James Debate's Blog

Saturday, 17 October 2026

Dear America: A Republic, If You Can Keep It

It's no secret that American politics is in a poor state. We are a nation of deep fractures, heated rhetoric and, increasingly, senseless violence. While I'm not going to pretend that this was previously a nation solely of love and fellowship, it's undeniably getting worse. This year has seen a spate of declarations that, yes, we really are becoming a fascist nation, and that American democracy is dead. But are such grandiose claims really justified, or just pouring gasoline onto the growing flames?

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I had originally envisaged this discussion as a multi-part series. One where each part focused on a different element of the issue: 1) are we still a democracy, 2) how did we get to this point, 3) how do we fix the problem, and 4) wider global implications. But to be quite frank, I have a job and a family, ain't nobody got time for that. Additionally, how many people are really going to soldier through mutliple episodes of "James talking politics"?

But the bigger issue is that since 2024, I've basically considered myself done with American politics. The idea that any American would be willing to vote for the architect of January 6th, probably the most significant crime against our nation since 9/11 and arguably the most significant crime against the very concept of America since the Civil War, will never not be shocking to me. I genuinely don't think that America's reputation as a democratic nation will ever recover. Nor do I think the voters should ever be allowed to forget the choice they made.

But the world still continues, and another election is approaching. For what good it will do, there are still people who want to make this country a better place. But the bigger queston that has arisen is, does it even matter any more? Are we still a country where the will of the people shape our future, or are we so far gone so as to be a Russia-style democracy in name only?

As noted above, there has been an increasing clamour of academic thought that America is in the process of abandoning democracy and sliding into authoritarianism or fascism. But such bold claims are hardly new or unprecedented. I'm old enough to remember banners comparing the Nazis with George Bush for the Patriot Act, or Obama for... er... trying to give people healthcare? What's new this time is that increasingly these claims aren't coming from protestors and the usual political agitators, but from sober academics and journalists. But is it really justified, or is it a hyperbolic overreaction to the present situation?

Consider this piece a sanity check, focused on that key initial question posed above. What is the real state of American democracy, removed from the emotion and agenda-driven rhetoric, and what does the future hold?

Is It Fascism?

This is the fundamental question. Part of what makes it so tricky to answer is that people don't always agree on what exactly is meant by the term.

The dictionary definition of fascism is a far-right centralised autocracy, led by a dictatorial leader and characterised by ultranationalism, opposition to pluralism and liberalism, and suppression of opposition by force. But different commentators will variously use it as a blanket term for any kind of unilateralism or unpopular enforced policy. There's also a distinction to be made, and it's an important one in this case, between a fascist government and a a fascist state, in the sense that the political infrastructure of a nation often drives our political culture more so than any individual politician or movement.

So how to even begin to objectively answer this question? I think it comes down to identifying certain core pillars of the democracy-authoritarianism spectrum, and evaluating America's present position on that spectrum. Rather than getting too bogged down in political labels, I think the more useful question is whether America continues to function as a democracy, and whether the institutions that distinguish a democracy from an authoritarian state remain intact.

There are already several academically tested systems and indexes for evaluating precisely this question. I'm not going to pretend that my own approach is a replacement for those. But for the purposes of this discussion, I think the key areas worth examining are:

Free speech;
Equal treatment under the law;
Use of political violence; and
Who actually holds the power to shape the nation, the people or the state?

Ultimately, I think this is really what people are getting at when they talk about fascism potentially taking hold in America. Is there repression of speech and rights? Is the law subject to political pressure? Is there forceful suppression? And do the people still hold the ultimate power by electing the leaders and decision makers?

Free Speech

The first of these is perhaps the pillar that has been most visible in media coverage, which makes sense since it directly impacts those media organisations. America has long presented itself as the paragon of free speech, protected by inalienable constitutional rights, but is that still the case?

The President has long clashed with the media, describing them as the enemy of the people and calling for greater restrictions on what they can and cannot say. These attacks have taken on an even greater severity during his second term, with increased political pressure being placed on news networks to silence or fire unfavourable commenters, including threats to revoke broadcasting licenses from those who refuse. We saw a new front in this conflict in just these past few weeks with the White House press ban against outlets viewed as unfavourable to the President.

To be clear, other American presidents have clashed severely with the press and political dissenters since the nation's founding. Major historical precedents include John Adams passing the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Abraham Lincoln shutting down newspapers during the Civil War, Woodrow Wilson’s Espionage and Sedition Acts during WWI, and Richard Nixon’s direct wiretapping of journalists and attempts to block the Pentagon Papers.

What makes these latest clashes historically significant are the extent to which the current regime seems willing to place unilateral force to ensure compliant speech. Rather than pursuing the appropriate legalistic or regulatory avenues, this regime has indicated a willingness to leverage the full authority of government to get what it wants, coercing through threats which include everything from blocking corporate mergers to IRS investigations. It's also notable that the historic examples were generally framed as a (arguably extreme) response to a specific threat, whereas in this instance these restrictions are being enforced for no reason other than to control the discourse.

It is worth noting that most of the regime's attempts to restrict speech have failed. The courts ultimately lifted the White House ban, and most of the attempts to force suspensions of unfavourable journalists ultimately went nowhere. But some have proven fruitful, most notably the quid pro quo to have talkshow host Stephen Colbert fired as part of the terms of the Skydance merger.

So on the first pillar, I would say that free speech remains largely intact, despite the best efforts of the regime. The courts have demonstrated a willingness to intervene, and the media remains largely free to criticise the government, despite increasing pressure. But there's a catch. The administration has seemingly found a loophole: rather than directly censoring speech, it can leverage the powers of government to pressure private organisations, who are not themselves bound by the First Amendment, to do the censoring for it. And even when those efforts fail, the threat alone can be enough to encourage self-censorship. The result is a troubling erosion of free speech, even without any formal change to the constitutional protections that underpin it.

Equal Treatment Under the Law

This second pillar is arguably the most underreported. A free society relies on an equal and unbiased application of the laws. The moment the state has the right to enforce the law at will, on those it chooses, is the moment that democracy starts to tilt into authoritarianism.

In this regard, there have been some immensely troubling developments under the current regime. Trump has long suggested that the law should not be enforced against members of his party. But, once again, his second term has taken this political dictum to a new extreme, with political prosecutions being made against those who oppose him, often under flimsy or non-existent pretenses.

This is before we even get into the political pardons, which includes the dozens of criminal charges that were made against Trump's allies in connection with Russian election interference, as well as thousands of violent insurrectionists who committed political violence and murder on January 6th.

It is shocking to me that this isn't receiving greater coverage in the media. While the politically motivated use of criminal prosecutions is hardly without precedent in American history, the increasingly open willingness of the current administration to pursue its political opponents through the justice system should be of deep concern to all. The silver lining is that the courts have continued to impose limits, with several prominent prosecutions being tossed out at the first hurdle. That doesn't necessarily mean that the damage has been undone. But it does demonstrate that the executive branch has not yet succeeded in bending the entire justice system to its will.

Use of Political Violence

This is where things start to take a particularly dark turn. The attempted violent coup d'etat of January 6 2021 was something I don't think any of us ever expected to see happen in America.

Let's not beat around the bush here. This was an armed, violent attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government. People died, and there was the will to kill even more people on that day, including Trump's own Vice President and members of Congress.

There are some dark instances of state-sanctioned violence in America's history, but not since the civil war has there been such an act of political violence as this, such an attempt to subvert democracy.

You could argue that the attempt ultimately failed. Democratic will was ultimately upheld. But the fact that it happened at all is bad enough. The fact that the perpetrators have largely avoided consequences will forever be one of America's greatest shames.

Inaction has consequences. That this act of political violence was ultimately allowed to pass has only emboldened those responsible to use further force under the current regime. This is most apparent in the military occupations of American cities that took place during 2025 and 2026.

There have been various pretexts provided for these occupations: anti-immigration raids, suppression of protests, but the result in all cases has ultimately been an ongoing and often violent military presence in America's cities, with seemingly no objective other than to suppress dissent and intimidate political opponents.

Fortunately, as with many of the incidents described earlier, these efforts have largely been blocked by the American courts, though that will come as scant comfort to those who have lost loved ones over these past two years.

The Balance of Political Power

All of the above are elements of autocracy and hallmarks of a fascist government. But ultimately, if your question is whether the nation remains a true democracy, then what really matters is who holds the political power: the people or the state?

There are various forms of democracy. You can have direct democracies where the people vote on specific laws, or indirect democracies where they elect leaders to decide those laws. Sometimes you can have a mix of the two. But ultimately, in a democracy it is the people who decide who leads them and guide the future of the nation.

