Survival, quadruples, completing trophy sets – a 24/25 season target for every Premier League club

We’re nearly there. It’s only little more than a week now until the 2024/25 season is upon us and we can pass a good deal of what time remains watching people go impossibly fast around a velodrome on bikes with no brakes. We’re going to make it, we’re going to make it.

But with that season now so close, it seems an opportune time to give each of the 20 Premier League teams a target for the campaign ahead.

We did the same thing last year and… not all of them achieved it.

You can read the pre-season Premier League moods ranking here.

Arsenal: Season-long title challenge, silverware
Difficult, isn’t it? Feels like ‘win the title’ is both obvious and reasonable as a target for this season given the strides Arsenal have made in the last two. But also tremendously unfair because, unless a meaningful punishment comes City’s way over the next eight months or so, winning the title remains fantastically difficult at the present time.

And even just mounting a third serious challenge to City’s monopoly would mean doing something Jurgen Klopp’s brilliant Liverpool could not.

While getting past City still looks daunting but distinctly possible, it does look very much like Arsenal could fall off quite a bit and still finish second given the myriad doubts that exist about absolutely everyone else.

So it does seem fair to insist that second place on its own isn’t enough – not if it’s a Mourinho’s United-style 18-points-adrift effort. We are all very selfishly going to need Arsenal to at the very, very least make life tough for City because we can’t see anyone else doing so outside a courtroom. Or even inside a courtroom, to be honest.

If we’re being generous and not demanding Arsenal end their Premier League title drought, then we are going to have to insist on silverware of some kind. Having nothing tangible in the trophy cabinet to show for the last two seasons when Man United have two pots in theirs is very silly indeed and must be addressed.

Were that silverware to come in the Champions League, Arsenal have our permission to finish wherever they like in the league. We’re nice like that.

Do Arsenal still need a statement signing? We are inclined to think so.

Aston Villa: Champions League knockouts, top-six finish
Nobody wants a repeat of Newcastle’s efforts on their return to Europe’s top table, and we are also going to expect Villa to make a better job than Newcastle did of managing the strain of top-tier European commitments alongside domestic fare.

Insisting on another top-four finish feels like a step too far given the reality that if a handful of other clubs sort themselves out and stop being silly then actually there would be little that Villa could reasonably do about it, but top six or thereabouts again feels a reasonable ask. Especially given the fact a lot of the clubs in that handful we mentioned earlier show few signs of any end to their silliness.

Now you’re going to want to know how the new Champions League works…

Bournemouth: Top-half finish
Plenty of encouraging signs during Andoni Iraola’s first season at Bournemouth after taking over from Gary O’Neil in classic ‘careful what you wish for’ style. Turns out that wishing was absolutely fine.

Ended the season 12th, which felt like an entirely acceptable result for the first phase of what is clearly a long-term plan. Further steps have been taken this summer to alter the age profile of the squad in a further hint that the Cherries at least intend to be in this for the long haul.

As such, steady but measurable rather than dramatic improvement seems acceptable, and if you’re going from a base of 12th then the top half feels like the only sensible target for that, even if there are probably 15 teams who would all believe they ought to finish somewhere or other in that top 10.

Also, winning even two rather than none of their first nine games last season would have been enough for the top half, so it isn’t really asking all that much given there should be no reason now for any such traumatically lengthy acclimatisation period.

Brentford: Avoid any repeat of last season’s relegation flirtation
Never really in desperate trouble last season, Brentford nevertheless found themselves rather too close to it all for rather too long.

This is, we reckon, among the more generous targets we’ve set. There is no real reason at all why Brentford should struggle to achieve it, especially if they can sort out a rather more immediate short-term target: sorting out the Ivan Toney situation satisfactorily one way or the other.

Brentford look well equipped to cope without him should he leave, while it would hardly be a disaster to have a player of his quality remain. But what it must not become is a distraction that bleeds into the season itself.

Brighton: Top-half finish
Might well look too straightforward a challenge within a few weeks of the season, but also seems like it would be harsh to ask for much more of a new manager than to improve upon the previous campaign.

And such was the nature of Brighton’s long and drawn-out collapse after the first few months of the campaign that the top 10 would now constitute such a feat.

There was mitigation for the way last season fell away in the form of an often-joyous maiden voyage into Europe. No repeat of that this time, of course, which should help matters domestically for Fabian Hurzeler as he dips his toes in Our League’s choppy waters.

He certainly represents an interesting appointment and Brighton have got enough right over recent years for us to expect this to be another shrewd call, and if silliness abounds across any of the Big Six/Seven/Eight/However-many-it-is-now then it wouldn’t really surprise anyone to see Brighton in a position to capitalise on that and mount another tilt at the European places.

That would be lovely, but baby steps feels like enough right now. There should be patience.

Chelsea: Win the Europa Conference and complete the set
Chelsea were never a normal football club in the wildly successful Abramovich years, but they were also nothing like this.

