Supercomputer Predicts 2025–26 Premier League Table As Arsenal Pounce on Double Stumble

Manchester United’s rise up the Premier League table has inspired an intriguing prediction about Champions League qualification.

Declan Rice (right) had plenty more to celebrate than Erling Haaland or Leon Bailey. | Visionhaus/Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC/Darren Staples/AFP/Getty Images

As it is so often proven, a week is an awfully long time in football.

Just last weekend, Arsenal’s mentality was being openly derided—by friends and foes alike—opening the door for Manchester City and Aston Villa to capitalise upon yet another slip-up from the Premier League’s perennial runners-up.

Yet, this weekend’s results have seen Arsenal open up a six-point lead at the division’s summit after unconvincing displays from the two challengers.

Football fans and pundits are far too prone to knee-jerk reactions. Judging a team’s quality on one game is like looking at a single dot in a pointillism painting. The cold logic of Opta’s supercomputer should, in theory, take a step back to examine the entire picture—and point towards what may be yet to come.

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Supercomputer Predicts 2025–26 Premier League Title Race

What a weekend this was for Mikel Arteta. | Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC/Getty Images

Predicted Position	Team	Current Points	Predicted Points	Title Chances
1.	Arsenal	53	82.08	91.01%
2.	Man City	47	71.41	5.49%
3.	Aston Villa	46	71.18	3.25%

After losing in convincing fashion to Manchester United last weekend, Arsenal were still deemed to be the runaway favourites for this season’s Premier League title. The Gunners’ chances have jumped from 84% to a whopping 91% following the most recent glut of results.

Arsenal’s 4–0 thumping of Leeds United on Saturday was commanding—if once again conditioned by corner kicks—but the results of their sparring partners for the title also helped swing the dial so ostensibly in their favour once more.

For so much of Sunday afternoon, it looked as if Manchester City would maintain their four-point gap to Arsenal. Yet, an inspired second-half showing from Dominic Solanke condemned the Cityzens to a 2–2 draw at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That result stopped the rot for Spurs and Thomas Frank, but the fans in N17 will do well to ignore how much good it did their north London rivals.

Despite playing an entire half of football in front of their own fans against a Brentford side reduced to 10 men, Aston Villa could not find a way past their spirited visitors. Unai Emery’s side were dealt a sucker-punch on the cusp of half-time by Dango Ouattara’s opener, which came a matter of minutes after Kevin Schade’s red card. The Villans racked up 20 shots in the second half, yet only directed four on target and were left to rue VAR for ruling out a potential equaliser.

Emery was without five of his regular starting XI for the 1–0 defeat to Brentford. The injury crisis which has swallowed up John McGinn, Ollie Watkins, Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans and Amadou Onana certainly won’t help an increasingly thin squad keep fighting domestically and in the Europa League. Opta have more faith in Villa than their manager—who infamously insisted that his side won’t make the top five—but they are only give a 3.25% of lifting the title.

Liverpool and Chelsea both boast fractional chances of pulling off an entirely unlikely title surge. But there is one other team which has forced their way towards a non-zero chance of winning the league.

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Supercomputer Predicts 2025–26 Premier League Champions League Race

Manchester United came out on top against Fulham—just. | Shaun Brooks-CameraSport/Getty Images

Predicted Position	Team	Current Points	Predicted Points	Champions League Qualification Chances
4.	Liverpool	39	63.15	40.29%
5.	Chelsea	40	62.67	39.43%
6.	Man Utd	41	61.39	26.75%
7.	Brentford	36	55.16	2.91%
8.	Newcastle	34	53.38	1.29%

Manchester United are very much on the charge. Michael Carrick’s side snatched a third straight victory against Fulham on Sunday to maintain their position inside the top four. Roy Keane may believe that’s where they’ll finish, but Opta’s supercomputer isn’t so optimistic.

Liverpool (40.29%) and Chelsea (39.43%) are both deemed more likely to end the season in the top five than United (26.75%). Yet the margin of certainty narrows each week. All three sides triumphed this weekend in victories which showed the flaws that have kept them adrift of the division’s leading trio.

Both Chelsea and United required stoppage-time goals to overturn London opposition, while Liverpool were outplayed for large swathes of the first half against Newcastle United. The Magpies harbour Champions League ambitions of their own but are currently deemed less likely to qualify for Europe’s premier club competition than Brentford.

The Bees are expected to record a seventh-placed finish—good enough for the Conference League—which would be the club’s highest top-flight position since they came sixth in 1937–38.

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Supercomputer Predicts 2025–26 Premier League Relegation Battle

West Ham took a 2–0 lead against Chelsea. | West Ham United FC/Getty Images

Predicted Position	Team	Current Points	Predicted Points	Relegation Chance
15.	Crystal Palace	29	46.87	1.37%
16.	Nottingham Forest	26	43.04	7.42%
17.	Leeds	26	42.39	9.97%
18.	West Ham	20	34.16	82.94%
19.	Burnley	15	28.99	96.46%
20.	Wolves	8	20.25	99.98%

There was a lot to like about West Ham United’s performance away to Chelsea on Saturday evening. Unfortunately, it ended in a 3–2 defeat and an unseemly 22-man scrum. “This is a blip,” Jarrod Bowen promised. “We’ve had some good performances, good results. We’ve shown what we can do, with and without the ball.”

Opta don’t share that same opinion. West Ham still tumble out of the Premier League in almost 83% of the 10,000 simulations of the season’s remainder. Leeds (9.97%) and Nottingham Forest (7.42%) are the two sides closest to getting sucked down the plughole in place of the Hammers, yet that scenario would require a major change of fortunes.

Next weekend West Ham travel away to Burnley, one of two sides all but doomed for the drop already. “If you look at that table, it doesn’t look pretty,” Clarets manager Scott Parker conceded this week, “but look at the fixtures coming up and ask yourself: ‘Can you pick up some points and get some positive results?’” All too often, the answer has proven to be “no.”

The table looks even uglier for Wolverhampton Wanderers. Rob Edwards’s side are expected to avoid any unwanted lowly points tallies, but relegation is a fate almost everyone has given into—expect the manager. “We have to fight until the end of the 38th game and we will do that,” he declared after yet another loss to Bournemouth.

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