Arsenal won the 2025-26 Premier League title and ended a 22-year wait for the championship, holding their nerve after a 2-1 loss at Manchester City before closing the season with 1-0 wins over Newcastle United, West Ham United and Burnley. The title was built on a run of control rather than spectacle, and on a back line that delivered 19 clean sheets when the pressure was highest.
The breakthrough carries extra weight because Arsenal had finished second in three straight seasons before finally getting over the line. Martin Zubimendi was central to their early-season rhythm, Eberechi Eze supplied important goals and Viktor Gyokeres added nine goals in 2026, giving Mikel Arteta’s side the balance to survive the kind of wobble that has derailed them before. This time they did not fold after the defeat at City.
The contrast with the pre-season super league table makes the title feel even sharper. Liverpool were backed by Opta and 13 of the writers to win the league, but they just about held onto the extra Champions League slot instead. Their attack lost its edge when Hugo Ekitike, who had scored 11 league goals before his Achilles injury, was removed from the picture. Florian Wirtz managed five goals in 32 appearances and Alexander Isak scored three goals in 703 league minutes, numbers that never matched the billing attached to the summer.
Manchester City were supposed to be the familiar threat, yet Pep Guardiola will leave without adding a seventh Premier League title in nine years. City had already finished third in 2024-25, then reshaped their tactical identity to cope with the league’s directness, building around a defensive core that included Gianluigi Donnarumma, Nico O’Reilly, Abdukodir Khusanov, Marc Guehi and Matheus Nunes. Even with that reset, they finished behind Arsenal and never found the stretch of consistency needed to take the title back.
Manchester United tell a different part of the same story. Opta’s projections put them in the bottom half, and the highest predicted finish among the writers was sixth, yet Benjamin Sesko, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo all reached double figures and accounted for 31 of United’s 66 Premier League goals. When Ruben Amorim was sacked on January 5, United were sixth and 11 points off third-placed Aston Villa, a position that looked bleak then and even more unstable in hindsight. The season ended with enough scoring to narrow the embarrassment, but not enough to erase the gap between expectation and reality.
That is what the super league table really shows: Arsenal finally delivering the title they had chased, Liverpool missing the mark despite being the favorite, City losing their grip and United finding a front line only after the campaign had already drifted away. The numbers did not just predict a season. They exposed how far the league’s established order can move when one team finishes its job and the others do not.
