Here we go again. Just 33 days after Spain ensured that it wasn't coming home again at Euro 2024, the 24/25 Premier League campaign gets underway.
Manchester United, fresh from their Community Shield defeat on penalties to Manchester City, are this season’s curtain raisers as they welcome Fulham to Old Trafford for the first game of the new season.
United, who spent all last season seeming as if they’re just one big defeat away from a crisis, start this campaign in almost the exact same situation.
Erik ten Hag’s FA Cup win and a lack of alternative options or decisive action from United’s self-proclaimed saviours INEOS bought him another season before Jim Ratcliffe decided to extend the manager’s contract out to 2026 for reasons only known to him.
A new sporting director in the shape of Dan Ashworth and a couple of new coaches for Ten Hag to work with - Rene Hake and Ruud van Nistelrooy – appear to be a step in the right direction but United’s summer signings don’t look likely to change things overnight – particularly with Leny Yoro out injured for the first three months.
Yoro’s injury is a case of unfortunate timing but even following arrival of Matthijs de Ligt, United look set to start the season with Jonny Evans and Harry Maguire at centre back and Casemiro in front of them. Not ideal.
United’s ceiling this season looks like being a battle for fourth place again, while at the top, defending champions Manchester City and Arsenal are set to battle it out again.
With speculation continuing to surround Pep Guardiola’s future, and his contract expiring at the end of the season, there’s an uncertainty about City that hasn’t been there before.
Guardiola could very well surprise everyone and sign a new deal but with his long-term rival Jurgen Klopp now sunning himself on beaches across the world, this could be a last dance season for the champions.
Having let Julian Alvarez leave and only signed 20-year-old winger Savinho from Ligue 2 squad Troyes, this has been a quieter than usual summer for City.
City still have the most potent squad in the league but with stalwarts like Kyle Walker and Kevin De Bruyne getting up in years, Guardiola is giving youngster James McAtee, Oscar Bobb, who unfortunately fractured his leg this week, Rico Lewis and Nico O’Reilly the chance to step up this season rather than breaking the bank for new signings.
The champions have a tough opening spell, facing Chelsea, West Ham, Arsenal and Newcastle among others in their first six games, but they’ve made a habit of starting the season slowly before steamrolling everyone in their path.
Arsenal are again the side most likely to challenge City and Mikel Arteta’s team might never be better placed to win the league.
Having been City’s biggest challengers over the last two seasons, the Gunners have adopted a similar transfer approach and have added just Italian centre-back Riccardo Calafiori to their squad.
A settled squad, with an average age of 25, playing under a manager who knows exactly what he wants from them, it really does feel like it’s now or never for Arteta’s title hopes.
The only real question hanging over them is the lack of a reliable goal-scoring centre-forward. Bukayo Saka was their top goal-scorer from out wide last season while the likes of Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice were creating great opportunities that weren’t converted.
Do Gabriel Jesus and Leandro Trossard offer enough up front for a team with title hopes? The jury is very much out.
If Man City and Arsenal’s in-comings have been minimal, Liverpool’s have been non-existent.
Liverpool go into the new season with the exact same squad, albeit having sold Fabio Carvalho and released Joel Matip. Their biggest change comes on the bench with Arne Slot handed the unenviable task of being Jurgen Klopp’s successor.
So what will Slot bring? No-one’s really sure yet. Pre-season games have shown a more possession-based approach and less gung-ho football than Klopp’s Liverpool but with so many players not arriving back from the Euros and Copa America until recently, the manager hasn’t had much time to make his mark.
Midfield is the big concern for Slot if he wants to change the Liverpool style of play and his failed pursuit of Martin Zubimendi leaves a big gap in front of the defence. A lack of a ball-playing defensive midfielder was a problem last season, after the club missed out on Moises Caicedo and like Klopp, Slot will have to get creative with his approach.
He should have time at least and a fan base that will understand the magnitude of the task he faces, without having brought in any reinforcements, although the fact that Virgil Van Dijk, Mo Salah and Trent Alexander Arnold are all entering the last year of their contracts will be of concern.
Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has no such concerns about squad depth, his problem will be making sense of an increasingly bloated squad, which continues to grow by the week.
The Blues have been as busy as ever in the transfer market and their scattershot approach to signing players continues to baffle everyone outside of the club.
They signed goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen from Villarreal on a seven-year deal and then days later, made a £17m agreement with Genk for another goalkeeper in Mike Penders. They became the seventh and then eighth senior goalkeepers at the club.
Unless they’re looking to revive the Samba Soccer summer camps, I’d suggest that’s too many goalkeepers.
Penders at least will be loaned back to Genk but their hoarding of players continues to make little sense, particularly when they’re trying to hawk off academy products and fan favourites like Conor Gallagher to fund these signings.
Mauricio Pochetino - set to become the new USA boss - wasn’t able to make sense of the Chelsea project and paid with his job. After a summer in which the Blues have a spent £185m on 10 signings and now have 43 players in their squad Maresca will likely struggle too.