This is also one area where I need to push back a little on the suggestion that this is a new problem that has arisen in the Trump era. It isn't. America has long been a very flawed democracy, whether it's because of the millions of disenfranchised Americans living in Washington DC and Puerto Rico (among others), or the legal gerrymandering (a process where politicians literally choose their voters). These are not new issues, and it should not be forgotten that the 2016 election, before Trump ever came to power, saw Republicans take the White House alongside House and Senate majorities, despite receiving fewer votes in all three contests.

With that said, it has clearly gotten worse. January 6 was, at its core, an attempt to throw out the vote of the people. It was also far from the only attempt to disregard the vote during that election or since. We also had the fake electors plot, the plot to ban mail-in votes in states which did not cede electoral control to the Trump regime, the plot to disenfranchise voters from the voter rolls, or Trump literally calling the Georgia Governor and asking him to make up votes.

These are very brazen attempts to quite explicitly end American democracy. But once again, the silver lining is that all of these attempts ultimately failed. Nevertheless, they keep trying, and the worrying thing is we don't know what they will try next. There has been some suggestion that the military occupations of American cities has been a trial run for a plan to obstruct elections.

Conclusion

There's a recurring theme appearing with these pillars, and it hearkens back to my earlier comment on the distinction between a fascist state and a fascist government. These are areas where the government is clearly attempting to shift the country in an authoritarian direction, restricting speech and applying the law politically.

In that sense, I think there is little doubt that the current administration has authoritarian ambitions, and that those ambitions represent a very real threat to American democracy. But ambition is not the same as achievement. The key observation here is that, despite everything, the institutions of American democracy have continued to demonstrate a remarkable degree of resilience.

And that brings us back to the original question. Is America still a democracy? I would say so, at least for now. Elections still take place, the courts continue to impose meaningful constraints on executive power, and the government has not succeeded in establishing the unilateral political control characteristic of an authoritarian state. At the time of writing, the people still ultimately have the political control in America. There have been clear attempts to wrest that control away from the people, but so far that has not succeeded. Anyone who says that America is no longer a democracy, or that American democracy is dead, is objectively exaggerating, but their concern is not based on nothing.

We should be careful not to mistake resilience for invulnerability. The fact that an institution survives an attack does not mean it has emerged unscathed, and the repeated erosion of democratic norms can ultimately be just as consequential as their outright abolition.

The real test will be the upcoming election, although not necessarily in the way that people might expect. It isn't simply a question of whether Americans are permitted to vote, or even whether their votes are accurately counted. It is whether those votes continue to translate into meaningful political power, whether the government respects the outcome, and whether the institutions elected by the people retain the authority to hold the executive to account.

America remains a democracy. But democracy is not a permanent condition, bestowed upon a nation by its founders and guaranteed for all time by a constitution. It is something that must be continuously defended, by its institutions, its leaders, and ultimately by the people themselves. All eyes will be on America this November. If something unthinkable takes place, and under this regime it would not be for the first time, then it may really be the case that we have lost our republic.

Wednesday, 2 September 2026

The Ephemeric Premier League 2026/27 Preview

We go again. The transfer window has slammed shut, suddenly and irresversibly (dramatic license: neither sudden nor irreversible), which means that a new season of Premier League football is now upon us, and it promises to be a season full of narrative and intrigue. Can Arsenal finally end their one-year wait for a league title? Will Carrick continue his unlikely success story at Manchester United? What will the latest twist be in the circus at Stamford Bridge? And how can Enzo Maresca possibly hope to step into Pep Guardiola's shoes at Manchester City. This, and so much more, awaits. So let's get into it.

Premier League 2026/27 Predictions in a nutshell:
Champions: Arsenal
Champions League qualifiers: Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea
Relegated: Hull City, Coventry City, Crystal Palace
Golden Boot winner: Erling Haaland (Manchester City)
Golden Glove winner: David Raya (Arsenal)
Player to watch: João Pedro (Chelsea)
New signing to watch: Mamadou Sangaré (Brentford)
Young player to watch: Max Downman (Arsenal)
First manager to get the sack: Robert De Zerbi (Tottenham)
Shock of the season: Tottenham sucked into the relegation battle again.

ARSENAL
Nickname: The Gunners
Ground: Emirates Stadium
Capacity: 60,000
Position last season: Champions
Manager: Mikel Arteta

This will become clearer as we continue through this preview, but defending Champions Arsenal go into this season as heavy favourite to retain the title. Of all the potential title contenders, the Gunners have by far the fewest question marks about them. A settled team with a proven and familair manager. They don't need to change anything, but merely continue what they did last season. It's the other teams that need to prove they can raise their game, and while it is certainly possible that others will, each of those contenders faces significant hurdles and doubts in order to do so.

Mikel Arteta has strengthened an already formidable squad, most notably with Bruno Guimarães adding another elite option alongside Rice, Zubimendi and Ødegaard, while Christos Tzolis gives them more variety in attack. There is some concern with William Saliba’s back injury, particularly as Arsenal’s outstanding defence was central to last season’s success, while keeping Saka and Rice fit after enormous summer workloads will matter over the course of another four-competition campaign.

If those players hold up, and especially if Arsenal add another top attacker before the window closes, they have the depth and continuity to retain the league.

Key Signing: Bruno Guimarães
Key Man: Declan Rice
Verdict: Champions or thereabout. Anything less would now feel like underachievement.

ASTON VILLA
Nickname: The Villans
Ground: Villa Park
Capacity: 43,205
Last season: 4th
Manager: Unai Emery

Aston Villa enter the season in a strangely fragile position despite coming off their best season in decades: fourth in the Premier League, Europa League winners and back in the Champions League. Financial constraints have forced Unai Emery to oversee what is beginning to look like a substantial rebuild rather than another straightforward step forward. Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans, Lucas Digne, Ezri Konsa, Emiliano Martínez and now Ollie Watkins have all gone, stripping away a huge amount of quality and continuity.

In response Villa have invested heavily in João Gomes and highly rated young midfielder Johan Manzambi, brought in goalkeeper Zion Suzuki. But the highlight of their summer transfer activity has to be the signing of former Chelsea astiker Nicolas Jackson to replace Watkins. Make no mistake, Jackson has often struggled for consistency in front of goal, but even on his worst day he is an excellent footballer who can create trouble for any defence. I think a move to a club like Villa presents an excellent opportunity for him to get back on track.

Emery remains the biggest reason for optimism. If the new signings settle quickly, Villa should still be capable of competing around the European places, but repeating last year's top-four finish while simultaneously navigating the Champions League looks considerably harder.

Key Signing: Nicolas Jackson
Key Man: John McGinn
Verdict: At this point, a mid-table finish feels a more realistic expectation than another title-adjacent season.

BOURNEMOUTH
Nickname: The Cherries
Ground: Dean Court
Capacity: 12,357
Last season: 6th
Manager: Marco Rose

The story of the season for Bournemouth will inevitably be about the change in management. Last season’s sixth-place finish was the best in the club’s history and brought European football for the first time, but Andoni Iraola’s successor Marco Rose inherits a side that is now expected to juggle the Premier League with a Europa League campaign.

Encouragingly, Bournemouth have so far avoided another major summer clear-out, retaining Alex Scott, Rayan, Tyler Adams and Eli Junior Kroupi. António Silva, signed from Benfica for about £26m, looks an excellent replacement for Marcos Senesi, while Álvaro Rodríguez and Juanlu Sánchez add depth.

Rose’s aggressive, vertical football should make the tactical transition relatively natural. The difficulty is that Thursday-Sunday European football is completely new territory for this squad. Matching sixth would be an enormous achievement.

Key Signing: Antonio Silva

Key Man: Alex Scott

Verdict: Dropping back to mid-table feels a more realistic outcome, with enough talent and organisation to finish higher if Rose settles quickly and the Europa League does not drain them.

BRENTFORD
Nickname: The Bees
Ground: Brentford Community Stadium
Capacity: 17,250
Last season: 9th
Manager: Keith Andrews

Quite the rise it has been for the Bees in recent years. Another top-half finish last season sees Brentford enter the season looking less like plucky overachievers and more like a properly established top-half Premier League side. If any doubts lingered following the departure of former manager Thomas Frank, Keith Andrews has answered them all by taking the club to ninth last season and narrowly missing Europe. The big challenge is whether they can repeat it now that opponents know what Andrews’ Brentford look like.

Brentford remain extremely dangerous in transition and from unusual set-piece situations, while Igor Thiago’s 22 league goals last year established him as one of the division’s most effective strikers. Brentford have been pro-active and ambitious in the market this summer, breaking their transfer record for energetic midfielder Mamadou Sangaré, adding experienced attacking cover in Callum Wilson and Jaidon Anthony, and then spending heavily on exciting Senegal left-back El Hadji Malick Diouf from West Ham.

