Soccer truly never stops. As preposterous as it might sound, considering the Women's Euros ended less than a week ago and the Club World Cup ended less than three weeks ago, the offseason is just about over. Champions League qualification is already underway, the Premier League's 2025-26 campaign begins in two weeks, and all of Europe's big leagues will get rolling soon after.
Thanks to the awkwardness of Europe's transfer window closing a couple of weeks after the season begins, it's never easy to enter a new season knowing what rosters will look like when they're locked into place. Like everything else in this sport, it's a moving target. Still, a healthy percentage of this summer's business is done, and we know who has taken big swings at addressing last year's deficiencies.
- Ogden: PL stars who need a summer transfer
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- Tighe: How players use data to help in contract negotiations
Below are 10 teams from Europe's Big Five leagues that achieved solid heights in 2023-24 before falling off course a bit in 2024-25. "Off course" is relative -- Real Madrid, for instance, finished second in LaLiga and reached the Champions League quarterfinals but failed to meet the standard they set the year before. Still, these 10 regressed, and it's worthwhile to check on what hampered them last season and how they've addressed their needs.
Manchester City
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: Transition defense. And build-up defense. All defense, really. Nothing worked quite as well for City last season. Their finishing fell off after overachieving against their xG totals by 14.1 goals in 2023-24; they were a more mortal +2.8 in 2024-25, and their set-piece goals (including penalties) fell from 17 to seven. That will make things a struggle, but when you combine that with a defensive collapse, every miss becomes more costly.
A good amount of team defensive work can be separated into two categories: How many shots allowed, and how good are those shots? A team like Manchester City will struggle a bit with the latter -- when you control possession and tilt the pitch like they do, you will give up a higher-than-normal portion of decent breakaway chances -- but they survive that by allowing almost no shots (because of the aforementioned pitch dominance).
Last season, however, City went from allowing nearly the lowest shot quantity and above-average shot quality to allowing more shots than Manchester United with disastrous shot quality.
Losing defensive midfield (and Ballon d'Or winner) Rodri for almost the entire season was a major issue, and City loaded up on transfers in January in response to his absence and the quickly aging squad. Those moves better pay off because they haven't significantly addressed defense this summer.
Key outgoing: attacking midfielder Kevin De Bruyne (Napoli), right back Kyle Walker (Burnley)
Key incoming: midfielder Tijjani Reijnders (AC Milan), left back Rayan Aït-Nouri (Wolves), attacking midfielder Rayan Cherki (Lyon), goalkeeper James Trafford (Burnley), midfielder Sverre Nypan (Rosenborg)
Reijnders and Cherki could form an incredibly creative midfield tandem, and Ait-Nouri is one of the Premier League's better attacking fullbacks. But City are pinning their hopes for defensive improvement on having Rodri back and finding more ways to dominate the ball. That feels risky, and considering how their stay at the FIFA Club World Cup ended -- with Al Hilal torching them in transition and generating loads of high-quality opportunities (0.19 xG per shot, 3.2 total xG) in a 4-3 loss -- I'm not sure it was the right approach. This attack should be a delight again, though.
Real Madrid
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: Also defense. Winning the Champions League, then adding Kylian Mbappé to an attacking arsenal that already included Vinícius Júnior, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo didn't seem fair to the rest of Europe. But it didn't make Real Madrid's attack any better -- they scored nine fewer goals in league play, though their xG totals rose a bit -- and it didn't do their defense any favors. Neither did age nor injuries.
Full back Dani Carvajal tore his right ACL in October, then Éder Militão tore an ACL for the second straight year. David Alaba (33) played just 316 league minutes, Ferland Mendy (30) played just 1,006, Antonio Rüdiger (32) missed nine matches, and Lucas Vázquez (34) had to play more than 2,100 minutes. With the attacking line providing next to no cover from a pressing perspective, the defense didn't live up to the club's standards. Real Madrid allowed 12 more goals in league play and bowed out of the Champions League quarterfinals after losses of 3-0 and 2-1 to Arsenal. To add insult to injury, they were pounded 4-0 by PSG in the Club World Cup semifinals as well.
