New season with little respite for players

It’s time for the new season in the English Premier League but, for some clubs, it’ll be hard to feel too fresh heading into the new campaign.

The introduction of the FIFA’s much vaunted Club World Cup this summer means that Chelsea - winners of that tournament in the United States - have had little more than a month’s break since their last competitive match.

Players will also travel through this season with one eye on their international commitments next summer when the World Cup rolls around. International windows will also take on a much greater significance for those involved with countries battling hard to qualify for the tournament itself, with the Republic of Ireland falling into this category.

The congested nature of the calendar is a matter for another day - surely it has to come to a head eventually - but now all eyes will be firmly fixed on the new season.

It’s always difficult to predict how things will go, but there are a couple of things you’d expect.

Manchester United, surely, cannot be as bad again.

Their dismal run of form last season, which culminated in their worst ever Premier League finish in 15th place, simply can’t be replicated. Ruben Amorim has been afforded time and space to get things moving in the right direction, as well as plenty of spending power this summer.

Benjamin Sesko, Bryan Mbuemo and Metheus Cunha will add a huge amount of attacking ability to Amorim’s side, but the fact that those players cost over 200 million combined means there are few excuses for the Portuguese as he looks to arrest United’s slide.

The other side with ample room for improvement is Tottenham. Their summer has been less impressive on the transfer front but, again, they can’t be as bad again, can they?

17th last year was a dire finish but winning the Europa League has given them a Champions League berth. Their squad looks a little thin to deal with a proper Premier League run and a decent European campaign, so it’ll be interesting to track the progress of their new manager, Thomas Frank. He excelled at Brentford, but he’ll need to be a bit more pragmatic than his predecessor at Spurs, Ange Postecoglou, to ensure they have at least a top-ten finish.

Speaking of Brentford, there’s a real Irish flavour to their season as Keith Andrews takes up the reigns as a top-tier manager, with Nathan Collins and Caoimhin Kelleher set to be key cogs on the field for the west London club this season.

The loss of the aforementioned Bryan Mbuemo to United - he scored 20 league goals last season - is a hammer blow. They’ll speak about chasing European football, but Brentford should target retention of their league status this term as a more realistic objective. They also have to contend with a difficult run of home fixtures at the start of the campaign. These are the teams they’ll host in their first five home games: Aston Villa, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Liverpool. Welcome to the big time, Keith.

Up at Anfield, they’ve opened the coffers this summer. While Arne Slot arrived last summer to take over a squad moulded together by Jurgen Klopp, this time around it’s very much a case of Liverpool rebranding.

Their spending spree in bringing in the likes of Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong indicates a changing of the guard in certain positions, particularly at the back where Andy Robertson is likely to come under pressure. However, they may also need to draft in a centre half to support Virgil van Dijk.

The transfer saga of the summer has been that of Alexander Isak, with Liverpool yet to get their man at the time of writing. All the indications are, though, that the Newcastle forward will be playing in red this season.

Their willingness to fork out over 120-million for his services will bring its own pressure on the Swedish international. He’ll also have to fit into a forward unit in which Mo Salah remains the key man.

The summer spending of Liverpool marks a change in approach from the Premier league champions, who have been notoriously reluctant to splash too much cash in previous transfer windows. Not since the arrival of van Dijk and Alisson in 2018 has there been as much of an outlay on key positions. How Slot manages this new incarnation of Liverpool will be a real test of his managerial capabilities - and don’t forget he has a new assistant this season too in Giovanni van Bronkhorst, the former Arsenal defender who previously managed Rangers.

And what of Manchester City? They looked a tad lethargic last year, as if Pep Guardiola’s management had reached the end of the road. However, he isn’t one of the best coaches in the modern game for nothing and there’s bound to be something up his sleeve for this season’s campaign, though they too had to contend with participation in the Club World Cup in the summer.

If they can bring a bit more freshness and a new idea or two, City will be there or thereabouts again as they always tend to be.

On a wider point, this season will see nine teams from the Premier League will be competing in European competition with six of them in the Champions League.

Given the demanding nature of the European schedule now, with an expanded group phase, one wonders how these commitments will impact on the ability of players to continually play to the level they are expected to every four or five days. Europe is worth a lot of money and brings plenty of prestige, but the calendar now is becoming so congested there’s virtually no downtime for players.

For a fan, though, you can never have too much football.

Enjoy the new season!