Alexander Isak will be on Homes Under The Hammer - Premier League 2025/2026

Decided to bite the bullet. Haven't started a thread in many years.

Will Arsenal finally win the league? Will Liverpool be worse despite spending 200m? Will Man City get relegated due to 115 charges or grimly return to form? Will Man United stop being funny? Can even one promoted team stay up? How angry can Newcastle fans get?

Have at it!

Something about Spurs. Setpieces/violent roughhousing?

Finally, on the right board

Hooray! Looking forward to watching MOTD with the boy and not otherwise engaging unless Liverpool win something and there's another parade.

Oh and beating that cunt from Mumford & Sons at FPL again. Is there an ILX FPL league out there?

You won't watch it live? I have to say through a combo of getting older, TV subscriptions, Liverpool being fairly consistently good, and general ennui of life, I am prob deeper in than ever. Several podcasts a week, BT and Sky at home etc. Maybe also Liverpool finally winning the league then repeating it means football doesn't have the grinding painful anxiety it had every season when I was younger. I can enjoy it more.

i look forward to another season of grinding painful anxiety

Tbh after I posted that I started thinking how anxious I was even when we were miles ahead last year.

I dunno, it's so hard to find a stream these days and I just have so much to do every Saturday anyway. Might be changing jobs soon though so maybe things will change a bit. It's something to talk about at family gatherings, though the family still in Liverpool either support Everton or Forest (long story)

All three promoted teams to go straight back down for, I think, the third season in a row?

Have seen a couple of pundits tip Leeds to buck the trend at the expense of Wolves

A couple of evil pundits.

Sunderland have spent loads also

West Ham not great?

West Ham will be fine I reckon. Brentford seem the best candidates to keep one of the new teams up but I doubt it tbh. I reckon City will win it. My football consumption (other than League 1) is just Second Captains and 3min highlights on YouTube

Brentford hiring Keith Andrews with zero management experience is a brave move (though to be fair he does have some assistant manager experience, though to be even fairer it was for MK Dons and they were relegated that season)

Definitely a worry. He is red hot favourite to be sacked first.

I wish Keith well obviously as long as he finishes below us

Bournemouth have decided to set the fifa setting to ultimate for iriola and he's clearly done a great job but I think they'll struggle , same with forest. not enough to go down tho probably.

in amongst all the money lfc are throwing around I hope I've missed them extending konate's contract or are they going to let him leave for nothing next summer?
if lfc don't win tmrw then the winless in the league streak stretches to what 5 games?
slot out in that case.

I think city will be closer to last season version than 2019-2024 version.
think arsenal will win the league.

Sounds like Konate could be off. There were even a few rumours Real might try to buy him this summer.

I think they need to keep him if at all possible. the way the team sets up this season him and vvd will have to do a tonne of one on one defending and I trust both of them to manage that, not sure anyone we've been linked with could cope as well. of course it helps to have allisson mind you.

I know it's twenty mins in but feel like there's not a lot of attacking coherence in Liverpool at all.

Good game this.

Liverpool all over the place defensively

Never in doubt (that Mo would score in the opening game).

What a game. Unbelievably sad to see Mo crying at the final whistle as the whole stadium sings for Jota.

I think Liverpool's problem is midfield exposing the defence. Wirtz is quality but isn't going to do anything besides attack. Szobo at 8 is too undisciplined, and Gravy is suspended. That said, Konate was terrible tonight.

Ekitike looks brilliant tho, exciting player. Wirtz still settling but love how his first touch is almost always a pass.

Could be a mental season with this attacking setup but I hope they find a more controlled structure for the sake of my health.

indisciplined*

For three seasons we’ve had more points than any other team in this league, which is incredible. That’s how you have all the consistency. Now we have to do it in a season to have one more point or the same amount of points and more goals different than any other team. That’s the objective.”

apparently this isn't even true, man city have more, but also... this is why people dislike arteta. he makes it sound like they need to just flukily be top of the league when the season ends having done the harder bit of having a good average points score.

not sure whether to watch this

looks like Martinez is suspended for Villa, wonder what happened there?