Key outgoing: midfielder Luka Modric (AC Milan), right back Lucas Vazquez
Key incoming: right back Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), center-back Dean Huijsen (Bournemouth), left back Álvaro Carreras (Benfica), right winger Franco Mastantuono (River Plate)
New manager Xabi Alonso and two of three new signings (Trent and Huijsen) were in place with little prep time in the Club World Cup, and young forward Gonzalo García became a star in the U.S. as well. But with Alonso doing little to tinker with the approach, we don't know what the new Real Madrid will look like.
At least the club seemed to acknowledge the need for upgrades in the back. Huijsen is 20, and Carreras is 22, and both will be facing epic pressure in the coming months. But the signings made sense.
Leverkusen
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: The inevitable hangover. There was nowhere to go but down after their perfect run in 2023-24. Despite an extremely similar cast, Leverkusen scored fewer goals (from 2.6 per match to 2.1) and allowed more (from 0.7 to 1.3), their goal and xG differentials were cut in half, and as is typical, their close-game magic faded, from 2.33 points per game in matches decided by no more than one goal to 1.77. Close-game magic always fades.
Maybe the most noticeable shift: In open play, Leverkusen went from generating 1.49 xG per match (third in the Bundesliga) to just 0.87 (seventh). Opponents improved at disrupting their build-up play and clogging the defensive box, and everything got more difficult. It was probably time for a talent transfusion, and they got one, for better or worse.
Key outgoing: attacking midfielder Florian Wirtz (Liverpool), right back Jeremie Frimpong (Liverpool), center-back Jonathan Tah (Bayern Munich), midfielder Granit Xhaka
Key incoming: attacking midfielder Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven), goalkeeper Mark Flekken (Brentford), center-back Jarell Quansah (Liverpool), attacking midfielder Ibrahim Maza (Hertha Berlin), right winger Farid Alfa-Ruprecht (Manchester City)
It's probably not good to compare the players who left with the ones who arrived. Wirtz and Frimpong combined for 35 goals and 35 assists in league play over the past two seasons, Tah is a national-team starter at the back, and Xhaka provided epic leadership and grunt work during the amazing 2023-24 season. There's no measuring up to that, but in a vacuum, Tillman is an exciting attacker, Quansah is a compelling young defender and Flekken is a sturdy goalkeeper, albeit not much younger than incumbent Lukas Hradecky. (At 19, Maza and Alfa-Ruprecht are more long-term projects.)
This remains a talented squad, but it's most certainly a new era in Leverkusen.
Tottenham Hotspur
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: Surprise, it's defense again. Thomas Frank is walking into an almost perfect situation.
There's a pretty solid correlation between how a team performs in close games and not-so-close games. If a team wins more than average in one, it probably does in the other, too. Tottenham Hotspur were above average in the not-so-close games last season, averaging 1.76 points per game; that was about the same as Chelsea (1.85). But in games decided by no more than one goal, Spurs had the worst record in the Big Five leagues. They played 21 such games and won one. One!
That's as much of an outlier as you'll see on a chart like that. Performing at an average level in those games, Spurs would have had about 20 more points. They're almost guaranteed to improve in this regard, and Frank will get a lot of credit for it.
He'll get even more credit if he can make Spurs' defense progress, too. They were dismal in that regard during both of Ange Postecoglou's seasons -- even worse than Frank's lower-budget Brentford. It was especially poor last year: Spurs were 16th in the Premier League in goals allowed and 17th in xG allowed. That wasn't bad luck.
Key outgoing: winger Son Heung-min
Key incoming: right winger Mohammed Kudus (West Ham), forward Mathys Tel (Bayern Munich), center-back Kevin Danso (Lens), center-back Luka Vuskovic (Hajduk Split), center-back Kota Takai (Kawasaki Frontale)
I don't love the fees associated with the acquisitions of Kudus (€63.8 million) or Tel (€35 million) -- especially the rather one-dimensional Kudus -- and Spurs probably aren't done thanks to their failed pursuit of Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-Whitecombined with Son's recent departure and a potentially serious knee injury for James Maddison. But signing three center-backs tells you they understood the main assignment.
