The empires strike back in Premier League's new era

As the 2025/26 season kicks off, Miguel Delaney looks at how the big six have raided the 'middle class' for top talent

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It's a line being uttered by many in the Premier League. One that perhaps says more than is intended. Liverpool, in the specific words of one fearful rival, have "destroyed the market" this summer.

Everybody expected the champions to buy from a position of strength. But the thinking was, they would make the usual astute signings and maybe one big-money capture. Liverpool have instead gone for real game-changers. And, in the process, maybe changed the Premier League.

They look set to claim the signing that Arsenal long wanted in Alexander Isak. They've already beaten Manchester City to the signing of Florian Wirtz, and that less than three years after Jurgen Klopp spoke of three clubs - including City and Isak's Newcastle United - who can “do what they want financially”.

Maybe, after all the talk of “Moneyball”, this approach is just the “maturation” of an investment fund's approach to football. Or maybe there's something more going on.

There is certainly a new assurance about Liverpool's business, at a time of new uncertainty elsewhere.

Because, if you look at the last eight years of the Premier League, the one true certainty was that you had to be almost perfect to beat Pep Guardiola's City. Now, the “Catalan era” of their Abu Dhabi ownership faces a series of new challenges.

The biggest is something that is now mostly going unsaid. “The City case” is currently expected to have an outcome in late September or early October. It's just that we heard the same about February and Easter. That prospect nevertheless means that a second successive season faces the threat of the table being drastically changed by a regulatory case. City, of course, still maintain their innocence.