SUNDERLAND, England — What a way to mark the crazy, unpredictable and baffling 2025-26 Premier League season, crossing the halfway mark. A title challenger stumbling against a pre-season relegation favorite who extended their unbeaten home record to maintain their push for Europe.
«Have a great New Year and enjoy STILL being unbeaten at home!» was the message delivered to Sunderland‘s supporters over the PA system after Manchester City had become the latest to try and fail to win against the newly-promoted side.
Then they played «That’s The Way I Like It» by KC & The Sunshine Band, to add to the sense of the surreal on a cold night that showed just why the Premier League title race is a marathon rather than a sprint.
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But with every side having played 19 games, it’s now about the sprint to the finishing line for Arsenal, City and Aston Villa at the top.
Sunderland, promoted via the EFL Championship playoff in May, had been expected to be hurtling towards an instant return to the second tier by now after being listed as one of the shortest-priced relegation favorites at the start of the season, but Regis Le Bris’s team are now just four points off a UEFA Champions League spot in seventh and who knows where the next 19 games will take them?
It has been such a strange season that perhaps only two teams — Sunderland and third-place Villa — can truly say they have exceeded expectations to this point. Arsenal are where they usually are at this stage — top, but not quite far enough ahead of the pack — while City have lost too many games — four — to be happy with their lot so far.
Liverpool? Massively underperforming after reacting to last season’s title with a £450 million summer recruitment drive and Chelsea — sorry, world champions Chelsea — are looking for a new head coach after parting company with Enzo Maresca with the team sitting in fifth position, having slipped off the title pace after winning just one of their last seven league games.
Manchester United are somehow in the top six after their nightmare season last year, but nobody at Old Trafford would suggest that Ruben Amorim’s team are in a great place following one win in their last five home games, which includes a run of draws against winless Wolverhampton Wanderers and relegation-threatened West Ham United.
The list goes on. Even Crystal Palace, last season’s FA Cup winners, suddenly find themselves in tenth position after briefly threatening to challenge for Champions League qualification.
And Tottenham? Well, Spurs are Spurs. New manager, new hope, but same old under-performance as they languish in 12th. They finished 17th last season, so maybe they’re making progress, but it doesn’t feel like it.
So the second half of the season really is up for grabs, for pretty much every team other than Wolves who are so far adrift of safety at the bottom of the table that they are on course to eclipse Derby County‘s all-time low tally of 11 points in a Premier League season.
Arsenal, City and Villa are the title contenders. Villa are still in with a shout, although their 4-1 defeat at Arsenal on Tuesday means they are the big outsiders in a three-horse race.
City are usually the side that comes good in the second half of the season. Pep Guardiola’s side are masters of clicking into gear once the New Year arrives, but they began 2026 with a false start at Sunderland. Maybe Arsenal will throw the biggest surprise of the lot between now and May by holding their nerve and racing clear of City.
No team has ever finished as runners-up in four consecutive seasons, and that is a record that Mikel Arteta’s side won’t want to claim as their own, but Arsenal need to find something extra to carry themselves over the line because they can’t rely on City suffering many more slips than the one they suffered at the Stadium of Light.
Yet in a season of surprises and inconsistency, the opportunity is still there for so many to redeem themselves over the next 19 games.
Can Liverpool play like champions and get themselves back into the title race? Can United finally get back to their old selves under Amorim, or will Chelsea find a new manager who can take them to some kind of glory?
And can Sunderland keep going, remain unbeaten at home all season and get themselves into Europe? All of those questions are unlikely to be answered with a «Yes,» but this season has been so hard to predict that you shouldn’t rule anything out.
They might still be playing KC & The Sunshine Band in Sunderland at the end of May.
