Who has had the best start of the nine new Premier League managers?

Nine of the 20 clubs started 2026-27 under a head coach appointed since May, the biggest summer turnover the competition has recorded. Five games in, the spread runs from a perfect record to a club still without a win, and for anyone after somewhere to back your weekend football selections, the form of those nine is shaping this table more than anything else.

All nine were in post before the opening weekend, so each manager's league record is his club's. Here is where they sit after the September international break.

The nine, ranked

Points first, because points are what the clubs will judge them on. Two of the nine are yet to lose a league game. Two are yet to win one.

Maresca is in rare company, and that is not entirely good news

Chelsea sacked Enzo Maresca on 1 January 2026 and Manchester City hired him on 29 June to follow Pep Guardiola, who had been in the job for a decade. So far, he has won all five.

That makes Maresca the sixth manager to win his opening five league games at a single Premier League club. Carlo Ancelotti, Guardiola and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer each managed six. The other two are Craig Shakespeare and Maurizio Sarri, neither of whom lasted a second season.

City are also leaking goals. They beat Sunderland 5-3 on 20 September having twice been pegged back, Brian Brobbey scoring a hat-trick before Erling Haaland settled it on 81 minutes. Maresca said afterwards that he would like a 1-0.

The two quiet appointments are working

Andoni Iraola replaced Arne Slot at Liverpool on 4 June, five days after Slot was sacked. He is the only other unbeaten manager of the nine, though three draws explain why Liverpool sit sixth rather than second.

Matthias Jaissle had the hardest job of the lot. Newcastle appointed him on 5 August, 16 days before the opening weekend, after Eddie Howe resigned over the club's transfer strategy. Eight points and ninth from that start is the least-discussed decent start in the division.

Two men from the same Real Madrid mess are now nine places apart

Real Madrid sacked Xabi Alonso in January 2026 and promoted Alvaro Arbeloa. Eight months on, both are in the Premier League and their seasons could hardly look less alike.

Alonso took over at Chelsea on 1 July, after a campaign in which the club used three managers. Seven points and tenth is unremarkable rather than alarming, though losing 3-0 at Brentford on 17 September was not the marker he wanted.

Arbeloa has no wins. He replaced Marco Silva at Fulham on 7 July, in his first Premier League job, and has two points from five. Only Tottenham Hotspur have fewer.

Glasner left a trophy-winning job for a harder one

Oliver Glasner won Crystal Palace the FA Cup, their first major trophy, plus the Community Shield and the Conference League. He left for Nottingham Forest on 6 July and has five points.

Pierre Sage, appointed at Selhurst Park in June, has four. Forest visit Palace on Saturday 10 October.

Rose owns the oddest record of the nine

Bournemouth led in each of their opening four fixtures and won none of them, the first side in Premier League history to do that. Marco Rose, who took the job Iraola vacated, has three draws and two defeats. His own verdict after the Brentford draw was that his team will get no points for "looking good".

Gary O'Neil is the opposite case. Ipswich Town have no draws under him. Signed from Strasbourg on 23 June, he has beaten Crystal Palace 3-2 and Sunderland 2-1, and lost 5-2 at Manchester United, where Bruno Fernandes scored a hat-trick. Six points from five is a solid return for a promoted side.

The first real test of the top two arrives on Sunday 11 October, when Iraola takes Liverpool out at Anfield against Maresca's City at 4:30pm. One of them will lose an unbeaten record.

Five games is five games. But 13 points already separate the best of this intake from the worst, and only two of the nine have yet to lose.