Predicting the next manager of every club from Arsenal to Fulham – who gets Amorim and Maresca?

Ruben Amorim, Enzo Maresca and Mauricio Pochettino all return to the Premier League in our guesses for the next managers of everyone from Arsenal to Fulham .

With the Premier League manager rankings for 2025/26 receiving an extensive update , it is time now to look further ahead at the successors to those current incumbents.

Some clubs have an almost transparent succession plan, whereas others are slightly less easy to predict.

The immediate coaching futures of Leeds, Wolves and everyone in between have been forecast too , with equally absurd results.

It was so long ago when Arsenal were actively searching for a new manager that Max Allegri, Mauricio Pochettino, Nuno Espirito Santo and Freddie Ljungberg were among the frontrunners.

Brendan Rodgers was compelled to distance himself from the Emirates post and was not roundly and promptly laughed off each and every premises as a result; if anything, he would have been taking a step down.

That is testament to the transformation Mikel Arteta has overseen at Arsenal , but also the time he has served in charge. Across the Premier and Football League only the Spaniard’s former colleague Pep Guardiola and Harrogate Town’s Simon Weaver have had longer current tenures.

While that does make predicting Arteta’s eventual successor somewhat tougher, there is also the obvious route of picking a former treasured player who is imbued with the Arsenal DNA.

Perhaps the “something new” Per Mertesacker is leaving his Arsenal Academy Manager role to pursue will be an avenue into first-team coaching which eventually and inevitably leads to replacing Arteta.

The only logical conclusion at this point is that only the players Arsenal signed in a summer 2011 transfer window deadline panic just days after their 8-2 thrashing at Old Trafford are capable of managing them now. Andre Santos has next dibs.

Using a managerial succession line that reads Sherwood, Garde, Di Matteo, Bruce, Smith, Gerrard and Emery, it is not easy to assess the potential future direction of Aston Villa beyond their current arrangement.

They were undeniably the punchers when this relationship started and might well remain so now, although Emery has more power and authority than most managers are granted so can comfortably compartmentalise the idea he could do better.

Villa will be a more attractive proposition than perhaps ever before when they do eventually part, meaning they can lure an altogether different kind of candidate than usual.

But also the gifted continental coach whose only previous taste of the Premier League was as a Big Six failure is clearly the meta, so after a few years back impressing elsewhere, winning all of the Europa Leagues and learning how to aggressively slick his hair back, Ruben Amorim can step forward.

Depending almost entirely on how and when Andoni Iraola times his definitive streak of Bournemouth results, he could feasibly be poached for winning 12 games in a row or sacked after losing 20 on the bounce.

There is also the small matter of a contract which expires at the end of the season, but with the Cherries rather embarrassingly doing a Manchester United while languishing in the bottom half, the Spaniard might sign on for longer with his stock too low to land some of the jobs he has been linked with.

The time will come to move on soon and a hierarchy which withstood the criticism for replacing poor Gary O’Neil with Iraola should be trusted to get it right.

With little else to go off, Bournemouth really might as well tap into the rich vein of Bielsismo, transpose that coaching family tree into their DNA and get some Barclays back into the diet of Mauricio Pochettino .

Welcome Stephen Rice and his unassuming playing career, time served in the Republic of Ireland set-up, lack of any prior experience as a first-team manager and, as Keith Andrews himself put it, “details-oriented” approach to his role as first-team set-piece coach.

Brentford are cowards if they don’t at least try it when Andrews gets the Real Madrid gig.

Paul Barber already has a name in mind, saved on a laptop Chelsea would probably happily spend a nine-figure sum to decode. Brighton’s chief executive will never disclose the details of that file, which is claimed to contain the identities of the club’s desired replacements for at least 25 current employees, ranging from players to staff, coaches and even Barber himself.

No club will have a clearer contingency plan in mind, yet equally no club’s plan is more difficult to figure out when not privy to that inside information.

Basically no-one saw Graham Potter, Roberto De Zerbi or Fabian Hurzeler coming until they were practically in the building.

But it is clear to see Brighton’s game now , so after a quick search to discover the youngest manager currently working in Europe’s top five leagues we must wish Carlos Cuesta , the 30-year-old coach of Parma, the best of luck with his boohooMAN order.

The key for Burnley here is in identifying who can best maintain their yo-yo-based existence, earning immediate promotion from the Championship next season before dragging them back down after a single year in the Premier League .

Another important facet to consider is an innate understanding and mastery of The Fine Margins.

It is easy to notice a theme developing in what Burnley seek in a manager, too. We see them, appointing exclusively from the 2011/12 PFA Premier League Team of the Year.

There are a handful of candidates remaining of Vincent Kompany and Scott Parker’s peers. Fabricio Coloccini is one. Leighton Baines another. Wouldn’t mind seeing a Yaya Toure and Wayne Rooney double act. But there at right-back and indeed already at Turf Moor is one Kyle Walker .

You can’t pick and choose when you get to bully your sister club into handing over their stuff. Chelsea’s multi-club ownership tendrils are too deep-rooted to retract now but it absolutely must be stipulated that as part of the structure they are only allowed to fill any and all vacancies with people from Strasbourg.

Gary O’Neil , to that end, spoke really well I thought at his Stamford Bridge unveiling.

This moment of reckoning will come soon. Oliver Glasner can no longer be particularly arsed with managing Crystal Palace to the extent that he has engineered a nine-game winless run culminating in the biggest FA Cup shock ever, after which he basically tendered his resignation .

The only way the Austrian will be tempted to stay on at Selhurst Park is if a load of transfer promises are made on the entirely open pretence that all parties are aware they will be broken.

Steve Parish, at that point, will have basically no option other than to drag Roy Hodgson and his shorts back onto the training ground and touchline to ensure Palace finish 14th while embarking on precisely zero cup runs .

Absolutely fair play to Everton , whose response to whatever term crisis they were experiencing under Sean Dyche was to just basically go back in time to when they were last truly happy.

Who among us honestly wouldn’t revert everything to 2005 if given the option to get The Simpsons back on BBC2 at 6pm?

It does mean Everton are stuck with Moyes for a trophyless and polarising decade or so before handing the reins over to Roberto Martinez when a senile Sir Alex Ferguson, then Manchester United Director Of Being Phoned Before Anyone Does Anything, is asked to pick the next manager and forgets who he chose the first time round.

Marco Silva being the sixth longest-serving manager in the 92 does not sit right. It seems safe to assume he knows quite a bit more about the Premier League than when he was roundly mocked upon his arrival in 2017 , but such longevity also makes Fulham arguably the hardest club to predict here.