It’s been 22 years since The Invincibles went undefeated to hand Arsenal the English Premier League championship. Little did we know it would take that long for the Gunners to reach the mountaintop again – but it finally happened on May 19 when Arsenal clinched the 2025-26 EPL title with one week to spare.
That doesn’t mean the betting has stopped. Premier League odds for the 2026-27 campaign are already on the board at Ozoon, and Arsenal are the +165 favourites at the time of writing, ahead of Manchester City (+300), Liverpool (+600) and Manchester United (+600).
Is anyone else a serious threat to take the title away from Arsenal, or to deny these Big 4 titans an automatic berth in next year’s Champions League? And what about the teams fighting it out at the other end of the table? All will be revealed in our latest EPL betting preview.
EPL Betting Preview: Winner
They say the only thing harder than winning a title is keeping it. There have been 34 Premier League seasons now, and the reigning champions have retained 11 times – but that success rate is heavily skewed by the dynasty runs of Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson, and Manchester City under Pep Guardiola. The only other repeat winners? Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea clubs from the mid-Aughts.
Strip out those three dominant teams, and the picture looks bleaker for Arsenal. Freshly minted champions have fared rather poorly during their title defences.
– Blackburn Rovers: 7th in 1995-96
– Arsenal: 2nd in 2004-05
– Chelsea: 10th in 2015-16
– Leicester City: 12th in 2016-17
– Liverpool: 3rd in 2020-21
– Liverpool: 5th in 2025-26
We’ve included last year’s Liverpool squad because it was their first title defence under head coach Arne Slot; Jurgen Klopp was at the tiller five years ago when Manchester City swooped in on the Reds and won their first of four straight. Arsenal (26 wins, seven draws, five losses for 85 points) are coming off a season not quite as dominant as the 2003-04 Invincibles (26 wins, 12 draws, zero losses for 90 points). It doesn’t mean they’re doomed, but the Gunners will be hard-pressed to keep their title despite the returns of Premier League Manager of the Year Mikel Arteta and three-time Golden Glove keeper David Raya.
Manchester City, on the other hand, will be starting somewhat fresh after Guardiola’s exit. The Sky Blues will field mostly the same squad that finished a close second to Arsenal this season at 23-9-6 for 78 points. Getting them at +300 feels like a bargain compared to recent years.
Liverpool (17-9-12 for 60 points) also have bounce-back potential as two-time champions this decade under different stewards. It’s harder to lend Manchester United (20-11-7 for 71 points) the same benefit of the doubt at +600 given their struggles before Michael Carrick took over as interim head coach on January 13, but Carrick did earn the full job title after being nominated for Manager of the Year. Maybe they’ll continue their upward trajectory for a change.
That leaves Chelsea (14-10-14 for 52 points, 10th place) as the last of our viable Premiership contenders for 2026-27. They’re in much the same boat as Man United, except with a completely new manager in Xabi Alonso, who also left Real Madrid this January under difficult circumstances. Outsiders like 2015-16 Leicester City (+500000) rarely make it this far, but if you’re looking for a dark horse, Aston Villa (19-8-11 for 65 points) have legs at +2200 after finishing fourth and qualifying for the Champions League.
EPL Betting Preview: Top 4 Finish
While repeating as champion is difficult, holding onto Top 4 position from one year to the next is more likely than not. On average, roughly 2.5 of the four clubs have done it over the past decade – which illustrates just how valuable it is to qualify for the Champions League. Arsenal (–900) and Manchester City (–350) are almost certain to stay in Europe’s top flight; as with the EPL title odds, the fact that Liverpool and Manchester United are tied at –220 is an eyebrow-raiser, especially with the Reds joining their longtime rivals in the UCL next year via the additional berth granted to the Premier League for collecting enough UEFA coefficient points in 2025-26.
The betting value here is on the other side of the coin, with the 1.5 teams per year who have moved into the Top 4. Chelsea (+110) is a tempting choice given their strong finish in 2024-25, and Alonso’s previous success at Bayer Leverkusen, where he led them to an undefeated season and the Bundesliga title in 2023-24. However, Newcastle United (14-7-17 for 49 points, 12th place) at +700 and Tottenham Hotspur (10-11-17 for 41 points, 17th place) offer much larger payouts, and they both have the deep pockets necessary to sign whatever talent they require at the transfer window.
It would take less of a jump for Bournemouth (13-18-7 for 57 points, sixth place) or Brighton & Hove Albion (14-11-13 for 53 points, eighth place) to reach the Top 4 in 2026-27, so there’s a betting argument to be made here at +2000 and +1200 respectively. But the money Bournemouth will receive as Europa League qualifiers pales in comparison to what’s available in the Champions League – and BHA will receive even less for making the play-off round of the third-tier Conference League.
EPL Betting Preview: To Be Relegated
Now we get down into the mire. Every year, the bottom three clubs on the Premier League table are banished to the second flight of English soccer, the EFL Championship. In return, three Championship teams get promoted; this year’s newcomers are Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City.
Will any of them stay up? The EPL has a mechanism in place called “parachute payments” where relegated clubs receive a sliding-scale stipend over the next one to three years, depending on how long they remain in the Championship – and how long they were in the Premier League before getting relegated. These payments are much larger than what a team can expect to earn in the second tier, and that makes all the difference when putting next year’s squad together. On average, the Parachute Club finished 8.6 points ahead of non-parachuters over the past five years, making them three times more likely to be promoted.
Three Premier League teams have to be relegated regardless of those payments, but the obvious candidates for the drop will be the teams who have received the least amount of money. Hull City are the clear favourites at –350; they haven’t been in the top flight since 2016-17, so their parachute money dried up ages ago. Coventry City (–165) haven’t played in the Premier League since 2000-01, but at least they got promoted by finishing first in the Championship, while Hull City had to survive a four-team playoff after placing sixth.
Ipswich Town (–150), on the other hand, are right back up top after just one year in exile. They banked somewhere around £50 million (CAD$93 million) in Year One parachute money to stock their 2025-26 roster, putting the Tractor Boys in position to become the most recent “yo-yo” team in English soccer. Sadly, they’re still woefully underfunded compared to teams like Spurs and Newcastle United, which is why Ipswich Town are favoured to keep that yo-yo in motion.
If the teams at the top and bottom of the table are entrenched, that means the middle teams are stuck in the middle as well. Historically, it’s been a familiar spot for Sunderland (14-12-12, 54 points, seventh place), although they did just qualify for the Europa League after returning to the EPL for the first time in nine years. But will those extra matches stretch their Premier League squad too thin? Coming off a season where they posted a –6 goal differential (three goals worse than No. 16 Nottingham Forest), the Black Cats may be a bargain at +200 for the drop.
As we get closer to August 22 and the first fixtures of the 2026-27 campaign, Ozoon will have even more ways for you to bet on the EPL, including Top Scorer and Manager of the Year markets. Top Scorer is one of the most popular ways to bet, and Manchester City striker Erling Haaland (27 goals) just won his third Golden Boot award, so don’t be surprised if he’s at the top of the list once it hits the soccer odds board here at Ozoon. Keep hitting that refresh button for the latest EPL odds on all these betting markets, and enjoy your summer.