The Premier League is back with a bang on Friday as Arsenal host newly-promoted Coventry, with Mikel Arteta’s side looking to make an early statement in their bid to retain the title.

The champions enter the new campaign as favourites again, but there has been significant change among the chasing pack. Manchester City are entering a new era under Enzo Maresca, Aston Villa are looking to build on another superb season under Unai Emery, while the battle at both ends of the table looks wide open.

PricedUp have marked the start of the 2026/27 season with a sizeable selection of boosted outright markets, and some of the enhanced prices are difficult to ignore.

We have picked out five that caught our eye and dug into the form, numbers and wider context to see whether the boosts are as good as they first appear.

David Raya to win the Golden Glove – 5/4

David Raya has almost turned the Premier League Golden Glove into personal property since arriving at Arsenal.

The Spaniard claimed the award for a third consecutive season last term after keeping 19 clean sheets, helping the Gunners concede just 27 goals on their way to the title. He is now just one Golden Glove short of the all-time record of four, jointly held by Petr Cech and Joe Hart.

Those numbers were no fluke. Arsenal allowed just 28.3 expected goals across the entire campaign, the best defensive record by that measure across Europe’s top five leagues, while their average of 0.74 xG conceded per game ranks among the best recorded in the Premier League era.

There is a catch heading into the new season. William Saliba is set for an extended spell on the sidelines following the back injury he suffered at the World Cup, while Jurrien Timber will also miss the start of the campaign. Arsenal will need to shuffle a defence that rarely gave Raya much to do last season.

Even then, Raya has shown he can bail Arsenal out when that defensive wall is breached, and three straight Golden Gloves are difficult to argue with.

PricedUp have boosted Raya to 5/4 to make it four in a row, compared with a best price of around 11/10 elsewhere at the time of writing.

With Arsenal expected to challenge at the top again, that extra bit of value makes the defending champion an obvious place to start.

Aston Villa to finish in the top six – 2/1

Writing off an Unai Emery side has become a dangerous habit.

Villa started last season without a win in their opening five league games and still recovered to finish fourth before adding the Europa League trophy for good measure. Only Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City have collected more Premier League points since Emery arrived at Villa Park.

There has been significant upheaval since then. Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans and Lucas Digne have all left, while Ezri Konsa is now on his way to Arsenal. Losing that much quality would hurt any club, although Villa have responded by spending heavily themselves and Emery remains the most important constant.

That is what makes PricedUp’s 2/1 for another top-six finish so interesting.

Villa have finished inside the top six in each of the last three seasons and prices elsewhere have been considerably shorter, with 5/4 available at the time of writing.

There are enough departures to stop this being a straightforward selection, particularly with Champions League football adding another strain on the squad. But Emery has repeatedly found answers when Villa appear to have reached their ceiling.

At 2/1, we are happy to back him to find another one.

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Sunderland to be relegated – 9/2

Going from seventh place to relegation in the space of 12 months would represent quite a collapse.

Dig a little deeper into Sunderland’s first season back in the Premier League, though, and the prospect does not look quite as outrageous as the table suggests.

The Black Cats collected an excellent 54 points, but some of the underlying numbers were far less convincing. Only Burnley and Wolves produced less open-play xG, while Sunderland faced the third-most shots and fourth-most shots on target in the division.

They now have another problem to contend with.

Seventh place brought Europa League football to the Stadium of Light, potentially turning a 38-game league campaign into a season approaching 50 matches. Recruitment has been relatively quiet so far, despite the obvious need for greater depth.

None of that takes away from what Régis Le Bris achieved last season, but it does raise the question of how repeatable it really was.

PricedUp have Sunderland at 9/2 to be relegated, compared with around 7/2 in the wider market at the time of writing.

Second-season syndrome is an overused phrase, but Sunderland have enough warning signs to make that enhanced price difficult to dismiss.

Erling Haaland to finish as top scorer – 4/5

Manchester City are entering unfamiliar territory this season, but Erling Haaland is still Erling Haaland.

Pep Guardiola has gone, Enzo Maresca has taken charge and the squad around City’s number nine continues to change. Predicting exactly how the new-look City will settle is difficult. Predicting Haaland to score a ridiculous number of goals is considerably easier.

The Norwegian finished last season with 27 Premier League goals, collecting his third Golden Boot in four campaigns. He now has 112 goals from 132 Premier League appearances and has never scored fewer than 22 in a season since arriving in England.

Even City’s transition should not necessarily work against him. Haaland remains the obvious focal point of the attack, while Maresca inherits one of the most devastating penalty-box finishers the league has ever seen.

There are challengers, of course. Alexander Isak has already shown he can score at an elite level when fit, while Arsenal will hope Viktor Gyökeres takes another step forward after 14 league goals during their title-winning campaign.

PricedUp have boosted Haaland to 4/5 to win another Golden Boot with the wider market sitting closer to 4/6 or 7/10.

It is hardly the adventurous selection of the five, but sometimes the obvious answer is obvious for a reason.

Rayan Cherki to record the most assists – 9/2

Rayan Cherki might be the most interesting player bet on the board.

The Manchester City playmaker finished second in last season’s assist standings with 12, which looks impressive enough until you realise he started just 19 Premier League games.

Cherki played 1,785 league minutes and averaged around **0.60 assists per 90**. Bruno Fernandes, who broke the Premier League record with 21 assists, averaged approximately 0.62.

That is an exceptionally small gap considering Fernandes started 35 matches.

The obvious question is minutes. Cherki made 33 league appearances but spent plenty of the season moving in and out of the starting XI. If Maresca gives him a settled role in City’s attack, there is obvious scope for those raw numbers to climb sharply.

Having Haaland waiting at the end of chances does not exactly hurt the argument either.

Fernandes deserves to start as favourite after an extraordinary campaign, but asking him to reproduce a Premier League-record 21 assists is a sizeable demand in itself.

PricedUp’s 9/2 on Cherki to finish with the most assists is therefore one of the boosts that really stands out, with prices elsewhere generally shorter at around 7/2.

If the minutes arrive, the numbers suggest Cherki has every chance of making this considerably closer than the market currently expects.

READ NEXT: Premier League 2026/27 predictions: Who will win the title this season?

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