Unlike Chelsea, Champions League bound Aston Villa appear to have completed some smart business, although with Unai Emery’s side playing Europe’s top tier competition for the first time since 1983, additional squad depth was needed.
Amadou Onana, at just 22, already looks like an assured presence in midfield and Villa will see his £50m transfer as something of a coup, with they’ve beefed up their strength in the middle of the park by signing Ross Barkley and Enzo Barrenechea for a combined fee of less that £13m.
Lewis Dobbin and former Juventus winger Samuel Iling-Junior will give them extra options out wide, while the arrival of Cameron Archer should help ease the work load of Ollie Watkins up front.
Emery has spent well on paper and if he can quickly get the mix between his new signings and the team that took them to fourth place last season, they will be pushing for Champions League football again.
West Ham have also been busy in the transfer market, heavily backing former Spain and Real Madrid manager Julen Lopetegui financially this summer.
The signing of Aaron Wan-Bissaka from Manchester United is the eighth of the summer for the Irons with German striker Niclas Fullkrug and World Cup-winning Argentina midfielder Guido Rodriguez the two most notable arrivals.
Those expected a radical departure from David Moyes’ brand of football might be disappointed however as Lopetegui is very much in the Moyes mould, setting up his teams to be solid and difficult to break down while conservative in attack.
Another season of midtable security is most likely when West Ham will end up but if results don’t go come early in the season and Lopetegui brand of football is as negative as it has been in the past, pressure could grow very quickly on the manager.
Eddie Howe at Newcastle could also be under the cosh if things don't go his way early on.
While they club has moved on from the Mikey Ashley era, the Saudi Public Investment Fund has yet to turn them into the free-spending megaclub that fans would have hoped for.
Qualifying for the Champions League in his first full season was ahead of schedule for Howe but a disappointing campaign last time out saw them finish outside the European places and he could be under threat if there's not a marked improvement to start the new campaign.
The Premier League’s financial fair play model has stopped the club from accessing their owner’s deep pockets and they’ve even been forced to sell with Elliott Anderson and Yankuba Minteh leaving for a combined fee of £75m and Anthony Gordon also a potential source of funds to help balance the accounts.
Their signings of Lewis Hall, Odysseas Vlachodimos and William Osula look unlikely to move the needle and pressure is on both the manager and the players before a ball has been kicked.
Off-field uncertainty means that there’s a different kind of pressure at Everton after they survived multiple points deductions to avoid relegation last season.
Sean Dyche might not be the manager that fans dream of taking charge of their club, but he’s probably the best man for the role of Everton boss at the moment with the threat of further potential points deductions hanging over them as the prepare for the new campaign.
With an unfinished stadium, as Bramley-Moore Dock swallow up their finances, and uncertainty surrounding their ownership continue after several failed takeover bids, survival is the main goal for Dyche and he’s building a side to scrap and fight to stay in the league.
The signing of Ireland international Jake O’Brien from Lyon at £19.5m has been their biggest outlay while Marseille striker Iliman Ndiaye and Napoli attacker Jesper Lindstrom look set to give them some extra firepower.
The Toffees should have enough to stay up and rebuild for the future, but don’t be surprised to see them dragged into the relegation scrap.
Newly promoted Leicester are the current favourites to go back down. Like Everton they have the prospect of a points deduction hanging over them over alleged breaches of the profit and sustainability rules and they go into the season with a new manager.
Those PSR charges mean the new boss Steve Copper hasn’t had the funds to add to his squad and their pre-season form has been awful, all of which means that expectations are low going into the new campaign.
Ipswich Town, who are close to signing Republic of Ireland striker Sammie Szmodics, and Southampton are the other newcomers to the league this season and both of them would snap your hand off now for a 16th place finish.
Kieran McKenna’s Ipswich were the surprise package of last season. Pipped to the title by Leicester in the Championship, Ipswich were the league’s entertainers and had the most possession, most passes and were the highest goal-scorers in the league under the Fermanagh man.
How quickly they can adapt to the topflight, where they’ll no longer be able to dominate possession will most likely decide their season, but McKenna has invested cleverly in youth, bringing in the likes of Omari Hutchinson, Jacob Greaves and Liam Delap.
Southampton have employed a similar transfer policy with Ben Brereton Díaz being their oldest new signing at 25, outside of the arrival on a free transfer of veteran Adam Lallana.
Manager Russell Martin is embarking on his debut season in the Premier League and he'll be without Irish international goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu until at least the New Year. With second-choice Alex McCarthy looking very shaky in pre-season, a dependable goalkeeper is a must and while they've been linked to Arsenal's Aaron Ramsdale on loan, they would appear to be at the back of the queue.
A tight defence and the ability to play out of possession appears to be Southampton's best hope of survival and given that they conceded more than any other side in the Championship top five last season, that looks unlikely.
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