Sent off at end of last season

[lightly quivering] not ringing any bells

Yeah i detected the note of fake insouciance

Not notably missing Martinez so far

new guy looks good so far. he's had more to do than I'd like

Well yeah, he's done good tho

Every pass is going wrong, this is getting tiresome. That said, the tempo is pretty crazy. Newcastle’s midfield get in there so fast

New goalie looks legit, this could be a big step up from Olsen

Weird seeing both teams in the same colour shorts. What is this, Ted Lasso?

Think Villa had a bit more impact in the last 5 minutes, hopefully they build on that

Welp, the Prem's back baby

newcastle could really use a prolific striker, you feel.

Classy celebrating like they've just won the league tho

not sure there are many groups of fans who will relish hating one of their own players as much as newcastle fans will with isak.

if there's one thing Newcastle fans can't stand, it's Jamal Kashoggi's widow. But if there are two things they can't stand, you can add A Player That Doesnt Give His All For That Famous Black and White Shirt as well

alan shearer - got newcastle relegated

alexander isak - won a trophy for newcastle for the first and last time in their history

yet the latter is the villain here???

only one goal in the prem so far today and it's richarlison

Richarlison’s second goal was tremendous.

Forget yer Arsenal v. Spurs or Chelsea v. Fulham or whatever, Newcastle v Sunderland games are going to give the Premier League a taste of a truly venomous derby.

Grant Xhaka as Sunderland captain should def help with that

so wolves are going to beat man city 4-0 then

https://i.postimg.cc/B6dXNmZS/Screenshot-20250816-165109.jpg

I'm enjoying this brief moment of respite trying to work out e.g. if West Ham are shit or not

before I end up crying into this thread in a bit

Wolves playing p well so far

Well yeah buf

We regret to announce that Unai Emery's I Can Fix Him impulse has critically malfunctioned

Emery is reportedly sitting on a big throne demanding Villa sign Mario Balotelli, Nile Ranger and Dele Alli and shooting anyone who questions it

save who. surely this can't be that bad.

oh my g

https://arseblog.news/2026/07/report-arsenal-working-on-move-for-vinicius-junior/

Lmao. Like I know we have previously bought unhappy Real attacking midfielders like Odegaard and Ozil but lmao. I feel like this just can’t be true. Like ok we won the league and made it to the CL final and this is the type of signing that league winners made but lmao. His name doesn’t start with an O, for one thing.

Would be great if true but lmao.

apparently it's on 480k a week at Madrid

As long as they put him on pens I'm all for it

I wouldn't call the new season thread Vinicius, You Hit Me With A Flower just yet though

chelsea going from stockpiling every promising young player in the world to oh we could do with experience lets sign wellbeck and henderson is so funny.

signing Henderson after the world cup for a team supposedly going for the title this season is ????

he can give them a hand in midfield i'm sure.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/27/andrea-pirlo-out-of-running-for-italy-job-but-defends-deal-with-russian-betting-firm

Italian football and issues related to betting? Never in my life!

Could be wrong but my sense with the Italian job is they did a bunch of proxy moves for people they knew they'd never get, like Pep and Don Carlo, solely to make people think their new administrators and Maldini are serious operators, and now will just appoint someone more obvious. If you're Italian I guess the hope would be that that's Conte. He doesn't guarantee success but he's easily the best likely option it seems.

Mancini's already been appointed but yeah

lol

Just saw this, prob makes the whole sham maybe we'll appoint Pep stuff more clearly bullshit.

Howe out

Hout

Howay Howe away.

they've looked to Big Al for his replacement.

that's right, Al Ahli, a big club in Saudi Arabia.

Would have thought Tuchel might have taken the shine off German coaches.

Amazing that he lasted as long as he did, probably should have sacked him in May though instead of a few weeks before the start of the season.

Took til now for the death squad to get a visa

obviously he and his staff are all under contract. i guess they will be dissolved now.

