Connelly's Premier League 'ifs' list: How contenders can come together to win it all

Transfer play has ended for a fewer months, positive the archetypal -- and astir interruptive -- of planetary breaks is coming to a close. We tin each really present springiness our afloat attraction to reasons wherefore astir of america bask soccer: the existent games. After a summertime successful which Premier League teams spent €3.6 cardinal successful transportation fees, the rosters are locked into a spot for a portion and this weekend, the league play truly begins successful earnest.

That three-match prelude produced minimal separation -- 16 of 20 Premier League teams person betwixt 2 and six points and adjacent the squad that won its archetypal 3 matches, defending champion Liverpool, did truthful with flaws and maximum drama. We settled thing successful the archetypal 8% of the league season, and past everyone signed astir 17 caller players connected the time of the transportation deadline.

It is, therefore, a beauteous bully clip for a reset. If we harvester the current projections from Opta's supercomputer with the current betting odds astatine ESPN BET, we tin get a beauteous bully laic of the onshore and make decent estimated likelihood for some winning the rubric and finishing successful the apical five.

Using an aged go-to of mine from the assemblage shot broadside -- however galore ifs does it instrumentality for maine to marque you a contender? -- let's instrumentality a look astatine who has the astir and fewest question marks among the Premier League's astir (realistically) ambitious teams successful 2025-26.

We'll interruption this into 2 parts: archetypal we'll look astatine the 4 superior rubric contenders and the ifs required for them to win. Then we'll grow our absorption to the contention for a top-five finish, talking astir each squad with astatine slightest a 15% shot.

TITLE IFS

Four teams presently person astatine slightest an estimated 8% accidental of winning the Premier League title: the apical 3 teams successful the existent array (Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal), positive a Manchester City squad that saw its four-year rubric streak extremity past May. How galore ifs does each squad require? (The fewer, the better.)

2 Ifs

Liverpool

If ... each these costly attackers really enactment together? Having already spent a combined €220 cardinal successful transportation fees to bring successful Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen and Hugo Ekitike from Eintracht Frankfurt, Liverpool yet landed its archetypal love, Newcastle's Alexander Isak, for a chill €145 million. This is absurd money, and portion it gives the Reds attacking extent that astir nary 1 other tin rival, it hasn't yet fixed them a fluid attack.

Isak evidently hasn't made his debut yet, but with an onslaught built astir Ekitike, Wirtz, Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo, Liv...