Manchester United
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: Finishing (and an almost total lack of strengths). On paper, Manchester United got a little better last season. Their xG differential improved from minus-0.35 to minus-0.04, meaning they created the same quality of opportunities as their opponents. But they were poor in close games -- not Spurs poor, but poor -- and their finishing was dismal, scoring 44 goals from shots worth 53.6 xG. Bright young star Amad Diallo scored eight goals from shots worth 4.7; almost everyone else underachieved.
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Players like Bruno Fernandes (eight goals from shots worth 10.0 xG) will likely progress toward the mean this season, but this was just a mediocre-at-best team, with no strengths. United could use one to two more attackers, at least one midfielder and at least one central defender. Maybe even more than that.
Key outgoing: left winger Marcus Rashford (Barcelona, on loan)
Key incoming: right winger Bryan Mbeumo (Brentford), forward Matheus Cunha (Wolves)
In theory, adding the Nos. 4 and 8 scorers in the Premier League is a direct way of addressing scoring issues, right? Mbeumo and Cunha combined for 35 goals and 13 assists last season, but both overachieved their xG totals by unsustainable amounts -- Mbeumo's 20 goals came from shots worth 12.3 xG, Cunha's 15 from shots worth 8.7. Laying down a combined €149.2 million for these two was a significant overpay, and the expenses could prevent them from addressing their other obvious issues.
United almost certainly aren't done, but they had a lot to address and, at most, they've checked only half the boxes on the list.
AC Milan
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: Finishing as well. As with Manchester United, AC Milan's underlying stats told a different story than their place in the Serie A table. Their xG differential improved in 2024-25 -- from +0.54 per match to +0.60 -- but their finishing was horrendous. Christian Pulisic, Yunus Musah and loanee Tammy Abraham combined for 14 goals from shots worth 21.1 xG; Abraham was responsible for more than half of that disparity in his loan season at the San Siro.
There were other issues: Milan didn't get nearly as much out of its press, and fewer high turnovers meant more shot attempts against packed-in defenses (and more blocked shots). All Milan needed was some better finishing.
Key outgoing: midfielder Tijjani Reijnders (Manchester City), left back Theo Hernández (Al Hilal), center-back Pierre Kalulu (Juventus), right back Emerson Royal (Flamengo), forward Tammy Abraham (end of loan)
Key incoming: midfielder Luka Modric (Real Madrid), defensive midfielder Samuele Ricci (Torino), left back Pervis Estupinian (Brighton)
In a vacuum, adding Modric, Ricci and Estupinian are all solid moves. Modric, 39, can settle into a table-setting role in a reasonably low-paced league -- with a reasonably low-paced manager in Max Allegri -- and in theory, Ricci, 23, and incumbents such as Youssouf Fofana and Musah, if he remains with the team, can do a lot of the running.
Estupinian is industrious, too. But the departure of Abraham and the lack of additions up front means Pulisic, star winger Rafael Leão and winter addition Santiago Gimenez will face added pressure to not only produce but also log huge minutes.
RB Leipzig
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: A vanishing attack. RBL just suffered its worst Bundesliga campaign, and it could have been even worse: They finished seventh but ranked 10th in xG differential. Regardless, for the first time since 2016-17, they won't play in a UEFA competition.
RB Leipzig haven't lost a key player yet, but with rumors circling regarding forwards Benjamin Sesko and Loïs Openda and attacking midfielder Xavi Simons, a big change is likely. That could be awkward, considering the attack vanished last season with those three. RBL scored 24 fewer goals in Bundesliga play and finished 10th in goals and 15th in shots per possession. They still ran hard and created chances from pressing, but they lacked in the creativity department, and were almost unable to create decent chances that weren't in transition.