Going to be replaced with Matthias Jaissle who apparently was in charge at RB Salzberg for a couple of years and is currently coaching in Saudi Arabia. No, me neither.

xp lol chef's kiss

hahaha

lol just got it, sorry bit slow today

BBC scrupulously refusing to use the word "sacked". he has so many buds in the media

Not sure, I did read a fair few reports saying he left in a huff which doesn't seem totally impossible given the timings. But idk.

he left in a duffel bag

this is the saddest moment for Newcastle United Football Club since United Airlines Flight 93 failed to crash into its intended target

youd be amazed how long i had to think about that

i genuinely was like ".....sunderland?....??"

About time England had a new manager. An English one this time.

Maybe one day an English manager will win the Prem, who knows?

34 years of hurt.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/31/franco-baresi-iconic-former-milan-and-italy-defender-dies-aged-66

This is a fucking scandal, zero points deduction and only a suspended two-window ban.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c5ygz42gedno

Aye what bollocks

It seems like we are getting Bruno G this week. I hope it is just as a more advanced Norgaard replacement, as I wouldn't pick him over Rice, Zubimendi or Odegaard. There is also Lewis-Skelly seemed very impressive in the middle at the end of the season, even being picked over Zubimendi in the Champions League final. I am not complaining though, he's still a good player to have. A bit of a bastard too, so Arteta is seemingly delving even deeper into tactics that will annoy everyone. Hopefully it doesn't stifle Odegaard's creativity. He was injured for a long period where our game got less interesting and this doesn't seem to suggest reverting back to a team that revolved around Ode-Saka as a creative force. It suggests more bastardry. Maybe we'll get in the Simeone Jr when the Vini rumours obviously turn out to be a red herring.

Newcastle are really being stripped for parts - can you bet on who gets relegated in future seasons?

bit confused as to why Salah is going to Trabzonspor of all places, not even one of the three big Turkish clubs.

Up until a couple days ago, it seemed like he was going to Fenerbahçe, so something odd seems to have happened.

they're not buying Guimares as a Norgaard replacement lol

it'll be him and Rice starting in midfield

Or he'll play when Rice is flogged to death. He's really good imo and I guess it makes sense for Arsenal to assemble all the human meat in one place but the recruitment is a bit one note.

In other news I see Celtic are linked with Nick Pope. Please let Celtic have a jersey with POPE 1 on it.

perhaps some kind of protective but transparent vehicle to convey him past the crowds of well-wishers en route to his initial press conference

Must be a footballer/composer named Ira.

the music from the naked gun iirc?

A Manchester United icon has been banned from his local tip after he was reportedly involved in a "raging row" with staff.

Nicky Butt, who was part of the famed Class of 92, was left seething at staff when his Range Rover was deemed to be a commercial vehicle - due to the fact his seats were down. However, Butt still dumped his "smelling bags" before being chased by a worker.

According to The Sun, Butt said: “There’s this guy at the gate bit, and he flags me down and goes, ‘Put your windows down I need to look in the back of your car’. I’m going, ‘What for?’.

“I’ve got a lot of crap from the house, bit of cardboard...I missed the bin man last week, so I’ve got a few smelly bags.

"So I put the windows down, obviously my seats were down and apparently I’m not going in because it’s a commercial van. So I’m raging, literally. I’m putting a bit of cardboard in the tip.”

Butt also claimed he was told he was "sneaking" rubbish into the tip due to the blacked out windows of his Range Rover.

He added: "I thought, well, I’m there now, I’m gonna go for it. So I’ve got up the ramp, I see this bloke getting up...trying to chase me up the hill, but he’s got his walkie-talkie out.

“So I’ve literally got up the top, throw all the bags out, and I’m going back down the hill, and he’s going mad at me. Anyway, I’m banned from the tip.”

pro tip

Højbjerg’s apparently refused a move to Newcastle, in the latest of their string of indignities.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11669/13571596/liverpool-amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-nears-deal-to-buy-stake-with-consortium-led-by-amit-bhatia

yeah it's fucking grim