With no European schedule to stretch them, Brentford should again be awkward, physical and tactically inventive enough to trouble virtually anyone. The question is do they have that something extra to push on against some very tough competition?

Key Signing: Mamadou Sangare
Key Man: Igor Thiago
Verdict: If Thiago keeps scoring at anything close to last season’s rate, another genuine push for Europe is very realistic.

BRIGHTON
Nickname: The Seagulls
Ground: Falmer Stadium
Capacity: 31,176
Last season: 8th
Manager: Fabian Hürzeler

Another solid year for Brighton, but this season may present one of the sternest tests yet of their remarkable recruitment model. Fabian Hürzeler guided them to eighth and Conference League qualification, but the summer has brought significant turnover: Jan Paul van Hecke has gone to Tottenham, Carlos Baleba joined Manchester United for £70m, and veterans Danny Welbeck, James Milner, Solly March and Joël Veltman have also departed.

In classic Brighton fashion, they have replenished with a mixture of established quality and high-upside talent, including Pascal Struijk, Luka Vušković and striker Promise David, while the return of Pascal Groß provides some much-needed experience around an extremely young squad. There is still plenty of attacking talent in Mitoma, Minteh, Rutter, Hinshelwood and Kostoulas.

The question is depth. Brighton now have European football to manage as well, with a Conference League campaign to juggle alongside domestic football. Hürzeler will need his younger players to mature quickly.

Key Signing: Luka Vuskovic
Key Man: Kaoru Mitoma
Verdict: Mid-table seems likely again, but Brighton are exactly the sort of side who could turn an apparently transitional season into seventh place and a serious run at the Conference League.

CHELSEA
Nickname: Blues
Ground: Stamford Bridge
Capacity: 40,044
Last season: 10th
Manager: Xabi Alonso

Last season was pretty much the epitome of Chelsea under Clearlake ownership. Things started well, World Champions, battling Arsenal at the top of the table, thrashing Barcelona in the Champions League, but then it all unraveled. Chelsea's problems started, as it has done every year, due to a lack of depth in key positions, and when a frustrated Enzo Maresca resigned mid-season, the club went into a tail-spin from which they did not have the experience or maturity to recover.

It seems that this humiliation may have finally sent a message to upper management. They have brought in talented manager Xabi Alonso, and seemingly given him control of transfer decisions. The result is that the club is finally signing experience and mentality and reinforcing that vulnerable defence. The headlines will no doubt focus on the record signing of Morgan Rogers, but it's the signing of defender Maxence Lacroix and goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez that could be most transformational, to the tune of an additional double digits amount of points compared to last season.

This is a better Chelsea team than one would think based on last season's collapse. João Pedro is genuinely one of the best players in the league, while if Cole Palmer can regain even a fraction of his previous form, Chelsea will be able to claim one of the best attackers in Europe. Now with a more robust defence, some experience in the squad, and a top level manager, there is the feeling that the club could finally be moving in the right direction.

Key Signing: Maxence Lacroix
Key Man: João Pedro

Verdict: Top four contenders, possibly more if new players and tactical system gels, possibly less if Clearlake have another Clearlake moment.

COVENTRY
Nickname: The Sky Blues
Ground: Coventry Building Society Arena
Capacity: 32,609
Last season: Promoted (Champions)
Manager: Frank Lampard

A return to the top flight after 25 years for Coventry. Frank Lampard brought them up as Championship champions after a brilliant season in which they scored 97 league goals, with set pieces a particular weapon, and the club have backed him heavily. Carl Rushworth, Aurèle Amenda, Loum Tchaouna, Caleb Yirenkyi, Gustavo Hamer, Taiwo Awoniyi, Sidiki Chérif and Ethan Pinnock are among a remarkably ambitious group of additions, giving Coventry considerably more depth and Premier League experience than the side that won promotion.

The question is whether Lampard can preserve their expansive style without leaving them exposed against elite opposition. There is real talent here. Matt Grimes remains the midfield organiser, Haji Wright and Ellis Simms offer established goals, while Yirenkyi and Chérif give them genuine upside. But a newly assembled squad will need to gel quickly.

Survival is undoubtedly the goal. They have probably spent enough to stay up, but after 25 years away from the Premier League, avoiding relegation would constitute a very successful first season back.

Key Signing: Taiwo Awoniyi
Key Man: Haji Wright

Verdict: In the relegation battle, but with a good chance to stay up.

CRYSTAL PALACE
Nickname: Eagles, Glaziers
Ground: Selhurst Park
Capacity: 25,194
Last season: 15th
Manager: Pierre Sage

While last season's 15th place finish may not feel all that impressive. It still marked the culmination of arguably the most successful period in the club’s history. Oliver Glasner departed for Nottingham Forest after delivering three trophies, including last season’s Conference League, leaving former Lyon coach Pierre Sage with the difficult job of preserving Palace’s aggressive, entertaining identity while also taking them into the Europa League.

The squad still has serious quality in Adam Wharton, Yéremy Pino, Ismaïla Sarr and Dean Henderson, and Palace have resisted major interest in Wharton and Sarr, but the defence has been reshaped following Maxence Lacroix’s move to Chelsea, with Óscar Mingueza, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Axel Disasi arriving.

There is enough talent here for Palace to remain comfortably clear of trouble and produce another enjoyable European run, but replacing Glasner while simultaneously managing Thursday-night football makes last season’s heights difficult to repeat.

Key Signing: Dwight McNeil
Key Man: Ismaïla Sarr
Verdict: A relegation tussle is not out of the question.

EVERTON
Nickname: Toffees
Ground: Hill Dickinson Stadium
Capacity: 52,769
Last season: 13th
Manager: David Moyes

There is a sense at the Hill Dickinson Stadium that David Moyes has finally brought stability to a club that has long needed it. But now, he needs to turn stability into genuine progress. Last season was frustrating. Everton were only three points off the Champions League places in March before sliding all the way to 13th, but the underlying improvement was enough to make a top-half challenge look realistic.

Recruitment has been sensible rather than spectacular, with Brennan Johnson, Hayden Hackney and Christian Nørgaard strengthening the midfield and attacking options, while young midfielder Harrison Armstrong looks increasingly important after Everton reversed course on a proposed £35m sale following supporter opposition. The signing of exciting Chelsea academy product Tyrique George is also a tantalising proposition, and it will be interesting to see what he can achieve now with regular first team football.

Everton still lack the attacking quality of the league’s European regulars, but with Pickford, Branthwaite, Tarkowski and Dewsbury-Hall providing a strong spine, solid mid-table feels the most realistic result.

Key Signing: Tyrique George
Key Man: Jordan Pickford
Verdict: If the new signings click, a push toward seventh or eighth is quite plausible. More likely: smack in the middle.

FULHAM
Nickname: The Cottagers
Ground: Craven Cottage
Capacity: 28,107
Last season: 11th
Manager: Álvaro Arbeloa

It promises to be a year of transition for the Cottagers, with Marco Silva leaving for Benfica after five successful years and former Real Madrid coach Álvaro Arbeloa taking his first job in English football.

The squad itself still contains a strong established core: Bernd Leno, Joachim Andersen, Calvin Bassey, Antonee Robinson, Sander Berge, Alex Iwobi and Emile Smith Rowe, but Arbeloa is deliberately trying to lower the age profile of what was one of the league’s oldest sides, with Gonzalo García arriving from Real Madrid and Shea Charles from Southampton.

There have also been meaningful losses, particularly Harry Wilson, Issa Diop and Raúl Jiménez, but replacing Silva’s extremely reliable organisation is probably the greater concern than individual personnel.

There is enough quality here that relegation would be a major disappointment, but this feels much less predictable than the Silva years.

Key Signing: Shea Charles
Key Man: Calvin Bassey
Verdict: A comfortable mid-table season would represent a successful first year for Arbeloa but it's also entirely plausible that they will be in and around the relegation battle this season.

HULL CITY
Nickname: The Tigers
Ground: MKM Stadium
Capacity: 24,983
Last season: Promoted (Playoff)
Manager: Sergej Jakirović

If there's one thing that all the pre-season previews have agreed on, it is this: Hull City are an early favourite for relegation, having somehow turned a campaign that began under a transfer embargo into promotion through the Championship playoffs under Sergej Jakirović. Their underlying numbers last season were hardly those of a dominant promoted side. They conceded 66 league goals and finished 22 points behind fellow newcomers Coventry, but Hull have attacked the summer aggressively, bringing in Konstantinos Tzolakis, Hidemasa Morita and club-record signing Nobel Mendy among a large group of recruits intended to make the squad Premier League-ready.

