Fulham at Old Trafford. See you there!