Yes, they were a club that would cheerfully and repeatedly laugh in the face of the notion that you had to give managers time and that stability was the best or only route to success.

But Todd Boehly’s Chelsea have swapped Abramovich Era ruthlessness for what looks very much from the outside like clueless panicked fumblings and a deeply childish unwillingness to accept any note of critical feedback from a head coach, even one who had somehow managed to turn a clusterf*ck of a season around in its closing months.

That turnaround made Mauricio Pochettino’s axing look outrageously harsh, because it was, and hiring a replacement with zero top-flight management experience did little to shift the idea that this Chelsea regime want a pliant, malleable yes man in the role.

That turnaround also saw Chelsea qualify for the Europa Conference League. Such is the mess currently that there was some talk that Chelsea wouldn’t even take up their place in that competition, requiring as it does opening up their books to UEFA’s harsher FFP regulations.

But it looks like they’re going to have a crack at it, and they might as well go on and win it really. If West Ham can do it, then Chelsea ought to be able to. And it would make them the first club to have won the Champions League, Europa League, Cup Winners’ Cup and Europa Conference, which is a neat bit of trivia.

And one that also allows us to dodge entirely the question of setting a target league finish, which is essentially impossible given that anything between third and 13th seems entirely plausible for this daftness of a football club.

Crystal Palace: 50 points
We all know it by now, but here it is once again. Crystal Palace’s Premier League points tallies since their return to the top flight for the 2013/14 season: 45, 48, 42, 41, 44, 49, 43, 44, 48, 45, 49.

It’s a weirdly impressive piece of decade-long consistency, but under the watchful eye of Oliver Glasner it really does feel like now is finally the time for Palace to power through the glass (crystal?) ceiling and get 50 Premier League points for the first time (they also managed 49 and 45 when getting relegated in 42-game seasons back in 1992/93 and 1994/95).

They have the momentum but does that matter?

Everton: Keep all the points they win
Not asking a lot is it? Shouldn’t be too much to ask. And yet…

Still, though. If Everton can achieve it then it seems reasonable to assume that relegation is never really on the cards and that would be a blessed relief that their fans really could do with after all they’ve been through.

Losing a top-flight place they’ve held – often grimly – for 70-odd years just as they put the finishing touches to a shiny new stadium is not a thought any Everton fan wishes to entertain. But it’s also a intrusive one that is desperately hard to resist.

Fulham: Just keep Fulhaming away
After five years as a yo-yo club, a couple of years of Premier League mid-table stability has been enormously welcome and a third mid-table finish would do just fine.

We will once again insist on Fulham doing it the fun way, though. The specifics needn’t be the same, but we won’t accept a drab mid-table effort. We want more of the four-points-off-Arsenal, giving Spurs an absolute pasting, winning at Old Trafford, winning two games 5-0 in the space of four days, only taking one point off Burnley, scrambling a 3-3 draw at Sheffield United with two goals in the last five minutes antics please. Lots more.

Ipswich: Be the new Luton
The similarities are obvious: surprise promotion after long time away from the top flight, inspirational young manager. There might be slightly less patronising content about Portman Road than Kenilworth Road, but only just.

So it seems reasonable to set a similar target. The big goal will be survival, obviously, but that’s a tough one even for teams who’ve come up and down a couple of times before.

Making a proper go at staying up, whether successful or not, and enjoying a couple of red-letter days pulling down the pants of some bigger boys at Portman Road would be fine.

Leicester: Survive
Shouldn’t have got themselves relegated in the first place, but the result of that is that even having got themselves back at the first time of asking they are in a reduced state.

A lot of the players that shouldn’t have got relegated are no longer there and a rebuild that was probably necessary anyway was forced upon them.

Now they also have to tackle their Premier League return with a new manager, albeit a decent one in Steve Cooper who has been here before and knows the drill.

We certainly have them pegged as the most likely of the promoted clubs to survive.

Liverpool: Reach season’s end with no doubts around Arne Slot
Barclays history tells us replacing a manger who has become such a part of the fabric of a club as Jurgen Klopp is no easy task. He might not have been at Liverpool as long as Wenger at Arsenal or Fergie at United, but he had a similar status at his club.

So Liverpool’s challenge this season is doing what Arsenal and United could not, and get the succession right. Therefore the target for the season is simple: if we get to May and nobody is talking about Slot’s position as manager, then everything else has by definition taken care of itself.

Because we all know it is not going to take much for whispers to start or the media to smell blood. Especially those who’ve already decided that because Slot is a) bald and b) Dutch he’s basically just another Erik ten Hag figure of fun anyway.

They might want to think about buying a player, mind.

Manchester City: Win the league, don’t get point-penaltied into oblivion
Winning the league is pretty much mandatory as a season goal for City, which should be obvious. A decent stab at a double/treble/quadruple is also reasonable, such is City’s absurdity and level of dominance.

But this year, there’s an added task at hand and that’s to avoid have it all fall apart by getting the 500-point deduction Arsenal and Liverpool fans want purely for the good of the game you understand and not in any way to help their own prospects.