What makes them particularly intriguing is that the season has already begun spectacularly: a 2–0 win over Manchester United on opening day was followed by yesterday’s 1–0 victory at Coventry, with Tzolakis outstanding and Liam Millar scoring the late winner, leaving Hull with six points, two clean sheets and an improbable place near the top of the table. Jakirović has them defending compactly, competing ferociously and breaking quickly, and that clarity of approach gives them a better chance than their pre-season reputation suggested.

Nevertheless, the squad remains relatively short on proven Premier League quality and a long relegation battle is still the likeliest scenario. But six points banked immediately is enormous for a promoted club, and Hull suddenly look quite capable of becoming this season’s side that everyone confidently tipped for 20th and then spends six months trying to explain away.

Key Signing: Nobel Mendy
Key Man: Oli McBurnie
Verdict: A relegation risk, but with a greater chance of survival than most would assume.

IPSWICH TOWN
Nickname: The Tractor Boys
Ground: Portman Road
Capacity: 30,056
Last season: Promoted (Runner Up)
Manager: Gary O'Neil

Ipswich enter the season looking much better equipped for the Premier League than they were during their brief top-flight stay two years ago, having bounced straight back up as Championship runners-up and then undergone a major reset, with Gary O’Neil replacing Kieran McKenna and more than £100m spent rebuilding the squad.

The recruitment has been strikingly ambitious. Issa Diop and Saša Lukić bring proven Premier League experience, Florentino Luís strengthens midfield, Brazilian striker Emersonn arrives as the club-record signing. This week Ipswich pulled off perhaps their biggest coup by signing Argentina World Cup winner Exequiel Palacios from Bayer Leverkusen.

The obvious issue is that thirteen summer signings plus a new manager means O’Neil has effectively been handed a new team to assemble on the fly, and despite considerably greater depth there still isn’t much certainty about where the Premier League goals will come from. The early signs are encouraging, their high-turnover, energetic style should give them a genuine way of hurting stronger opponents rather than simply trying to survive matches. Relegation is still a very real possibility, but of the promoted sides Ipswich may have the strongest combination of investment, squad depth and top-flight-ready players.

Key Signing: Exequiel Palacios
Key Man: Exequiel Palacios
Verdict: If Palacios stays fit and Emersonn provides enough goals, I’d slightly favour them to stay up rather than go straight back down.

LEEDS UNITED

Nickname: The Whites
Ground: Elland Road
Capacity: 37,633
Last season: 14th
Manager: Daniel Farke

There were tough questions being asked about The Whites on their return to the Premier League. Questiosn which Daniel Farke answered by successfully guiding them to comfortable survival. Even more impressive was the transofrmation in the second half of last season after switching to a 3-5-2, with their form over the final months closer to European level than relegation form.

Leeds have then strengthened exactly where they needed to, spending heavily on James Trafford from Manchester City and Tarik Muharemovic from Sassuolo, adding the experienced Nico Elvedi in defence and bringing in Harry Wilson to supply more creativity around Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Pascal Struijk has departed, but overall the squad looks considerably deeper and more balanced than a year ago.

The obvious caveat is attacking firepower. Calvert-Lewin’s availability remains important and Leeds probably lack the individual match-winners possessed by the established European contenders. But the defence, midfield structure and continuity under Farke all look strong. I think this is one where the club could conceivably push into the top half if all goes right, or get sucked into a relegation battle if all goes wrong. Most likely, somewhere in the lower half of mid-table.

Key Signing: James Trafford
Key Man: Dominic Calvert-Lewin
Verdict: Mid-table, but if Trafford and Muharemovic prove as good as advertised and Calvert-Lewin stays fit, a surprise push for 8th or 9th isn't far-fetched at all.

LIVERPOOL

Nickname: Reds
Ground: Anfield
Capacity: 61,276
Last season: 5th
Manager: Andoni Iraola

Strangely, one of the hardest teams to judge this season. This time last year, Liverpool were Champions, with Arne Slot loving life in English football. How things can change. The bizarrely delayed trigger pulling on the sack meant they missed out on Xabi Alonso, and so the man to lead the Reds into this season is Andoni Iraola.

Andoni Iraola arrives from Bournemouth with a much more aggressive, high-intensity approach. His attacking options are strong on paper, but not without question mark. The likes of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, and Hugo Ekitike have so far failed to live up to their billing, but Cody Gakpo and the emerging Rio Ngumoha are impressive. Now joined by Víctor Muñoz and record £123m signing Bradley Barcola from PSG, this is one area they should be well set for the upcoming season.

Defence was the bigger summer concern after Ibrahima Konaté and Andy Robertson also left, so the arrival of highly rated Jérémy Jacquet and a season-long loan for Ronald Araújo gives Iraola some much-needed options alongside Van Dijk. If Iraola can get the press functioning and Wirtz and Isak produce consistently, this is still a squad capable of pushing Arsenal deep into the season, but replacing Salah’s enormous output while bedding in another tactical reset makes them less convincing than the champions right now.

Key Signing: Jérémy Jacquet
Key Man: Dominik Szoboszlai
Verdict: An outside contender for the title, but will certainly compete for top four.

MANCHESTER CITY
Nickname: Blues
Ground: Etihad Stadium
Capacity: 53,400
Last season: 2nd
Manager: Enzo Maresca

Manchester City are at the start of the biggest transition they have faced in a decade, with Enzo Maresca replacing Pep Guardiola after City finished second to Arsenal last season despite winning a domestic cup double. The personnel change is almost as dramatic. Rodri has joined Barcelona, Bernardo Silva and John Stones have gone, while Sávio, Omar Marmoush and Nico González have also moved on, leaving Maresca to construct a new midfield around enormous-money signings Elliot Anderson and 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi.

What stops this feeling like a conventional rebuild is that City still have absolute top tier talent in Erling Haaland, Phil Foden, Rayan Cherki, Josko Gvardiol and Gianluigi Donnarumma. Maresca’s football is philosophically close enough to Guardiola’s that City should avoid a total tactical reset, but replacing both Guardiola and Rodri simultaneously is an enormous ask and the midfield may take time to settle. Nevertheless, this is still probably Arsenal’s strongest challenger.

Key Signing: Elliot Anderson
Key Man: Erling Haaland
Verdict: If Anderson and Bouaddi settle quickly and Haaland stays fit, City are absolutely capable of taking the title back.

MANCHESTER UNITED
Nickname: Red Devils
Ground: Old Trafford
Capacity: 74,879
Last season: 3rd
Manager: Michael Carrick

The Red Devils enter the season with perhaps more genuine optimism than at almost any point in the post-Ferguson era, but also with the uncomfortable possibility that last season’s third-place finish slightly flattered where the squad actually is.

Michael Carrick earned the permanent job after an excellent caretaker spell, 12 wins from 17 league games after replacing Ruben Amorim, and United have sensibly rebuilt the midfield around Youri Tielemans, Andrey Santos and £70m signing Carlos Baleba, although Baleba has unfortunately arrived with an ankle injury and will miss the opening weeks.

There is plenty of attacking quality in Bruno Fernandes, Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Šeško, with Marcus Rashford unexpectedly back in the picture for now, but the squad still feels a little incomplete at left-back and centre-forward. But Martínez and De Ligt have only recently returned from injuries and Champions League football will put far more strain on Carrick’s options than last season.

The warning sign came immediately with a 2–0 opening-day defeat at newly promoted Hull, in which familiar problems of midfield control, creativity and defending set pieces resurfaced, so the next few weeks will tell us whether that was simply a bad afternoon or evidence that Carrick’s remarkable initial bounce is wearing off. There is enough talent here to qualify for the Champions League again and potentially go deep in a cup, but United still look a level below Arsenal and City and probably need Carrick to continue outperforming the underlying quality of the squad to repeat third.

Key Signing: Youri Tielemens
Key Man: Bruno Fernandes
Verdict: A top four contender, but unlikely to amoint to more this season.

