By Francis Onyach - Sports Journalist and Pundit.
Kenya, 23 May 2026 - For years, the Premier League has felt like Manchester City’s private kingdom.
Every title race eventually ended the same way. A brilliant Liverpool side under Jürgen Klopp pushed them. Arsenal pushed them. Sometimes the league itself pushed them. But when the pressure peaked, Pep Guardiola’s machine-like team almost always found another level nobody else could reach.
That is why Arsenal winning the 2025/26 Premier League title feels bigger than just one club ending a drought. And now, with Guardiola officially announcing his departure from Manchester City after ten years at the Etihad, English football suddenly feels like it is standing at the beginning of an entirely new era.
This is not just a changing of champions.
It feels like a change of power.
The biggest question now is simple: what happens next?
Can Arsenal dominate English football the way City did? Does Guardiola’s exit signal the collapse of Manchester City’s dominance? And where do Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, and the rest of the Premier League fit into this new landscape?
I honestly think the league is entering its most unpredictable phase in over a decade.
Arsenal Have Finally Climbed the Mountain#
Arsenal’s title win matters because of how they achieved it.
This was not a lucky season. Not a collapse from rivals. Not a one-off miracle campaign. Arsenal have spent years building toward this moment under Mikel Arteta. Six years to be precise.
People forget how broken the club looked when Arteta first arrived. Arsenal were drifting. Recruitment was chaotic. The squad lacked identity. The atmosphere around the Emirates felt disconnected from the elite level. They were called names, made fun of, mocked; bottlers, losers, title pretenders, and many other names.
Now compare that to today.
Arsenal are arguably the most complete team in England. Their structure is stable. Recruitment has become intelligent. The age profile of the squad is excellent. Their core players are entering or approaching their peak years.
Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, William Saliba, Martin Ødegaard, Gabriel Magalhães, Kai Havertz, and David Raya are not aging stars trying to squeeze out one last title. They are players capable of staying at the top level for years. Then there’s the academy growth. Players like Myles Lewis-Skelly and Max Dowman have been promoted into the first team and delivered, at times, better than their experienced counterparts.
That is what makes Arsenal dangerous.
This title does not feel like the end of something. It feels like the beginning.
Even financially, Arsenal are positioning themselves among Europe’s elite again. Deloitte’s 2026 Football Money League placed Arsenal seventh globally with revenues exceeding €821 million, continuing a sharp commercial rise under Arteta’s project.
The club now has:
- Champions League revenue
- global commercial growth
- an elite young squad
- stability at executive level
- and a manager players genuinely believe in
That combination is extremely powerful.
But Can Arsenal Dominate the Next Ten Years?#
This is where things get complicated.
I do not think Arsenal will dominate the Premier League the same way Manchester City did under Guardiola.
And honestly, I am not sure anybody will again.
City’s dominance was historically abnormal. Guardiola combined:
- unlimited financial backing
- world-class infrastructure
- tactical innovation
- elite recruitment
- and unprecedented squad depth
That created a monster that forced rivals to chase nearly perfect seasons just to compete.
Arsenal can absolutely become the best team of this era. But sustained dominance over a decade is much harder now because the league itself is stronger and financially more competitive than it was when City first rose to power.
Liverpool remain elite commercially and competitively. Manchester United, despite their chaos, still generate enormous revenue and global pull. Chelsea continue spending aggressively. Newcastle are growing. Aston Villa are rising quickly. Even clubs outside the traditional “Big Six” are becoming harder to overpower consistently.
The Premier League has evolved into something brutal.
You no longer get easy weekends.
So while Arsenal may become the league’s leading force for the next few years, repeating City’s level of dominance feels unlikely.
What Arsenal can become, though, is the league’s most stable football institution. And sometimes that matters more than raw dominance.
Guardiola’s Exit Feels Like the End of an Era#
Pep Guardiola leaving Manchester City changes everything psychologically.
For almost ten years, every Premier League title race started with one assumption: City would eventually find a way.
That fear factor is now gone.
Guardiola did not just win trophies. He changed the emotional structure of the league. Opponents played City differently because they believed City were inevitable.
Now suddenly, they are human again.
Guardiola leaves after winning 20 major trophies with Manchester City, including six Premier League titles(four consecutive times) and a Champions League crown. His influence on English football has been massive, both tactically and culturally.
