The Premier League's Exit Scenario: A Final Table Where Every Manager Departs

With the Premier League set to kick off again this weekend following its three-week pause, supporters across the land will be frantically checking remaining fixtures and calculating every conceivable permutation of points—the hopeful scenarios and, more realistically, the nightmarish ones.

We've taken a rather different approach here. Instead of crunching numbers, we've imagined a final standings where circumstances conspire to push every single manager toward the exit door come May. Cheerful stuff, really.

1) Manchester City: Pep Guardiola

He walks away having completed the domestic treble. Mission accomplished, time to move on.

2) Arsenal: Mikel Arteta

Champions League eliminated before the final. A fourth straight finish in second place. The narrative writes itself—a legacy of bottling at the highest level, with the football across those four campaigns deteriorating markedly, particularly in set-piece organisation. The ultimate underachiever's tale.

3) Manchester United: Michael Carrick

His attractive, moment-driven approach proves incompatible with INEOS' analytical preferences, especially when compared against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's more instinctive, feel-good predecessor. The data says goodbye.

4) Aston Villa: Unai Emery

5) Liverpool: Arne Slot

Champions League qualification alone cannot save him. FSG's reckoning with the reputational damage of sacking a manager fresh from a title win becomes impossible to ignore, yet keeping him becomes equally unbearable after seasons of uninspiring football. A no-win situation.

6) Chelsea: Liam Rosenior

An FA Cup semi-final loss to Leeds compounds the Champions League miss. The departures of Cole Palmer, Moises Caicedo, and Joao Felix—each citing their respective preferences for Manchester, Paris, and North London—happen on Rosenior's watch. The squad dismantles itself.

7) Brentford: Keith Andrews

Snatched away after engineering the unlikely: European qualification. His stock has never been higher.

8) Bournemouth: Andoni Iraola

Poached by PSG when Luis Enrique takes over at City. Wherever he lands next, it'll be a club with deeper pockets willing to test whether his three-year Bournemouth project has genuinely unlocked something special.

9) Sunderland: Regis Le Bris

The man who delivered promotion and an impressive top-flight return promptly torches his reputation by accepting the Newcastle job. Mackem hearts break.

10) Newcastle: Eddie Howe

Mid-table mediocrity leaves his players convinced the Howe era has peaked. Desperate-to-leave applications flood in.

11) Everton: David Moyes

European football doesn't materialise. The Friedkin Group, emboldened by their new stadium, decide they want a fresh voice in the dugout.

12) Fulham: Marco Silva

Whatever two-word proclamation he made in March comes back to haunt him. The club decides their marriage has run its course.

13) Brighton: Fabian Hurzeler

Hurzeler keeps the Bayer Leverkusen speculation alive in his media appearances while overseeing Brighton's worst finish since 2020-21. The writing's on the wall.

14) Crystal Palace: Oliver Glasner

He's already confirmed his departure, thoroughly exasperated by the constant sale of his best talents.

15) West Ham: Nuno Espirito Santo

Survival secured but without a penny for reinforcements. He departs rather than face another relegation scrap.

16) Leeds: Daniel Farke

Two memorable days at Wembley—beating Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final—lead to an honourable defeat against Manchester City. Premier League survival follows. Yet the clamour for his replacement only grows louder when Uruguay's World Cup campaign ends prematurely.

17) Nottingham Forest: Vitor Pereira

He steps aside after pitch-invading chaos from Evangelos Marinakis makes their working relationship untenable, despite staying up on the final day.

18) Tottenham: Roberto De Zerbi

Relegation and public adoration for Mason Greenwood force ENIC into granting his exit.

19) Wolves: Rob Edwards

Assurances that he'd "never have left for any other club" besides Aston Villa fail to placate furious stakeholders.

20) Burnley: Scott Parker

Finishing below Wolves prompts the eternal question that's haunted English football for six years: what exactly is the point of Scott Parker?