NEWCASTLE
Nickname: The Magpies, Toon
Ground: St James' Park
Capacity: 52,305
Last season: 12th
Manager: Matthias Jaissle

The years of optimism and ambition for Newcastle during the Saudi PIF era seems strangely forgotten. They begin the season in the middle of a dramatic rebuild rather than as the Champions League-chasing side that had largely been expected, after a disappointing 12th-place finish was followed by Eddie Howe’s resignation and the departures of Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon

Former Salzburg and Al-Ahli coach Matthias Jaissle has been entrusted with the reset, bringing the high-energy pressing and fast transitions associated with his Red Bull background, while Newcastle have deliberately recruited younger players such as Bazoumana Touré, Aladji Bamba and Sean Steur, before adding the more established Nico González from Manchester City for around £52m to rebuild the midfield. On paper that leaves significantly less proven quality than Newcastle possessed at their peak under Howe, but the very early signs under Jaissle are encouraging

With no European football to stretch a relatively young squad, Jaissle has a decent chance of making the transition smoother than expected, but replacing Guimarães, Tonali and Gordon simultaneously is an enormous loss of creativity and control.

Key Signing: Nico González
Key Man: Yoane Wissa
Verdict: Getting back into Europe this season would represent an extremely successful year, but mid-table seems likely.

NOTTINGHAM FOREST
Nickname: The Reds
Ground: City Ground
Capacity: 31,212
Last season: 16th
Manager: Oliver Glasner

A transition year, with new manager Oliver Glasner hoping he can finally turn a talented but chaotic squad into something coherent, after a remarkable 2025–26 campaign in which they finished 16th while cycling through four permanent managers.

Glasner is moving them into the familiar 3-4-2-1 that worked so well for him at Crystal Palace, and Forest have given him some serious pieces to work with. Ousmane Diomande strengthens an already good group of centre-backs, while Liam Delap has arrived from Chelsea for a club-record fee to provide a younger long-term alternative to Chris Wood. The major loss is Elliot Anderson, sold to Manchester City for £116m, which removes a huge amount of energy and ball progression from midfield. Much will depend on Morgan Gibbs-White and James McAtee carrying more creative responsibility.

With no European football, a proven manager and more attacking depth than last year, Forest should be aiming for a safe mid-table finish. But that Anderson-shaped hole in midfield will be felt, and I think there's a real possibility of being drawn into a relegation battle if things don't click quickly.

Key Signing: Ousmane Diomande
Key Man: Morgan Gibbs-White
Verdict: Will look to regroup and progress, but this is a risky season for them.

SUNDERLAND
Nickname: The Black Cats
Ground: Stadium of Light
Capacity: 48,095
Last season: 7th
Manager: Régis Le Bris

Sunderland will want to prove that last season’s remarkable seventh-place finish was the beginning of something sustainable rather than a one-off, and Régis Le Bris has kept the core of that side together while adding depth for a first Europa League campaign in more than half a century.

Granit Xhaka, Enzo Le Fée, Noah Sadiki and Brian Brobbey still give them a remarkably strong spine, while summer arrivals Dayann Methalie, Jules Ahoka and experienced full-back Thomas Meunier strengthen the squad. There have been departures, notably Eliezer Mayenda, Anthony Patterson and Dan Neil, but none feels transformational.

The biggest challenge is workload: Sunderland benefited enormously last year from being able to concentrate on the league, whereas they now have Thursday-night trips across Europe and Le Bris will need substantially more rotation. Sunderland probably overachieved statistically to finish seventh last year, so some regression is likely, but this is now a well-coached, confident Premier League side rather than relegation fodder.

Key Signing: Thomas Meunier
Key Man: Granit Xhaka

Verdict: Will be aiming for a safe mid-table finish, unlikely to repeat last season's impressive heights.

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

Nickname: Spurs
Ground: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Capacity: 62,850
Last season: 17th
Manager: Robert De Zerbi

And finally, lads it's Tottenham. Perhaps the Premier League’s biggest boom-or-bust project, after disastrous back-to-back 17th place finishes. Their on-the-pitch turmoil has prompted an enormous rebuild under Roberto De Zerbi, who arrived in March and ultimately kept them up.

Spurs have subsequently spent more than £300m, with Sandro Tonali the headline £92.5m addition alongside Sávio, Omar Marmoush, Mateus Fernandes, Jan Paul van Hecke, Marcos Senesi and Andy Robertson, giving De Zerbi a squad that looks dramatically stronger on paper and should eventually suit his possession-heavy, adventurous football.

The problem is that the rebuild currently looks nowhere near finished: Tottenham opened with a 3–0 defeat at Brentford and then lost 2–0 at home to Newcastle, leaving them pointless and without a league goal, while De Zerbi has openly identified mentality and cohesion as the biggest issues. The question is how quickly De Zerbi can turn a collection of expensive individuals into a functioning team.

Key Signing: Sávio
Key Man: Micky van de Ven
Verdict: Another bottom-half finish after this level of spending would represent a serious failure.

Predicted table:
1. Arsenal

2. Manchester City

3. Liverpool

4. Chelsea

5. Manchester United

6. Brentford

7. Everton

8. Aston Villa

9. Brighton

10. Newcastle

11. Bournemouth

12. Sunderland

13. Nottingham Forest

14. Leeds United

15. Tottenham

16. Ipswich Town

17. Fulham

18. Hull City

19. Coventry City

20. Crystal Palace

Sunday, 26 July 2026

The Complicated End of the Alex Kurtzman Era of Star Trek

The biggest story across the media landscape right now is the consolidation of Skydance Media, the production and financing company founded by David Ellison, son of Oracle founder and former richest man in the world, Larry Ellison. It began with Skydance's 2025 acquisition of National Amusements (controlling shareholder of Paramount) and subsequent merger with Paramount, itself a recent consolidation of Paramount, Viacom and CBS, and continues right now with the proposed acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery. It's a transformational media consolidation the scale and speed of which is unprecedented, with massive and concerning global and political ramifications. Today, however, we are focused on one thing: how this all affects Star Trek.

paramount skydance warner discovery takeover david ellison star trek future uncertainty alex kurtzman nutrek

While there remains a great deal of uncertainty surrounding this consolidation and the future of the various media properties owned by the new super-conglomerate, one consequence which seems all but certain is that the present era of Star Trek is coming to an end, with franchise chief Alex Kurtzman apparently heading for the exit.

This represents a conflicting moment for fans of Star Trek, many of whom have long been displeased with the direction of the franchise under Kurtzman, yet remain wary of changes that the new ownership may implement. Today I want to explore this unusual tension and, in doing so, draft the final epitaph for this era of Star Trek.

Star Trek is, of course, one of the world's most celebrated science fiction franchises. Beginning as a low-budget cult classic of the 1960s, the franchise progressed through a rapid expansion in the 1980s and 1990s into a global brand, and an early prioneer of the shared transmedia universe. Long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing, Star Trek put this model into practice with a series of linked TV series, films, videogames, comics and novels, all of which featured crossover stories and characters, and in doing so became a global entertainment juggernaut.

But by the early 2000s, the stature of the franchise was in decline. There are many reasons for this: franchise fatigue (and repetition) caused by its own success in the 1990s, changing tastes in entertainment style following 9/11 and the Bush years, broader shifts in television from syndicated 30 episiode seasons to leaner, more serialised series. This period was capped by the one-two punch of an unmitigated cinematic bomb in Star Trek: Nemesis, and the early cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, a series which unwisely attempted to appeal to too broad an audience, and had the effect of alienating longtime fans - perhaps an early premonition of things to come. The result: the franchise was put on ice, with no new projects in development for the first time in decades.

The franchise was dead in the water, until J.J. Abrams brought it back to life. It's funny, the Trek fandom generally disdains the J.J. Abrams films, but they absolutely saved the franchise from oblivion, and would go on to represent a commercial and arguably a pop-cultural high point for the franchise. Suddenly Star Trek was winning Academy Awards and pulling in worldwide box office in the area of $500million. These were critically acclaimed films. This had never happened before, certainly not at this level. It put Trek back on the map. That it took almost a decade between 2009's smash hit revival and a return of the franchise to television has to go down as one of the worst cases of IP mismanagement in entertainment history. But when it eventually did, it was one of J.J.'s collaborators, Alex Kurtzman, who emerged as the man to take Star Trek, finally, into the 21st Century.

This brave new era got off to a rocky start. The first project, Star Trek: Discovery, initially appeared to be an attempt to merge the classic Trek setting with the sensibilities of the J.J. films that had proven so successful. They even brought in experienced Trek writer and acclaimed television showrunner Bryan Fuller, at the time something of an icon of the franchise. Optimism was high. Unfortunately, what we got was an uneven, poorly realised mess.

