The 2022-23 English Premier League season concluded on May 28, with Manchester City F.C. claiming the title for the third year in a row. City’s achievement marked the sixth such time a Premier League club (or, before that, the English Football League) managed a three peat. No club has ever managed to stretch their winning ways to four consecutive seasons, however, so the odds may be stacked against the Sky Blues before their title defense even begins again in earnest.
The bookies like City’s chances, though, as odds are already available for the upcoming season, which begins on August 11. Sportsbooks list the Sky Blues as the favorites to claim the 2023-24 championship, as they sit at or around -125 at various sportsbooks.
Odds can vary dramatically from sportsbook to sportsbook, as can the promotions you can make use of, like Deposit Match Bonus Offers, so make sure you shop around first if you think you’ve got a winning bet so that you know you’re locking in the best possible odds of winning big.
With a little more than three weeks to go before the season begins, here’s a look at the field, including some of the top odds and dark horse candidates.
First, the cream of the crop. Man City having minus odds out of a field of 20 clubs is a rare feat before the season even begins, and it’s a testament to the stability and talent that club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has overseen since he took over in September 2008… and that manager Pep Guardiola has helped bring to fruition on the field itself over much of the past decade.
City paced the Premier League by a comfortable margin in 2022-23, powered by a 12 match winning streak that stretched from February 25 to May 21. The Sky Blues finished with 89 points, winning the title with three games to go and ending up five points ahead of second place Arsenal (84 points) and comfortably ahead of their crosstown rivals at Manchester United, who finished third (75 points).
Even so, the road to a repeat won’t be easy for City. The club already lost captain İlkay Gündoğan, who scored 8 goals in 31 Premier League games this season, to Barcelona. His leadership will be missed as much, if not more than his scoring ability. Even worse, the move went down as a free transfer, so they won’t even be able to recoup some money from his departure.
The good news is that they’ll retain forward Erling Haaland, who led the league with a whopping 36 goals, more than one-third of City’s total on the year. He won’t turn 23 for another week, so if the Sky Blues can hang on to him for a long time, they’ll always be in the thick of things. Perhaps even more impressive was City’s defense, which tied with Newcastle with just 33 goals allowed on the year: the next closest club allowed 43.
Arsenal is projected to finish second, listed at or around +500: odds more than five times worse than City has.
With that being said, it took a colossal effort for the Sky Blues to pass them up, as Arsenal paced the field for much of the first eight months of the season. Captain Martin Ødegaard made it clear that the club isn’t happy at all with the squandered opportunity in a recent article from The Athletic, and an angry and freshly motivated club brimming with talent could be poised to knock City from their place atop the ladder.
Liverpool (at or around +750) and Manchester United (at or around +900) are expected to round out the top four, with the odds growing longer from there on out. Liverpool’s chances could take a huge hit in the next couple days, as star defensive midfielder Fabinho is getting sniped away by a Saudi Arabian club that hasn’t been announced as of yet.
The offseason carousel continues to swirl, as The Reds are trying to pull midfielder Cheick Doucoure of Mali away from Crystal Palace. Doucoure won The Eagles Player of the Year award in his first season with the club, and his defensive-minded play could go a long way to replacing Fabinho.
United can’t be happy about seeing City usurp their place as the best team in Manchester, but they haven’t done much to challenge them for that spot. They brought back Marcus Rashford, which is no small feat (as he led the team with 17 goals in 2022-23), but they’ll need to really make some waves to challenge the teams ahead of them.