These are the races that matter. These are the races we talk about. They frame everything that happens with a given club: Is the manager keeping the team safe from relegation? Are the new signings boosting the midtable club into the European places? Can that new striker put that already-excellent team over the top in the title race?

But in reality, clubs don’t function in this way. Or at least, they shouldn’t function in this way. They’re signing players, developing talent, and acquiring coaches with a multi-year view into the future. If everyone only cared about this season, every player in the league would be 27 years-old.

So, today, we’re going to rank all 20 Premier League clubs based on how the future looks. This isn’t a prediction for who is going to win the league in a couple of years — that wouldn’t be fun since we’d be stuck picking someone from the so-called Big Six. Instead, it’s a ranking of how likely a team is to have self-defined successful seasons in the future.

To create the rankings, we’ll use a combination of four inputs:

• Squad age: The team’s average age, weighted by minutes played this season, via FBref.

• Young talent: The combined Transfermarkt value of the team’s players aged 23 and under.

• Managerial stability: A combination of how likely the current manager is to be at the club in a few years and how confident we should be that the club would be able to replace their current manager with the right guy.

• Club health: A combination of how highly I think of the ownership and the team’s decision-makers, the state of the team’s financial health, and how likely they are to be relegated at some point.

We’ve ranked each club in each of the four categories, added them up, and came up with the following list. Let’s get to the Premier League Future Power Rankings!

Overall score: 14

• Squad age: 5
• Young talent: 4
• Managerial stability: 3
• Club health: 2

Reason for hope: It doesn’t feel like any of their recent moves have been major successes. There’s no clear young star on the roster like Moisés Caicedo or Alexis Mac Allister. And teams aren’t knocking Brighton’s doors down to hire Fabian Hurzeler, either.

But despite all of that, the club is currently in 10th, and they have the seventh-best expected-goal differential in the league. Midtable might be the floor for a team that, according to FBref, has the fourth-lowest wage bill in the Premier League. Still, they still have a ton of young potential on the roster. If two of them become stars at the same time, this could be a Champions League club.

Reason for concern: Take all of that and spin it around. They haven’t whiffed on any signings, but the club has some more money now, thanks to its continued presence in the league and the growing financial gap between the Premier League and everyone else. And as Brighton have started to spend more on transfers for individual players, there haven’t been any real hits.

There’s a chance — a small one — that their player-identification model doesn’t work higher up the market.

Overall score: 19

• Squad age: 2
• Young talent: 11
• Managerial stability: 5
• Club health: 1

Reason for hope: Last season, Brentford’s per-game expected goal differential was plus-0.09. This season, Brentford’s per-game expected goal differential is plus-0.09. Did I mention that they lost their manager to Tottenham and their best player to Manchester United over the summer?

Reason for concern: They’ve outscored their opponents by one goal since they were promoted back in 2021. Given their wage bill — estimated by FBref to be the smallest in the league — that’s an incredible level of relative performance. But Brentford still haven’t shown the upside that we’ve seen from Brighton. One season of bad luck could still plunge them down into a relegation battle.

Overall score: 20

• Squad age: 9
• Young talent: 7
• Managerial stability: 1
• Club health: 3

Reason for hope: So much has gone wrong this season. Every key player has spent time on the sidelines. It’s increasingly looking like summer signing Viktor Gyökeres just isn’t good enough to play consistent minutes for a team at this level. And Manchester City have already passed them on goal differential.

… But despite all of that, they’ve clearly been the best team in the Premier League so far: a plus-1.09 xG differential, while no one else is even at plus-0.8.

Reason for concern: They’re all-in. After multiple seasons with one of the youngest rosters in England, this team’s average age is just, well, average. Gyokeres has attempted two shots in the Premier League in his last five appearances, and with sizable fees already invested into Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus, they might be stuck with what they currently have at center forward.