Discovery suffered from a number of egregious creative missteps. Star Trek, at its core, had always been more of a character-driven workplace drama than anything else. A team of competent, idealistic explorers solving problems, forming relationships, and uncovering intellectually satisfying mysteries. Discovery pivoted hard into mainstream action, with only the most superficial of character development. A television franchise that had previously featured entire episodes of courtroom drama or philosophical debate now barely went five minutes without an explosion, violence, or some other high stakes twist. The competent professionals of previous series were replaced by teary-eyed melodramatic characters who whisper-spoke half their lines. Focus shifted from the usual ensemble cast to just the one central character, with many of the supporting cast not even having names until later seasons. The turbolift (effectively an elevator) reimagined as a Doctor Who style magical void. Klingons reimagined as grotesquely monstrous orc-like creatures. Matrix-style slow-motion mid-air camera shots. I could go on and on, but the summary is that it was severely dumbed down, desperate to appeal to the mainstream lowest common denominator, and obsessed with visual spectacle and melodrama.

It is worth considering the launch of this era of Star Trek in the context of the time. These were the early days of the streaming era of television, where every network was desperate to have its own piece of the pie and needed content to justify the existence of their own completely unnecessary platform. Star Trek Discovery was imagined as the flagship of the nascent CBS All Access (later Paramount+) platform, alongside a number of other series including reboots of the Twilight Zone and Frasier. They were all absolutely godawful. I think this is a key point to remember here, it wasn't just a Star Trek Discovery problem. CBS/Paramount just had bad people running their creative division, right from the start. Unfortunately that left a legacy that was never quite resolved.

In fairness, the creatives eventually started to acknowledge some of their missteps. They quietly retconned the Klingon re-design, shifted focus back on to more of an ensemble cast of characters, and started to attempt more intellectually ambitious storytelling. But while Discovery did improve somewhat in later seasons, the result of all these shifts and changes was a disjointed, inconsistent mess of a series. One where the core cast and setting would change frequently for little discernible reason, and where strong concepts and plotlines would be introduced, only to be unceremoniously dropped an episode later and replaced by often poorly conceived plotlines (season 3's "The Burn" comes to mind, dear Lord).

There was a more fundamental problem with this show that even the positive tweaks couldn't resolve. This was a Star Trek show that desperately didn't want to be Star Trek. One can excuse writers who perhaps were not fans of the old series inadvertently making continuity errors, forgetting how the in-universe science works or how various species are supposed to look. But more than this, it is clear that very deliberate and conscious decisions were made to try and distance this era of the franchise from what came before. We had the significant structural and artistic changes from early Discovery, but there was also a clear shift in the writing style from the timeless "period" dialogue style of the 90s to more colloquial contemporary slang and speech patterns - these shows will age terribly as a result. But the most divisive decision of this era has to be the unnecessary and unwanted 1,000 year jump into the future. Suffice it to say, this did not go down well.

A quick word on the time jump, and why this has been so controversial. Massive time jumps are always a bit problematic in sci-fi, especially where your starting point is already the far future. It means you need to imagine how the already futuristic 24th Century technology might become eclipsed by even more advanced 32nd Century technology, and the result invariably is either underwhelming and silly, or amounts to technological stasis where things don't meaningfully change simply due to a lack of imagination. One of Star Trek's main appeals has always been that it is a relatable future. This is our world, our civilisation, extrapolated into a vision of what our future may look like. The more it veers from science fiction into science fantasy, the less that appeal holds. But the bigger problem is that it felt like a naked attempt by Kurtzman to shove aside what came before, to craft an entirely new sci-fi property without the baggage and slap a Star Trek label on it. The fans were right to be incensed.

Next came Star Trek: Picard, ostensibly an attempt to win back some of the "legacy" Star Trek fans. It was definitely better than Discovery, but suffered from many of the same flaws: the overly contemporary characters and dialogue, an overreliance on spectacle and melodrama. My feelings on the first two seasons of Picard are complicated. I don't necessarily think they were bad, but they were dragged out for way too long. These were effectively movie-length stories stretched out in order to fit a 10-hour miniseries run time, and it showed. Then there's season 3. Massive credit has to go to Terry Matalas, one of the few writers who managed to make something that worked both in the context of this era, while managing to recapture some of the magic that made us fall in love with Trek in the first place. This third season was brilliant, striking all the right tones, balancing the old and the new. It got everything just right, and for the first time since Kurtzman took over, presented a strong vision for how to take the franchise forwards. So, naturally, Kurtzman got rid of Matalas and rejected his proposals for future projects.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is arguably the most successful of the Kurtzman series. A conscious acknowledgement of the previous criticisms of the series of this era, this show's whole concept is essentially built around trying to embrace the old style of Star Trek, and sometimes to a fault. A welcome return to an ensemble story-of-the-week format. A good, solid focus on character development. A perhaps slightly unwelcome rehash of legacy characters (Pike, Spock, Uhura and others). This show contains some genuinely excellent episodes, especially in its second season which stands as some of the best work of this era and arguably one of the best TV series in general of 2023.

Lastly, we have Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, arguably the purest distillation of the Kurtzman era of Trek and a series which, accordingly, has had a marmite-like effect on the fandom. The idea is not actually a new one. There has long been talk of an Academy set series dating back to the 1990s. Originally envisaged as a prequel depicting the early days of Kirk and Spock, this final iteration has been reimagined as a spin-off of Discovery, picking up on that 32nd Century setting and cementing it as, at least for the remainder of the Kurtzman era, as the default Star Trek setting. So we have the unpopular 32nd Century setting, a connection to the most unpopular of all Trek series, and what amounts to a teen comedy being crafted by a Kurtzman-led team who seem to want to make anything except Star Trek. Let's face it, for many, this show was dead on arrival.

So it is generally quite shocking that... this series really isn't bad? In fact it's pretty good for what it is. I can understand Trek fans not wanting a high school comedy, but if you're willing to engage with that concept then this is actually quite well done. Sharply written, well directed and performed. Incredibly, this might actually be one of the better shows of this era, albeit one that will never, ever be accepted by a significant chunk of the fandom.

Let's be clear. Few, if any, Star Trek fans will mourn the departure of Alex Kurtzman or his vision for the franchise. Many will be outright celebrating it. The trepidation that remains is due to the person that is taking over.

Not to beat around the bush, but David Ellison is a controversial figure. A far right ideologue who is accused of using his growing media empire to push extreme propaganda. Said to have been involved in the questionable dealing which resulted in the ouster of various CBS media personalities deemed unfavourable to the current regime in Washington. This is not a good guy, and the fear is that Star Trek, a historically progressive and idealistic franchise, may be perverted into some monstrous and cruel imitation.

I think this is a real concern, and the early murmurs from the new owners about re-centering the franchise have done little to allay such concerns. Despite this, I suspect we are unlikely to see the kinds of radical propagandistic changes that people are fearing for a few reasons. It's one thing to skew news coverage to be more politically favourable, but there isn't really much evidence of the same being done for scripted series by these or other political owners, nor any real data to support the efficacy of doing so. Additionally, it would be a clearly disastrous business decision if they did try to do so. Ellison may be many things, but he is also a businessman, and he knows as well as anyone that you can't sell a product people don't want. There is a reason why the right wing Fox network never stifled Seth MacFarlane's output, for example.

At the same time, I think Star Trek's left-leaning fans would be surprised at just how popular the franchise is with those on the right, particularly the tech-billionaire class. Some might see this as a contradiction, but I think the lesson is that different people take away different things from artistic work. You might be surprised by just how little someone on the right actually wants to change that classic Trek formula.

So while I watch with trepidation, along with all other fans, to learn what the future of this franchise will look like, I am cautiously optimistic. I am of the view that Kurtzman's departure and the end of his version of Star Trek is an unambiguously good thing and an opportunity to forge a new path.

My hopes for the future:

Stop trying to make Star Trek something it is not. This is a franchise built on big ideas and intellectual exploration of those ideas. It will never be a mass-market action-adventure franchise.
Put people in charge who at the very least respect and appreciate that. Evolve and expand the formula on that basis, rather than constantly chasing a broader, more mainstream audience who will never be interested.
Above all, make sure to retain the best talent in the franchise, your Terry Matalas and Tawny Newsomes. People who actually have talent, have an understanding of the franchise, and know how to craft a good product. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because they worked for the previous guy.
Allow your creatives to have freedom on their project. It's ok for different people to have a different vision for how Star Trek can look and feel. It's the universal mandates that cause problems. Let people experiment. If it works, build on it. If it doesn't, move on.

And that brings us to the end of the Kurtzman era. Where does that leave us? Clearly, Kurtzman leaves behind a mixed legacy. A series of projects that range from just plain bad to "good, but with reservations". Even the highpoints of the era are tainted with the same issues: the generally uneven writing, the contemporary dialogue, the melodramatic and occasionally childish characters. Even the good shows are tainted by a general systemic "wrongness". A unified code of artistic choices, visual and writing style that all series of this era were required to follow, and which were often just plain bad choices. This era did feature some genuine talent, including some longtime Trek fans who really wanted to make something special, but at every step of the way they were hamstrung by poor creative directives coming from the top. Really, it's a textbook case of corporate meddling resulting in the blandest, most commercially broad product imaginable. A pursuit of profit above all else that ends up pleasing nobody. Whoever gets put in charge next, let's just hope they're a little more shrewd when it comes to balancing commercial interests with creative ones.

