Shearer’s Big Call: Arsenal to Rule Again as Fulham, Coventry and Hull Face the Drop
The new Premier League campaign has barely drawn breath and already the plot lines are popping. Arsenal opened by swatting aside Coventry at the Emirates, while Michael Carrick’s Manchester United stumbled against newly promoted Hull at the MKM. Into that early-season swirl, Alan Shearer has dropped a whopper of a prediction: a full 1–20 Premier League table for 2026/27, laid out in his Betfair column.
Title race: Arsenal the benchmark
With United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City all embarking on fresh chapters under new managers or, in City’s case, life after Guardiola, Shearer backs the calmest ship to steer the straightest line. He’s called it: Arsenal to finish first, Chelsea second under Xabi Alonso, Manchester City down to third, and Manchester United back into fourth. Stability plus smart recruitment is his logic — and he’s right that Mikel Arteta’s lot look the most joined-up in the league.
Shearer’s been impressed by Arsenal’s work: nabbing Bruno Guimarães among other carefully chosen pieces, while bedding in academy diamond Myles Lewis-Skelly, who looked the part last week. The Gunners now look deep enough to scrap on all fronts without blinking.
Big movers and the pack
Liverpool, he says, will land fifth as the new regime beds in, with Tottenham sharpening up for sixth and Aston Villa steady at seventh. The real eyebrow-raiser? Everton to surge into eighth and sniff European nights again. Nottingham Forest, under Oliver Glasner, get a thumbs-up for a tidy mid-table season, while Bournemouth and Brighton again strike that sweet spot between ambition and balance.
If you fancy a flutter on how this all shakes out, the smart move is to keep an eye on the markets at our best betting sites — the early swings can be telling.
Tyneside reality check
On his own beloved Newcastle, Shearer is brutally honest: fourteenth. It’s not about talent — it’s about turnover. Move too many big characters out of a dressing room and you risk losing your heartbeat. Kieran Trippier’s leadership will be hard to replace, and while the replacements look young and hungry, they’ll be learning on the hop in the most unforgiving league going.
Survivors and fallers
Down the bottom, the three promoted clubs are forecast to feel the squeeze. Coventry and Hull are tipped to struggle most, but Shearer reckons Gary O’Neil’s side can cling on — and he’s placed them just above the trapdoor. The big casualty, though, is a non-promoted outfit: Fulham, whom he has sliding into the Championship alongside Coventry and Hull. It’s a brave call — and one that will ruffle feathers in west London.
Shearer’s full 1–20
1. Arsenal
2. Chelsea
3. Manchester City
4. Manchester United
5. Liverpool
6. Tottenham Hotspur
7. Aston Villa
8. Everton
9. Bournemouth
10. Nottingham Forest
11. Brighton & Hove Albion
12. Leeds United
13. Brentford
14. Newcastle United
15. Sunderland
16. Crystal Palace
17. Ipswich Town
18. Fulham
19. Coventry City
20. Hull City
It’s punchy, it’s provocative, and it’s peak Shearer. And if Paul Scholes’s top-six forecast lands anywhere near this, we’re in for a season that’ll have the switchboard lighting up by Christmas.
