Liverpool champion starts from favorite, but City and Arsenal, with the new center forward Gyökeres, promise battle. The Italian patrol is nourished, with Maresca and tonal in the front row
It starts again. The Premier League returns with its collection of champions, iconic teams, of symbol stadiums. And of money that nobody has, given that on the market the English teams were so masters that the first four of last year, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea, broke through the billion euro wall spent already in early August. Until the end of the market, it will still happen a lot, but in the meantime you are seriously serious: you start playing, a 9 and a half months long marathon that a new champion team will crown by May 24. Assuming that Liverpool wants to give up the throne, of course. The Reds will start the dances, tonight at 9 pm against Bournemouth, appetizer of a first weekend that expands until Monday. Here are the 5 reasons not to get lost even a moment of the next few months.
Can Liverpool do an encore?
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The Reds are the favorites. They are the reigning champions, they improved with their most expensive market ever, which went well beyond Florian Wirtz, the German taken by Bayer Leverkusen who became the new most expensive player in the history of the premier, paid for 136 million euros, including bonuses. The coach Arne Slot also has two new exteriors in defense in Frimong and Kerkez and a new center forward in Hugo Ekitike. The tragic disappearance of Diogo Jota, whose shirt number 20 has been withdrawn and which the new season will be dedicated, added extra motivation to a team built to open a new winning cycle, also in the Champions League (the elimination of the eighth with the PSG after dominating the group remains a stain in the past season). Easier to say that to do, of course: the idea of slot is to evolve the team and the market in the last two weeks could bring other surprises, but the first Liverpool mission is to integrate Wirtz, the number 10 is true that the Reds had been missing for a while, and make sure that the team does not depend on Mo Salah to get out of the moments of difficulty as for most of the past season. The ingredients to make an encore and open a cycle are all there, but the competition is if possible increased.
Can Manchester City return racing team?
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The idea is precisely that. The 2024-25 was the worst season of the era Guardiola, but Pep Rinetres us is convinced that “after all it did not go so badly, otherwise we would have arrived twelfth and not third”. The City starts above all from Rodri’s return, which will still need time to return to its levels after a year in the pits for injury, but also from an important restyling around the golden ball in charge, to the technician and Erling Haaland. The first steps have already been seen at the Club World Cup. Last year City had injuries and contentment problems, but the idea is that the talent of his best pieces is enough to return the prime minister’s point of reference and that the energy of the new grafts (starting with the former Milan player Reijnders) can do the rest. So much revolves around Pep anyway: the crisis of the past season has even made him doubt himself, but he remains the true champion of the City and what the technical X-Factor must find to make his unreachable team tone. United and Arsenal opponents after the September stop with the return of the Champions League in the middle will be an important first exam.
Will it be the year of Arsenal and Chelsea?
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Both have what it takes to stop the Duopoly City-Liverpool on the throne of the premier that has lasted for 8 seasons. Arsenal for three years has closed second and hopes with the purchase of Viktor Gyökeres, the center forward with an easy goal taken from Sporting who inherited the iconic number 14 of Thierry Henry, is really the missing ingredient to return to win, the only thing that has not yet managed in the Mikel Arte cycle. The technician compared to the past season has a deeper team with more alternatives in the key roles, a consequence of another important market which in addition to the Swedish has Martin Zubimeni as a flagship. Arsenal this season must win: second place is no longer enough, as a Champions League race would not be enough to the semifinal as in the past season. Winning is precisely what he succeeded in Enzo Maresca in a first season at Chelsea in which he burned the stages. The club world championship won by dominating the final against what the unbeatable PSG seemed, with the talent of the star Cole Palmer on display, is the latest confirmation that the work of the only Italian technician of the premier is reporting the blues among the great football, a dimension that had been lost with the end of the Abramovich era. Now the difficult comes: confirm, with the unknown of the “weight” of the Club World Cup, the addition of the Champions League and a preparation started just two weeks before the start of the championship. Difficult, but Maresca managed to convince her young talents that everything is possible.
What are the Italians to keep an eye on?
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Maresca is the only coach, on the pitch there are 10 players, including Federico Chiesa and Emerson Palmieri who should change the air before the end of the market. The spotlights take the national teams: Riccardo Calafiori in Arsenal, Sandro Tonali at Newcastle, Destiny Udogie and Guglielmo Vicario al Tottenham. Everyone will also play in the Champions League, Udogie and Vicar thanks to the ride that led the Spurs to win the Europa League last year. Tonali is the one to expect most, because from last year from December onwards, when he was moved to the center of the middle department of the Magpies, he played at the level of the best midfielders of the Premier and it is from there that starts again. Calafiori will have to try to stay healthy, vicar and Udogie are also Tottenham with Thomas Frank on the bench. The only new arrival is Diego Coppola, a 21 -year -old defensive central who lands at Brighton from Verona. It is an under 21 (although he made his debut in the major national team) such as Michael Kayode, confirmed by Brentford after 6 months of loan in the final of the past season, Willy Gnonto and Luca Koleosho, who return to the premier respectively with Leeds and Burnley after a passage in Championship that helped them grow.
Who will win the battle of the goal?
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The throne is by Mo Salah but the competition is not lacking, also because the most important investments on the market are rotated around the men’s men. It starts from a certainty: to win the scorers’ ranking of this premier it is necessary to do something extraordinary: in 2024-25 Salah won with 29 goals to which he added 18 assists, the best season ever in the English championship; In 2022-23 Erling Haaland reached 36 centers, retouching the record of goals in a single vintage that had resisted for over 30 years. The Norwegian is the first opponent of Salah, and not only because he had been the undisputed king in the previous two seasons. But it is not the only one. Gyökeres, the new Arsenal center forward, has scored over 50 goals in the last season with Sporting and is the novelty from abroad. Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha at Manchester United promise to increase their booty. And then there is Alexander Isak, the discontent of the Newcastle who has scored 44 goals in the last two seasons: wherever he played he promises to make many goals. And to make the season that is about to begin even more exciting.
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