Sunday, 31 May 2026

The Ephemeric Premier League 2025/26 Review

Another Premier League campaign done and dusted, and this was a dramatic one indeed. A historic end to Arsenal's dry streak, heartbreak in Europe, off-the-pitch theatrics up and down the table, and the departure of an iconic Premier League manager. Let's get into it.

A historic moment for Arsenal, who claimed their first title in 22 years, only to suffer the heartbreak of a penalty shootout defeat in the Champions League final, mere days later. Let's put that 22 years into perspective. The last time they won the title was before the Iraq war. Tony Blair was Prime Minister. There are whole alcohol-drinking adults in this world who have never known Arsenal as a credible title contender. It's been a while is what I'm saying. They had also hoped to add a first ever European title in this weekend's hotly anticipated final against PSG, but was not to be. That makes to 2 finals, 0 wins for Arsenal in the Champions League.

Elsewhere, a different sort of history made for Manchester City, who bid farewell to their longtime manager Pep Guardiola. The move comes as little surprise; the rumours had been swirling for months, while Pep himself has seemed to lack his usual lustre these past few years following City's Champions League triumph in 2023. He is to be replaced by former Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca, itself a tasty subplot for next season.

That segues nicely into the ongoing circus at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea started the season World Champions and spent much of the first half of the season competing in and around the top of the table, before yet another bust up between owners and manager over transfer policy resulted in then-manager Maresca handing in his resignation, with the club appointing the obviously unqualified Liam Rosenier. The resultant collapse is one for the history books (everyone making history this season it seems), with the club dropping down to tenth by season's end.

Elsewhere, Sunderland impressed, achieving European Qualification in their first season in the top flight. Bruno Fernandes lit up the league for Manchester United, breaking the assists record in the process. West Ham and Burnely were relegated, as predicted, with Wolverhampton Wanderers joining them in the drop.

So as you can see: quite the season of twists and surprises. Now let's get to some awards and the team of the season:

The Ephemeric Premier League Awards 2026:

Winners: Arsenal

Relegated: West Ham, Burnley, Wolverhampton Wanderers

Player of the Year: Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United)

U-21 Player of the Year: Nico O'Reilly (Manchester City)

Best Goalkeeper: David Raya (Arsenal)

Top Scorer: Erling Haaland (Manchester City) (27)

Most Assists: Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United) (21)

Manager of the Year: Mikel Arteta (Arsenal)

Best signing of the season: Antoine Semenyo (Manchester City)

Worst signing of the season: Alexander Isak (Liverpool)

The Ephemeric Premier League Team of the Season 2026:

english epl bpl premier league best team xi of the season 2026

english epl bpl premier league best team xi of the season 2026

So there we have it, another season of Premier League football gone by. We'll see you again next season!

Saturday, 25 April 2026

What's Wrong With Chelsea Football Club?

Chelsea Football Club are now four years into the project of owners Clearlake Capital. During that time, they have spent almost £2billion in transfer fees, had 7 different managers, won two minor pieces of silverware and qualified for the Champions League once. As the current season reaches its climax, the fourth of an apparent five year plan, the club sits in 8th place, one defeat away from the bottom half of the table, having lost five in a row without scoring a single goal - the first time this has happened to the club since the sinking of the Titanic. By any metric, the Clearlake era has been a failure. But why?

ephemeric chelsea club world champions 2025 success trump

It's hard to believe, but as recently as 2021, Chelsea were crowned Champions of Europe, the highest accolade in club football, for the second time in nine years. This victory capped off a glittering 18 year period of ownership under Roman Abramovich which saw the club claim five Premier League titles, two Champions Leagues, five FA Cups, three League Cups, two Europa Leagues, the Super Cup and the former Club World Cup (now Intercontinental Cup). During this time, whatever you might think of them, Chelsea were undoubtedly one of the world's biggest clubs.

During this period, Chelsea even managed to become profitable as a business for the first time in their history. By contrast, the new owners have just recorded the largest single-year loss in Premier League history, and are in very real threat of flunking the already absurdly lenient Financial Fair Play rules. The idea that anyone could take such a successful club, invest so much into that club, and turn them into mid-table club with solvency issues, in a state of constant crisis, is genuinely difficult to believe.

So what is going wrong? To answer this question, let's quickly run through the events of these past four years.

Season 1: 20 players signed, £574 million spent. Successful Champions League winning manager Thomas Tuchel is sacked 1 month into the season. Reason: disagreed with owners' transfer policy. Replaced by Graham Potter, a manager with no track record of silverware whose claim to fame is doing better than one might expect of a club like Brighton. He lasts five months. Frank Lampard comes in, but by then the bottom has already fallen out. Final position: 12th. Silverware: none.

Season 2: 13 players signed, £407 million spent. Well-regarded manager Mauricio Pochettino is brought in. Struggles initially, but by the end of the season has managed to work his available resources into a credible team. Sacked at the end of the season despite the strong finish. Reason: disagreed with the owners' transfer policy. Final position: 6th. Silverware: none.

Season 3: 11 players signed, £220 million spent. Controversially appoints Enzo Maresca, a manager with no top flight experience. Despite all odds, Maresca manages to achieve some consistency and stability, claiming the first pieces of silverware of the Clearlake era, as well as a top four Champions League qualifying finish. Final position: 4th. Silverware: Europa Conference League, Club World Cup.

Season 4: 19 players signed, £311 million spent. Decent start to the season, carrying on from Maresca's promising first season. Competing at the top of the table, with positive results including the 3-0 demolishings of PSG and Barcelina. Maresca sacked half way through the season. Reason: disagreed with the owners' transfer policy. Inexperienced Ligue 1 manager Liam Rosenier brought in. Club slumps into record-breaking loss streak. Sacked after 3 months. Final position: TBD, but currently 6th, bottom half plausible. Silverware: TBD, but none expected.

A few things stand out from these four seasons, but none more so than the managerial turnover. Clearlake's managerial appointments have tended to fall into one of two categories: hopelessly unqualified yesmen, or talented managers who end up leaving over disagreements with the owners over the state of the squad.

What disagreements might these be? Well of the roughly 60 players signed by Clearlake, only 7 have been first-team level defenders. Only 1 has been a first-team level goalkeeper (and not an especially consistent one). A full 20 have been attacking midfielders. Fewer than half have featured for the Chelsea first team more than once. The average age of these players has been just 21 years old.

The result is a Chelsea side that ranks amongst the youngest in the Premier League, blessed with an array of attacking talent, but a paucity of quality or experience in defence. This is a severely unbalanced squad. This fact is most perfectly demonstrated by this season's curtain-raiser, a season which Chelsea entered full of confidence following their Club World Cup victory, with ambitions of challenging for the title. Despite this, the club lined up against Crystal Palace with a starting centre-back pairing that consisted of an untested Academy player on one side, and a left back on the other, with no cover available on the bench. All that money spent, and not one single first team centre-back available. The fact that Chelsea failed to bring in a replacement for Levi Colwill after the star defender's season-ending injury in the summer is quite inexplicable, and reportedly an early source of major discord between the owners and then manager Maresca.

Next, consider the high turnover of playing staff. 60 players signed in 4 years is astonishing. 117 players sold or released during that same period is eye-watering. Now, in fairness, some of that high outgoing is due to the high productivity of the club's academy, but it still paitns a picture. It is no wonder the club can't achieve any level of consistency or chemistry with the constantly shifting personnel. With the vast sums of money spent, we're pretty much locked into a cycle of having to sell in order to balance the books, so don't expect this to change any time soon.

There are the injuries. Chelsea currently top the Premier League injury table with eight first team injuries. This has been pretty consistent across these four years, with double digit injury counts common. This decline in player fitness has coincided with the owners' much reported "reimagining" of the club's medical resources, which included sacking a significant chunk of the medical staff, with many functions outsourced to celebrity doctors with minimal relevant experience.

Then there are the managerial appointments themselves. None have had extensive experience, aside from Pochettino. Most have exited explicitly for not toeing the company line. There is the very real suggestion that the primary qualifying feature of these appointments has been a willingness to defer to Clearlake management and follow orders. I have nothing against Rosenier personally, but for someone so clearly ill-suited for the job to have been appointed, ostensibly just because he wouldn't question his owners' poor squad-building choices, shows an alarming lack of judgement.