He normalized:
- positional football
- inverted fullbacks
- build-up structures
- pressing systems
- technical defenders
- and tactical flexibility at an unprecedented level in England
Even teams fighting relegation now attempt tactical concepts that barely existed in the Premier League before Guardiola arrived.
That influence will remain long after he leaves.
But Manchester City without Guardiola immediately becomes a different conversation.
Will Manchester City Collapse?#
No.
And I think many people are underestimating how strong City still is structurally.
This is still one of the richest and best-run clubs in football. Deloitte’s latest financial figures still place City among Europe’s top revenue generators despite a slight decline compared to previous years.
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They still have:
- elite facilities
- outstanding recruitment networks
- major commercial power
- and a world-class squad
But what they may lose is their aura of inevitability. That matters more than we care to admit.
Managers like Guardiola create emotional advantages before matches even begin. Opponents enter games already believing they are inferior. That psychological dominance cannot simply be replaced by another coach overnight.
Reports suggest Enzo Maresca is expected to succeed Guardiola.
Maresca is talented. He understands Guardiola’s system. But replacing Guardiola is almost impossible because you are not replacing tactics alone. You are replacing certainty.
And this is where Arsenal suddenly gains huge opportunity.
For the first time in years, there is no obvious unstoppable force ahead of them.
Liverpool Might Become Arsenal’s Biggest Threat#
While much attention will focus on City after Guardiola, I actually think Liverpool could become Arsenal’s biggest rivals in this new era.
Liverpool remain commercially enormous. Deloitte’s latest rankings showed them as the highest revenue-generating English club.
That matters because modern football dominance is built on sustainable money.
Even after Klopp’s departure, Liverpool have shown an ability to rebuild intelligently. Their recruitment structure remains one of the best in Europe. Their identity remains clear. And unlike some rivals, they rarely panic.
Arsenal may currently look stronger on the pitch, but Liverpool are probably the club best positioned to stay competitive long-term.
The Arsenal-Liverpool rivalry could genuinely define the next chapter of English football. But then comes the question: Can they do so under Arne Slot? We can only wait to see.
Manchester United Remain the Premier League’s Biggest Mystery#
Manchester United are still football’s strangest giant.
Financially, they remain powerful despite years of instability. Deloitte still ranks them among football’s biggest earners globally even after slipping lower due to absence from the Champions League.
But on the pitch, they continue searching for identity.
The scary thing for rivals is this: if United ever become competent structurally again, their scale could make them terrifying very quickly.
That is why writing them off permanently is dangerous.
Football history shows Manchester United rarely stay down forever.
Still, right now, Arsenal look miles ahead in terms of:
- planning
- recruitment
- coaching
- and squad cohesion
And honestly, that sentence alone tells you how much English football has changed.
The Premier League May Become More Competitive Again#
This is probably the biggest long-term effect of Guardiola leaving.
The league may finally become more open again.
For nearly a decade, English football often felt like a race to reach City’s impossible standards. It felt like the new Bundesliga of French Ligue 1, where one team dominates for a decade. Arsenal’s title this season already cracked that perception. Guardiola’s departure may completely shatter it.
That is healthy for the Premier League.
It creates belief and unpredictability.
And unpredictability is what made the Premier League globally dominant in the first place.
If Arsenal, Liverpool, City, Chelsea, Newcastle, Aston Villa, and even Manchester United all believe they have realistic title ambitions over the next five years, the league becomes emotionally bigger again.
No single empire lasts forever in football.
Not Ferguson’s United, not Wenger’s Arsenal, and not Klopp’s Liverpool.
And now, perhaps not Guardiola’s City either.
The most impressive thing about Arsenal’s rise is that it was built patiently.
Modern football rarely allows patience anymore. Clubs panic constantly. Managers are discarded within months. Projects collapse before they fully develop.
Arsenal resisted that.
They backed Arteta through difficult periods, criticism, and painful near-misses. That patience now looks visionary.
And maybe that is the biggest lesson the rest of English football should take from this moment.
Not every dynasty is built through chaos and quick fixes; sometimes, the strongest empires are built slowly.
Now Arsenal stand at the top of English football again. Guardiola is walking away. Manchester City suddenly look vulnerable. And the Premier League feels wide open for the first time in years.
The next decade starts now.
The writer is a Sports journalist and pundit based in Kenya. He comments on topical issues.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dawan Africa.
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