Certainty one way or another around Pep Guardiola’s future beyond the end of this season sometime reasonably soon wouldn’t go amiss either.

Manchester United: Be proved right on Erik ten Hag
Not sure this one’s actually even possible because would Ten Hag becoming hugely successful even actually prove them right given how obviously uncertain they were when spending so long agonising over their decision in the summer? It amounts to the longest vote of confidence on record and it’s going to be fascinating to see how it develops from here.

Will they even be able to sack him now if it becomes necessary, given it would require Sir Jim to admit he’d got it wrong? The worst-case for United now is another whole season wasted on a doomed project, but we must acknowledge the signs that do point to other outcomes being possible.

There is, for the first time in a long time, a sense that United’s transfer business is being conducted by grown-ups. And while Ratcliffe strikes us as a fussy self-absorbed micro-manager and also kind of a d*ck rather than the guru genius to solve all the club’s ills, we’re also pretty confident he’s a significant improvement on what went before and a vast improvement on what United could have ended up becoming.

Like plenty of big clubs this season, the range of outcomes for United appears large and, similarly to Liverpool with Slot, if United can reach the end of the season satisfied that Ten Hag is the right man then everything else will have taken care of itself along the way.

Newcastle: Get back in Europe
We’re not remotely convinced that losing Eddie Howe to England would actually be a bad outcome for Newcastle but whatever happens with the manager the on-field target is pretty clear. Got to get back into Europe; two consecutive seasons outside continental competition isn’t the done thing at all for a team with designs on first disturbing and eventually entirely overthrowing the previous Big Six.

Obviously they were pretty unlucky in not getting into Europe from seventh; it’s rare for cup winners to come from outside the top six and scupper the seventh-place team. But even if they had qualified it would only have been for the Conference and that certainly wasn’t the target when the season began.

Not being in Europe can be an advantage domestically, of course, with the reduced fixture list and sharpened focus and the top six feels like a must.

Nottingham Forest: Keep all the points, don’t get relegated
Again, it shouldn’t be much to ask. We’re not entirely convinced by Nuno Espirito Santo if we’re honest and unlike with Everton have serious concerns about Forest’s survival chances even if they do manage to keep hold of all the points they win this season.

So yeah. ‘Don’t get relegated, yeah?’ is both target and enormously unhelpfully obvious advice here.

Southampton: Don’t go full Burnley
This can mean two things. First, be more adaptable than Burnley were if the fancy and noble ideas of doing things a certain way aren’t working. And second, be willing to change the manager if that’s what it’s going to take.

Southampton have more than enough Barclays heritage to give survival a proper good go but margins are likely to be tight and it wouldn’t do to delay either a tactical or managerial shift until it’s too late.

Whatever happens, we don’t expect to be seeing Russell Martin rock up at Bayern Munich next season. Although to be fair, we didn’t expect that for Vincent Kompany either.

Tottenham: Win a bloody trophy, any trophy
Europa League ideally. Either cup would do. Premier League would certainly be a story.

But it’s getting very, very silly now. And this is going to remain Spurs’ season target until they finally achieve it or humanity collapses and the ants take over. Feels roughly 50-50 as to which happens first.

Manchester United have proved repeatedly that you don’t even need to be any good to win trophies here and there, so for Spurs to still be waiting for their first since 2008 is entirely ludicrous.

One of the key disappointments with Angeball was the way he so thoroughly Pochettinoed the domestic cups despite the absence of European competition and his Celtic record – plus everything about him, really – suggesting he would give them a proper crack. Sure, getting City early in the FA Cup was a setback, but again, look at United. Stop mucking about and win something you irredeemably silly sods.

The advantage Postecoglou has been given is a second pre-season.

West Ham: Better football yielding similar results
A top-half finish playing some football that doesn’t make your eyes bleed seems a reasonable first-season target for new manager Julen Lopetegui given the attacking talent he, like David Moyes before him, has at his disposal.

We know why the Hammers fans had grown weary of Moyes so we also know what needs to change. It isn’t necessarily primarily results. Or even results at all. The problem with Moyes was when results weren’t going his way there was absolutely nothing else to recommend him. Lopetegui therefore has a rare bit of new-manager breathing space (from the fans if not the media) that will allow encouraging signs on the performance front to override results for at least a little while.

Wolves: A good start
Glib to point out that any team wants or needs a good start to the season when pretty much everyone needs and wants that. But it feels particularly significant for Wolves, who did far better than anyone (especially us) expected last season but faded badly over the closing weeks and months of the campaign.

They won just once – at home against Luton – and took just five points in total across the final 10 games of the season and the concern is that Gary O’Neil’s side carry those bad vibes into the new season.

It’s a particularly acute concern at Wolves because they’ve already done it before. They won just two of their first 16 games and sat bottom of the table at the World Cup break in 2022/23 having ended 2021/22 in mid-table but finished with a run of two points from their final seven games.