The Premier League gets back underway this weekend and having spent the majority of the last 18 months watching from their homes, supporters will be welcomed back into the stadiums.
Kick-offs will return to more traditional times with the seemingly random 6pm on a Monday evening slot consigned to history and the staggered nature of pandemic football hopefully a thing of the past. Six games at 3pm on Saturday? Yes please.
It's not a bad first weekend of action either with Sunday’s clash between defending champions Manchester City and Tottenham taking top billing, with much of the focus sure to be on Harry Kane, whether he's in the stands or on the pitch.
Tottenham manager Nuno Espirito Santo claims that Kane will be available to face the reigning champions and anyone hoping to see anything other than another City procession to the Premier League title will hope it stays that way for the rest of the season.
Having already secured the services of Jack Grealish for £100m, City manager Pep Guardiola is hoping to bring Kane’s now standard 30 goals a season to the Etihad to replace Sergio Aguero.
Should that happen and the best team, with the strongest squad already, manage to land the top goalscorer in the league, it’s hard to see anything other than City winning a fifth title in six campaigns.
At this stage such is City’s league dominance that it’s a case of looking for any kind of chink in their armour. Aside from lacking a world-class striker, which the arrival of Kane would immediately address, it’s hard to pick holes in their squad.
Those desperately looking for something could perhaps cling to reports of player unrest last season, with Guardiola admitting in the build-up to the Community Shield that he has "two or three players" who wish to leave the club.
Bernardo Silva, Aymeric Laporte and Gabriel Jesus are those reported to want to get away in search of more playing time and Raheem Sterling admitted that he was "not happy" with his lack of playing time last season, but those waiting on squad discontentment to boil over at City will likely be left waiting,
So who can stop them?
Their neighbours Manchester United should, on the face of it, be City’s most obvious challengers.
Finishing 12 points behind them in second place last season, United threatened at times to mount a title challenge, but every time they got to within striking distance of City, their inconsistency let them down.
The additions of Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane for a combined £110m is aimed at putting that right and on paper should offer both more creativity and defensive solidity but under manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, it can be difficult to see just what his tactical philosophy is.
Consistently coming up short in big games he’s led United to four semi-finals and one final, but is yet to win silverware at Old Trafford, without ever really making a league push.
Solskjaer seems to veer between an over-cautious defensive system against bigger clubs and a more free-flowing, ‘just go out and enjoy yourselves lads’ approach at other times, with predictably mixed results.
United have such depth and quality within their playing squad that just getting the best players on the pitch is often enough but it’s hard to shift the feeling that a better, more experienced manager, could get more out of this group of players.
Goals could also be a problem for United if they are to mount a genuine title challenge. None of their frontmen broke 20 goals in the league last campaign and half of top scorer Bruno Fernandes’ 18 goals came from the penalty spot.
United have been tentatively linked with Erling Haaland and Harry Kane but both moves look highly unlikely this season at least, leaving Solskjaer with a problem to solve.
Marcus Rashford (11 goals) Edinson Cavani (10) and Mason Greenwood (7) just didn’t have a big enough return in front of goal in the league last season and with reinforcements up front unlikely, it’s a tricky problem for Solskjaer to solve, if indeed he is equipped to do so.
Goals usually aren’t a problem for their rivals Liverpool.
It might be difficult to remember now, but up until Christmas of last year, Liverpool looked odds on to defend their league title.
On top the league table, seemingly weathering the storm of some major injuries in defence and having just smashed Crystal Palace 7-0, they were eight points clear of Manchester City who had started the season slowly.
The wheels would come off in dramatic style for Liverpool in a three-month post-Christmas spell but the way in which they rallied late in the final third of the season to secure what, at one stage, looked a very unlikely Champions League finish, will give their supporters hope that they can mount a title push.
With a defence that’s no longer decimated by injuries and one has been strengthened by the arrival of Ibrahima Konate, Liverpool look like they could be challengers again.