I'm barely even touching on the business side of things. Even aside from the financial losses, we are now four years into Clearlake ownership and they haven't been able to sign a shirt sponsor. I can't remember an instance of a top flight club failing to do so even once, let alone four times. It is unthinkable. No wonder the club is bleeding money.

While these issues are all very real and very significant, perhaps the biggest issue has been the simple lack of self-awareness of the owners. Upon their arrival, one of the first statements that Clearlake co-founder Behdad Eghbali made was that the club had not been "terribly well managed on the football, sporting or promotional side" under the previous owners - a comment that has attracted much derision from fans in the years since with how far back the club has moved in every single one of those fronts during that time. In a recent interview, director Danny Finkelstein stated, amongst other things, that it was "pretty fucking obvious" that Clearlake were in the process of building one of the best teams in the world, and that statistics prove that there is no correlation between the manager and results. Meanwhile, in reality, I can't think of a more clear demonstration of the difference a manager can make than the switch from Maresca to Rosenier, which saw a top four-challenging club sink into a record loss-streak, despite consisting of the exact same players.

Clearlake like to frame themselves as radicals looking to upend the sport. But the truth is that nothing they are doing is new, nor has anything they are doing ever proven to produce sustained success. Other clubs have focused their transfer strategy on youth (see late '00s Arsenal) and failed to generate success. Other clubs have focused their transfer strategy on attacking players while neglecting defence (see the worst excesses of Galactico-era Real Madrid) and failed to generate success. Clearlake are proof incarnate that spending money doesn't inevitably bring success if you don't know how to spend it well.

Now, I don't actually think this club is too far off being a competitive outfit. They just need to better balance the squad with some targeted investments in weak positions, mainly defence and goalkeeper. They need a talented and proven manager to run the thing, and they need to actually listen to that manager and let them make the football decisions. Will any of these things happen? I very much doubt it.

I will make no secret of my antipathy for these owners. Despite all of the failures, all of the setbacks, all of the crises, these owners keep doing the same thing over and over, and don't seem to have any capacity to concede that they might be the problem. Every success they have achieved, seems almost to have come about by accident, and at every turn, just when things start to click, they upend everything for no reason beyond their own vanity. May both sides of their pillow be forever too warm.

Saturday, 14 March 2026

The 98th Academy Award Oscar Predictions

Welcome back to The Ephemeric. It is Oscar season again, and you know what that means: more last minute predictions scribbled down during my 2 hours per day of non-working time in March. This year is a tricky one, I have to say. Two obvious contenders for the big prizes: One Battle After Another, an obvious sort of Oscar favourite by a filmmaker the Academy loves, and Sinners, a bit of a surprise package genre-piece that has shocked just about everyone by becoming the single most Oscar-nominated film of all time. Does that make it the best film? Maybe, but the Academy isnt always so logical. As usual, I will predict the likely winner for each prize, and then bore everyone with why I think the Academy was wrong. Ready? Alright, let's get to it.

Best Picture

Nominations:

Bugonia – Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, and Lars Knudsen, producers
F1 – Chad Oman, Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Joseph Kosinski, and Jerry Bruckheimer, producers
Frankenstein – Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, and Scott Stuber, producers
Hamnet – Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, Nicolas Gonda, Steven Spielberg, and Sam Mendes, producers
Marty Supreme – Eli Bush, Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie, Anthony Katagas, and Timothée Chalamet, producers
One Battle After Another – Adam Somner (p.n.), Sara Murphy, and Paul Thomas Anderson, producers
The Secret Agent – Emilie Lesclaux, producer
Sentimental Value – Maria Ekerhovd and Andrea Berentsen Ottmar, producers
Sinners – Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, and Ryan Coogler, producers
Train Dreams – Marissa McMahon, Teddy Schwarzman, Will Janowitz, Ashley Schlaifer, and Michael Heimler, producers

And the winner: One Battle After Another
Who should really win: Sinners

Explanation: Yeah, this is one where I think I am going to be at odds with the Academy. One Battle After Another has long been the odds-on favourite to win this prize, seemingly cemented by the recent victories at both the Producers' and Directors' Guild Awards. I get it. It's a good film, topical, and made by a director who's basically an Academy institution. Was it the best film of 2025 though? Not for me.

Best Director

Nominations:

Chloé Zhao – Hamnet
Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme
Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another
Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value
Ryan Coogler – Sinners

And the winner: Paul Thomas Anderson - One Battle After Another
Who should really win: Ryan Coogler - Sinners

Explanation: Once again, the stars seem to be aligning for Paul Thomas Anderson. I would go the other way on this one. One Battle After Another is a well made film, but in my opinion it doesn't have the intangible Hollywood alchemy that Sinners has, where it manages to somehow be greater than just the sum of its parts. That magic is what makes filmmaking such an incredible artform, and Sinners has it.

Best Actor

Nominations:

Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme as Marty Mauser
Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another as Bob Ferguson
Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon as Lorenz Hart
Michael B. Jordan – Sinners as Elijah "Smoke" Moore / Elias "Stack" Moore
Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent as Armando Solimões / Marcelo Alves / Fernando Solimões

And the winner: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners as Elijah "Smoke" Moore / Elias "Stack" Moore
Who should really win: Michael B. Jordan – Sinners as Elijah "Smoke" Moore / Elias "Stack" Moore

Explanation: I think this one is likely to go to Jordan for a few reasons. First, and most importantly, he's a wonderful actor who delivers not one, but two brilliant performances. Secondly, this seems to be the way the winds are blowing with the pre-Oscar awards. I think DiCaprio and Chalamet are in with a shout, the Academy loves them after all, but for me this year belongs to Jordan.

Best Actress

Nominations:

Jessie Buckley – Hamnet as Agnes Shakespeare
Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I'd Kick You as Linda
Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue as Claire Sardina
Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value as Nora Borg
Emma Stone – Bugonia as Michelle Fuller

And the winner: Jessie Buckley – Hamnet as Agnes Shakespeare
Who should really win: Jessie Buckley – Hamnet as Agnes Shakespeare

Explanation: I'll go along with this one. Hamnet has really caught something in Hollywood, and with the film unlikely to claim many of the other major awards, I suspect this is where it's going to have its moment.

Best Supporting Actor

Nominations:

Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos
Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein as The Creature
Delroy Lindo – Sinners as Delta Slim
Sean Penn – One Battle After Another as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw
Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value as Gustav Borg

And the winner: Sean Penn – One Battle After Another as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw
Who should really win: Sean Penn – One Battle After Another as Col. Steven J. Lockjaw

Explanation: Three in a row, honestly i'm not used to agreeing with the Academy so much. Penn was the highlight of this film for me, and would be my pick (although I am kind of stunned that Miles Caton didn't get a nomination here).

Best Supporting Actress

Nominations:

Elle Fanning – Sentimental Value as Rachel Kemp
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value as Agnes Borg Pettersen
Amy Madigan – Weapons as Gladys
Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners as Annie
Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another as Perfidia Beverly Hills

And the winner: Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another as Perfidia Beverly Hills
Who should really win: Amy Madigan – Weapons as Gladys

Explanation: This is another one I expect to go to One Battle After Another. Teyana Taylor gave a strong performance and just seems to tick so many boxes for the Academy. Personally though, I like a creepy, over the top horror villain. Madigan all the way.

Best Original Screenplay

Nominations:

Blue Moon – Robert Kaplow
It Was Just an Accident – Jafar Panahi; in collaboration with Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, and Mehdi Mahmoudian
Marty Supreme – Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
Sentimental Value – Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier
Sinners – Ryan Coogler

And the winner: Sinners – Ryan Coogler
Who should really win: Sinners – Ryan Coogler

Explanation: This one feels pretty clear to me. Sinners is one of those movies that has something interesting to say and says it well. If that isn't enough, it conveys it in such a unique, quasi-musical fashion. It's hard for me to see this going anywhere else.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nominations:

Bugonia – Will Tracy; based on the film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan
Frankenstein – Guillermo del Toro; based on the novel by Mary Shelley
Hamnet – Chloé Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell; based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell
One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson; based on the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
Train Dreams – Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar; based on the novella by Denis Johnson

And the winner: One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson; based on the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
Who should really win: Train Dreams – Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar; based on the novella by Denis Johnson

Explanation: This is one of those awards that I can see getting swept up in a big night of wins for a film like One Battle After Another. Personally, though, I am going for Train Dreams. One of the more underrated films of 2025, with a story that sticks with you more than most. It would be a worthy winner.

So there you have it, The Ephemeric's picks for the year. Enjoy the Oscars tonight, and when the results go as predicted, remember that you heard it here first!

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