Key outgoing: midfielder Ilaix Moriba (Celta de Vigo), forward Yussuf Poulsen (Hamburg)
Key incoming: defensive midfielder Arthur Vermeeren (Atletico Madrid), right winger Johan Bakayoko (PSV Eindhoven), left winger Yan Diomande (Leganes), midfielder Ezechiel Banzuzi (OH Leuven), attacking midfielder Andrija Maksimovic (Red Star Belgrade)
New manager Ole Werner wasn't an inspiring hire, considering how old his Werder Bremen squad was last season and how young RBL will be this year. But he created more offense with fewer raw players, at least. And though we don't know which of RBL's attackers will be departing, building something new around the 22-year-old Bakayoko (21 goals and 10 assists in the past two league seasons at PSV) and ultra-aggressive teenagers in Diomande and Maksimovic could be fun.
Stuttgart
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: Everything got worse. What happens when you lose three of your best veteran players a year after a major breakthrough? You probably get worse. Stuttgart commemorated their first Champions League trip since 2009-10 by losing forward Serhou Guirassy and center-back Waldemar Anton to Borussia Dortmund and center-back Hiroki Ito to Bayern. As a result, they were worse at finishing and much worse at defending.
They dropped to ninth in the league and couldn't advance to the Champions League knockout rounds. But they won the DFB-Pokal, securing a Europa League berth.
Key outgoing: left winger Jacob Bruun Larsen (Burnley)
Key incoming: right back Lorenz Assignon (Rennes), right winger Lazar Jovanovic (Red Star Belgrade)
Thus far, Stuttgart have held on to emerging forward Nick Woltemade despite heavy interest from Bayern Munich, and he and Jamie Leweling could further improve this season -- especially if last year's big permanent signing, Deniz Undav, rediscovers his finishing form. Combine that with more development from younger defenders such as Ramon Hendriks and teenager Finn Jeltsch -- and solid early play from Assignon -- and it's easy to see last year's relative pain becoming this season's gain.
Jumping back into Champions League contention might be a tall ask, but after last year's natural regression could come a natural rebound.
Real Sociedad
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: Offense. La Real's worst season in seven years was prompted by a familiar obstacle: putting the ball in the net. They were 17th in LaLiga in goals (35), thanks to a lack of shot attempts (16th in shots per possession) and horrid finishing. Mikel Oyarzabal and Takefusa Kubo combined for 14 goals from shots worth 13.5 xG, but everyone else on the team combined for a dismal 20 goals from shots worth 29.4.
Their playing style under longtime manager Imanol Alguacil was always a bit on the languid side, but 2024-25 was a step too far. Alguacil is out, and former Real Sociedad B manager Sergio Francisco is in. So far, any potential needs have gone unaddressed.
Key outgoing: defensive midfielder Martín Zubimendi (Arsenal)
Key incoming: none
For better or worse, it's pretty clear that Real Sociedad are sticking to their plans and their longtime identity. They promoted from within, and they've added no one thus far: their only move was completing the long-rumored transfer of Zubimendi to the Premier League.
On net, that makes them less talented this season, but finishing at a normal rate would make them borderline Europe contenders, at least.
Girona
Last season's biggest statistical weakness: Everything, obviously (but mostly scoring). Stuttgart's regression was predictable, but Girona's was almost completely foretold. After charging to third in LaLiga in 2023-24, in just their second season after promotion, the Gironistes lost forwards Artem Dovbyk (Roma) and Pau Víctor (Barcelona), winger Savinho (Manchester City) and midfielder Aleix García (Bayer Leverkusen).
They got little from their primary new additions (winger Yáser Asprilla, midfielder Donny van de Beek) and they collapsed, winning just one Champions League match and finishing one point above relegation in league play. After scoring 85 goals in LaLiga play in 2023-24, they scored just 44 in 2024-25.
Key outgoing: none
Key incoming: attacking midfielder Thomas Lemar (Atletico Madrid on loan), right back Hugo Rincón (Athletic Club on loan)