Four of the biggest jobs in English football changed hands this summer, and each new coach arrives with a different idea of how to play. Enzo Maresca succeeds Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, Xabi Alonso takes over at Chelsea, Andoni Iraola replaces Arne Slot at Liverpool, and Matthias Jaissle follows Eddie Howe at Newcastle. Nine of the twenty clubs have changed manager, the highest pre-season turnover in Premier League history. That level of uncertainty also changes how early-season markets are approached, with some bettors checking offers such as the BetRivers Ontario promo code before the opening weekend. The real challenge, though, is separating short-term noise from tactical changes that are likely to last.
The season opens with Arsenal against Coventry City on Friday 21 August, but the four new systems above do not appear until Sunday and Monday. That gives each coach a few more days, and in Jaissle's case he needs every one of them.
What is Maresca actually changing at Manchester City?
Less than people expect in possession, more than people expect in personnel. Maresca was appointed on 29 June 2026 on a three-year deal, with City paying Chelsea more than £17m in compensation for a coach Chelsea had already parted with on 1 January. He is a Guardiola disciple by training, having run City's Elite Development Squad to the Premier League 2 title in 2020/21 and worked as an assistant during the 2022/23 treble season.
His Chelsea side played a 4-2-3-1 built on an inverting full-back and a deliberately narrow front line, which is closer to late-period Guardiola than to any clean break. The break is in the squad. Bernardo Silva, John Stones, Nathan Aké and Manuel Akanji have all left, taking most of the dressing room's institutional memory with them, and the only first-team arrival so far is Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for a club-record £116m.
Pre-season has been awkward for reasons outside Maresca's control. The 2026 World Cup pushed the domestic calendar back a week and kept a large part of his squad on extended leave, so the Asian tour to Hong Kong and Seoul, against Inter, Atlético Madrid and a K League All-Stars side, was played with a mixed group of senior players and academy prospects. Maresca has been open about using the trip to learn characters as much as to drill patterns.
He gets a competitive fixture before anyone else. City meets champions Arsenal in the FA Community Shield at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Sunday 16 August, the first time the fixture has been played there in twenty years. The league campaign starts at home to Bournemouth on Sunday 23 August.
Which formation will Xabi Alonso use at Chelsea?
Both, and that appears to be the point. Alonso was named on 17 May 2026 and started work on 1 July on a four-year contract, the fifth permanent appointment of the BlueCo era after Graham Potter, Mauricio Pochettino, Maresca and Liam Rosenior. He inherits a squad that finished tenth.
The formation question has followed him since the announcement, because his Bayer Leverkusen title team of 2023/24 was built on a 3-4-2-1. Chelsea used a 4-2-3-1 in the friendly against Tottenham, then beat AC Milan 3-0 on 8 August in a 3-4-2-1, with João Pedro scoring twice and Moisés Caicedo adding the third. Alonso's summary afterwards was that Chelsea are not committing to a single idea and that more options make a better team.
The underlying principles matter more than the shape. Leverkusen led the Bundesliga for possession, passes per sequence and high turnovers in that title season, yet beat Bayern Munich 3-0 in February 2024 with 39 per cent of the ball by sitting deep and countering. Alonso will play out from the back at Chelsea, and both central midfielders join the press when the trigger comes, which is a meaningful change from the more selective pressing Stamford Bridge saw last season.
Chelsea open away at Fulham on Monday 24 August, the last fixture of the round, against a side now coached by Álvaro Arbeloa.
How will Iraola change Liverpool's pressing?
By shortening the distance between winning the ball and shooting. Liverpool sacked Slot on 30 May 2026, a year after he won the title in his first season, following a defence that produced twelve league defeats and a fifth-place finish. Iraola signed a two-year deal on 4 June and was the only candidate interviewed, in a process run by sporting director Richard Hughes, who had hired him at Bournemouth in 2023.
The mandate is explicit. Mohamed Salah publicly called for Liverpool to return to being the attacking team opponents feared, a post liked by several of his then teammates, and the club appointed the coach whose Bournemouth side pressed man-for-man higher than almost anyone in the division. Bournemouth finished sixth last season, went eighteen matches unbeaten in the second half of the campaign and qualified for Europe for the first time.
Salah is gone, leaving on a free after nine years and 257 goals to sign a two-year deal at Trabzonspor. Ibrahima Konaté has joined Real Madrid, with Jeremy Jacquet arriving from Rennes and Ronald Araújo coming in on loan to cover a back line that now has to defend a much higher starting position. Miloš Kerkez, who played under Iraola at Bournemouth, is the one player in the squad who already knows the demands.
Pre-season showed the ambition and the gap. Liverpool beat Sunderland 4-2 in Nashville on 25 July, after which Iraola described two different halves and a long list of corrections. Expect a 4-2-3-1 on paper with Florian Wirtz behind Alexander Isak, and expect the first month to be untidy.
What will Newcastle look like under Jaissle?
Vertical, narrow and extremely aggressive without the ball, assuming he has time to install it. Jaissle was confirmed roughly eighteen days before the opener, after Newcastle paid Al-Ahli compensation reported at more than £9m for a four-year contract running to June 2030. He met his players at the pre-season camp in La Manga and has been assembling his staff since.
He is a Red Bull product influenced by Ralf Rangnick, and his Salzburg team of 2021 to 2023 used a fixed 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield, two strikers pressing the centre-backs and wide midfielders jumping onto full-backs. That side won a domestic double and retained the league. What persuaded Newcastle was the adaptation that followed: at Al-Ahli he kept the pressing principles but built patiently from the back in a 4-2-3-1, progressing mostly up the left, and won back-to-back AFC Champions League titles.
The squad reading is the interesting part. Reports of Newcastle's internal thinking suggest Nick Woltemade, signed from Stuttgart for around £70m, is more likely to be used as a mobile ten arriving late in the box than as a target striker, a role comparable to what Roberto Firmino and Brenden Aaronson played for Jaissle before. Anthony Elanga and summer signing Bazoumana Touré fit the profile of runners attacking space immediately after a regain.
Newcastle finished twelfth last season. Jaissle's first match is Liverpool at St James' Park on Sunday 23 August at 4.30pm, which pits the two most pressing-obsessed new coaches in the league against each other before either has properly taught his system.
That game is the fixture to watch on opening weekend, and the honest expectation for all four clubs is that August tells you very little. Iraola needed a full season at Bournemouth before his methods produced results, and both he and Jaissle are asking players to run harder than they did last year. Which of the four do you think settles quickest?
