Simulating the 25/26 Premier League Season After Transfer Deadline Day

Thanks to the work of dedicated modders and community sites, Football Manager players can keep their games bang up to date with real squads and player attributes long after the official databases close. It’s the perfect stopgap while we wait for FM26, and few places do it better than Sortitoutsi, whose legendary transfer update you can grab here.

This year, though, they’ve gone even further. Using their updated database, the team at Sortitoutsi have simulated the entire 2025/26 Premier League season. Short of any dramatic twists in January, this might just be the most realistic prediction you’ll find anywhere.
So, how did it all play out? I’ll give you the highlights below, but if you’d like to dive into their full write-up, you can read it here.

The Post-Deadline Day 25/26 Premier League Season Simulation:

As the new season gets underway and the transfer window finally closes, Football Manager has once again been put to the test, this time to see how the 2025/26 Premier League might unfold. The simulation was full of drama: title races decided by tiny margins, surprise resurgences, and the usual dose of heartbreak at the bottom of the table.

At the very top, it was the tightest of finishes. Liverpool, who splashed an eye-watering £446 million on transfers, matched Manchester City stride for stride and ended level on 85 points. But in classic FM fashion, it was goal difference that settled it… City crowned champions, Liverpool left frustrated. Their collapse began with a costly defeat to Arsenal late in the season, and even the mid-season arrival of Marcus Thuram for £81 million couldn’t get them over the line. City’s numbers made them worthy winners: most goals scored, fewest conceded, best possession, most shots, and joint-top for clean sheets. They were simply a machine.

Arsenal, meanwhile, slipped into the familiar role of “nearly men.” Despite spending £253 million, they never truly hit the summit and had to settle for third, their title push fading before it really began.

The biggest turnaround stories came from North London and Old Trafford. After last year’s disasters, both Spurs and Manchester United bounced back. Tottenham surged to 4th, their £182 million rebuild firing them back into the Champions League. United’s revival took longer, at one point they were stuck in the relegation zone, but a change of manager to Luciano Spalletti turned things around. They eventually finished 8th, salvaging a spot in Europe.

Down at the bottom, Wolves finally ran out of lives. Having scraped survival last season, they went straight back down alongside Leeds and Burnley. Wolves never climbed out of the relegation zone after Matchday 9, while Leeds’ early promise, they were 7th at one point, crumbled into collapse by the spring.

The middle of the pack shuffled as you’d expect: Brentford, Everton, Brighton, Palace, West Ham, Bournemouth and Fulham all floated between safety and irrelevance. Sunderland secured survival after promotion, while Nottingham Forest, fresh off a 7th-place finish last year, just about avoided the drop this time, finishing a nervy two points above the bottom three. There were a few bargain standouts too. Everton’s £17m signing of Thierno Barry paid off as he finished 5th in the Golden Boot race. Brentford’s new keeper Caoimhín Kelleher also impressed, racking up clean sheets for a modest fee. Even Burnley found value in Martin Dúbravka, despite going down, he finished among the league’s best for goals conceded after costing just £800k.

And of course, the usual stars shone. Haaland topped the scoring charts, Ugarte racked up the most assists for United, Ederson dominated the clean sheet table, and Salah walked away with the most Man of the Match awards.

All in all, it was a season that had everything. Drama at the top, chaos in the middle, and heartbreak at the bottom. In other words: peak Premier League.

 

 

Billy also took a look at each Premier League clubs current PSR situation after the transfer deadline!

If you want more FC centric articles, then you absolutely have to check out his breakdown of the single biggest FM survey ever taken! We also wrote about Womens football coming to FM, and what went wrong with FM25 that FM26 will fix,