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From unexpected title contenders to alarming relegation candidates, the first ten gameweeks of 2026-27 have produced plenty of surprises. Here are the five biggest.
No Premier League season begins without its share of overturned expectations. After ten gameweeks of the 2026-27 campaign, the picture is clearer — and several clubs are performing in ways that almost no one predicted before a ball was kicked. Here are the five developments that have most surprised the football world.
Chelsea have been dismissed, mocked, and written off so many times in the past five years that it has become difficult to take their occasional good runs seriously. But five wins from ten games, fifth in the table, with a coherent tactical identity and genuine crowd involvement at Stamford Bridge — this feels different. Enzo Maresca, into his second season, has the system working. The question is whether it holds when the pressure of a full season, January departures, and European commitments apply. For now, the sceptics are struggling to find their usual ammunition.
West Ham's summer spending of £120 million was supposed to signal a new era. After ten games, they are sixteenth and their manager is facing growing pressure. The new signings have not gelled, the defensive organisation is poor, and the club's decision to sell several key players from last season to fund the new arrivals looks, in retrospect, questionable. If they do not improve significantly in November, the conversations will begin about whether a managerial change could save them.
Forest were widely expected to consolidate mid-table after three consecutive seasons of steady Premier League survival. Instead, they sit seventh, with the third-best defensive record in the division and a set-piece efficiency that has produced nine goals from dead-ball situations alone. Their manager's ability to get the absolute maximum from his squad — none of whom would dislodge a first-choice player at the top six clubs — has been remarkable.
Not exactly a surprise, perhaps, for those who have watched Salah's career closely, but the volume of pre-season noise about whether Liverpool should have extended his contract — now well into its final year — made his subsequent form feel notable. Eight goals and six assists from ten games is not the form of a player in decline. It is the form of one of the best players in the Premier League. The contract question will return in January.
Leicester City, relegated at the end of 2025-26, bounced back immediately — winning the Championship in record-breaking fashion and arriving in the Premier League with a manager and system in place. Their £60 million summer business was targeted and coherent, and after ten games they sit fourteenth — not comfortable, but not in trouble. For all the talk of the difficulty of the yo-yo club experience, Leicester are demonstrating that a well-run promotion side need not spend the following season in a survival fight.
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