With the usual flow of millions in transfers, but also amid warnings of investment gigantism and the prospect of unusual Saudi competition, the Premier League returns this Friday with a clash pitting two champions who triumphed last season in the first two categories of English football. Manchester City are moving to Burnley to embark on a path that may lead them to make history. No one has managed to string together four titles since 1888 when twelve teams came together to form the first football league and pitted the best teams in the country against one another.
Huddersfield stayed at three through his twenties when Herbert Chapman began planning a revolution. Joining Arsenal to apply the biggest tactical innovation in decades for the World Cup, Chapman won the first division and died of pneumonia in the middle of the second. The dominance of this team ended in the third round. 24 teams have managed to win at least one league in England, victory was so democratized for years that between 1959 and 1977 there was nobody who could defend the title. This trend was broken by Liverpool, who also dominated in the first eighty years and became the third team to add three consecutive championships. Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United reached that milestone twice, between 1998 and 2001 and between 2006 and 2009. Last spring, Manchester City drew level with Huddersfield, Arsenal, Liverpool and their domestic rivals. With Pep Guardiola at the helm, they have won five of the last six Premier Leagues and are now choosing to be the first club to achieve four straight wins.
The challenge, Guardiola explains, is “enormous” and the manager claims it has to do with hunger, a statement he already accepted at the end of last season to restart his team against Arsenal dominance, which he eventually overcame after topping the chart for 248 days. City are upgrading with a new centre-back, Croatian Josko Gvardiol, and have replaced Ilkay Gündogan with Matteo Kovacic, who is less good at passing but more incisive at breaking lines in play. All in all, in an environment where the 20 teams have invested €1,700m in signings so far, barely €500m less than at the market close last summer, the champion still has the checkbook ready to incorporate new plays.
The city can hardly support itself. His rivals are rebuilding. Arsenal did this for years until it finally got the best team in the league in the eyes of the youngest team in the competition. In fact, he did it again last Sunday when he competed on penalties in the Community Shield. And this summer, more than 260 million euros have already been spent. Last up is Spanish goalkeeper David Raya. Declan Rice, Kai Havertz and Jurrien Timber, who started last weekend’s clash at Wembley Stadium, have done it before. Arteta is adding pieces in every row and has an interesting wardrobe to challenge for the title again as he takes on the Champions League effort. Experience shows that in order to beat City, Arteta must play with the best players at the height of the season. First it begins with the injury of Gabriel Jesus.
The rest of the big six need to reinvent themselves. Manchester United were 14 points adrift of the champions last season, with Liverpool 22, Tottenham 29 and Chelsea 45, one more than overall. Everyone is waiting for movements and already moving between problems. The petrodollars dismantled Klopp’s midfield with the departures of Fabinho and Henderson after letting Keita, Milner and Oxlade-Chamberlain go. “The worst thing is that the transfer window in Arabia closes three weeks after the one in Europe,” laments the coach. Talented and discontinuous Hungarian Szobolszlai and Argentinian MacAllister arrive and Klopp rehearses with Alexander-Arnold in midfield.
“Everyone but City has to start first to finish in the top four; Then try to be in the top two and then maybe see how you can fight them for first place,” warns Manchester United manager Erik Ten Hag. They’ve just spent 75m on Denmark’s Rasmus Hojlund, 20, a risky bet for a striker who has just scored nine Serie A goals with Atalanta and whose debut has already been announced due to a back injury not before September at the earliest. Chelsea have it even rougher with Christopher Nkunku, a more contrasting footballer he paid €60m for after Leipzig and who has undergone surgery on his left knee. You count on him at Christmas.
The ball starts rolling in the Premier, but three weeks after the transfer of the most popular footballer in the championship after Erling Haaland, everything can change. Bayern take Harry Kane and with that pass, Tottenham can turn their squad and the market upside down. “I have to build a team,” says their new coach Ange Postecoglou.
The big six, despite being almost all located far from Manchester City, still want to remain in command. But ambitious projects are thriving like Newcastle, set to play in the Champions League on the economic strength of their Arab holdings, or Aston Villa led by Unai Emery and Monchi. Despite the hasty departure of Julen Lopetegui, who fell victim to the Wolverhampton air bubble, and the arrival of Andoni Iraola at Bournemouth, 20% of the Prime Minister’s coaches are Spanish. And two of them start as protagonists to resound the pulse that decides the winner.
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