The fact that they can play midfielders in midfield and defenders in defence again too will help, and gone will be seemingly random selection of centre-back pairings enforced upon them. Liverpool fans will finally hope to see Thiago Alcantara utilised properly in a midfield that’s set up to get the best out of him.
Manager Jurgen Klopp often bemoaned the empty stadiums that teams were forced to play in during Covid restrictions and it’s no coincidence that their 68-match unbeaten streak at Anfield was ended in front of an empty ground.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that out on the pitch they suffered more than most from the lack of supporters.
So, a fit squad, a full house at Anfield and everything is rosy in the garden? Well not quite.
Of all the sides who will hope to challenge for the title, Liverpool have improved their squad the least. Still needing to find homes for the likes of Divock Origi and Xherdan Shaqiri before they can dip back into the transfer market, Liverpool’s owners are clutching the purse-strings tightly.
Gini Wijnaldum has left for PSG without being replaced, Roberto Firmino still looks like a weak link up front and midfield mainstays like James Milner and Jordan Henderson are the wrong side of 30. Klopp’s squad feels like one in need of refreshing but at the moment it looks like he’ll have to make do and mend.
There’s no such corners down in London where the reigning European Champions Chelsea are not just back in the big-time but spending like it too.
The impending arrival of Romelu Lukaku and their pursuit of Sevilla’s Jules Kounde shows just home much faith Roman Abramovich has in manager Thomas Tuchel, and with good reason.
Tuchel took over January with the club struggling to stay in the top half of the table after Frank Lampard’s £200m spending spree left the club looking like one that was less than the sum of its parts.
The German manager had an immediate impact, switching from a rigid 4-3-3 to a more fluid 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 system and managing to merge what had, up until that point, looked like a very expensive collection of individuals into a cohesive unit.
Setting the record for the longest ever unbeaten start by a Chelsea manager, Tuchel secured a top four finish and the Champions League title and now with a full pre-season behind him, for the first time he’ll getting the chance to put his own stamp on the squad.
The signing of Lukaku is almost risk free. He knows the club, knows the Premier League, has succeeded there before and will offer more than the regular 25-a-season goalscoring that Chelsea have been crying out for.
The Blues were chronically short in front of goal last term scoring fewer goals than any other team in the top seven and Lukaku is being bought not just with the intention of scoring himself but in helping to bring out the best from the likes of Timo Werner, Christian Pulisic and Kai Havertz.
Tuchel is a pragmatist above all and with the rest of the team are clicking so well, he’ll be happy to deploy Lukaku as the big target man who can play with his back to goal, hold the ball and create space for others.
Lukaku will score goals and create them and if his addition can help Chelsea add an extra 25 goals over the course of the season, everything else is already in place for the Blues to push Man City all the way.
Outside of the top four there’s plenty of intriguing storylines in store. How will Rafa Benitez get on at Everton and will he be able to get off to the winning start that he’ll need at Goodison to make life at least bearable?
Former Toffees manager David Moyes was able to benefit from empty stadiums when things weren’t going well for him and it helped buy him the time to really turn things around at West Ham, but that’s unlikely to be the case for Benitez.
His appointment as Everton manager is such a loaded one that anything other than a string of early season wins could see the atmosphere turning very nasty.
Brendan Rodgers at Leicester has no such worries, with his side’s FA Cup win and even their Community Shield triumph quickly banishing the bad taste left in the mouth by missing out on Champions League football on the final day of the season for the second year in a row.
Leicester fans will hope that it’s third time lucky for Rodgers and his side but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the top four from last season will beat them to the punch again – especially if Jamie Vardy’s decline continues.
The return of fans to St James’ Park is not likely to be a happy one for manager Steve Bruce who has been able to escape much of the ire of Newcastle supporters by simply not tuning into TalkSport after games.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta could be another one to feel the heat from supporters if early results go against him, while it’s the board and owners at Tottenham who will be the target from fans – especially if Kane goes.
While Benitez and Bruce may suffer from the return of the supporters, there'll be much to enjoy for the rest of us.
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