THE MOST INTRIGUING PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON YET!

Story written by Patrick Kamanga

MOST INTRIGUING PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON YET!

Jubilant Arsenal players after their Community Shield triumph over Man City

Arsenal won their second major title in 3 months when they systematically demolished and buried the defending English Premier League Champions Manchester City in the season opening Community Shield game last Sunday. Arsenal’s resounding 3-0 defeat of their more illustrious opponents not only asked many a question of the other title challengers but sent out their strongest statement of intent since their record setting title triumph way back in 2004.

With Manchester City winning the title last season at the wire, after a busy summer transfer period however, Chelsea comes in as many Premier League pundits’ title favourites and the team to beat in the new season. 

Chelsea's summer transfer bounty

Adding five big signings to a squad already bursting at the seams with a host of world class players, the blues have by far been the EPL’s busiest bodies at the transfer market bringing in Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas, Luiz Filipe, with loanee goalkeeper Thibout Courtois and club legend Didier Drogba both making a return to the club, which saw the Blues spend a staggering £80 million.

In the 25 year old Diego Costa, the blues have brought on board one of the top strikers in world football, whom along with Drogba and Fernando Torres complete a formidable trio giving the club plenty of options upfront and expected to curtail their impotence in front of goal last season. So deep was Jose Mourinho’s admiration of the Atletico Madrid squad and the compact nature of their Argentine Coach Diego Simeone’s style that if he could, he would have brought over most of the squad. He raided the Atletico camp and made off with left back Filipe Luiz, who comes in as a replacement for left back Ashley Cole who left for Italy’s Roma after an 8 year stint with Jose’s eyes still trained on Atletico’s central defender Miranda before the transfer market comes to a close. 

Blues in safe hands

 

Chelsea’s squad also boasts of three of the best goalkeepers in the world with the return of young Belgian Thibout Courtois who joins Peter Cech and Aussie Mark Schwazer thus ending his three year loan stint at Atletico, where he broke several records as well as ensured the title returned to the red side of the Spanish capital after an 18 year hiatus at Real and Barcelona. Mourinho’s predatory nature served the club well when he snapped up perhaps their biggest and most important purchase in former Arsenal and Barcelona midfielder Cesc Fabregas. Cesc is one of the best box to box midfielder in Europe, with a keen eye for goals and is one of the best passers of the ball in the modern game. He may well be the missing link, a creative spark that was so sorely missed throughout last season by the Stamford Bridge outfit as the Blues struggled to break down teams that sat deep and defended in numbers.

With the albatross of the “Financial Fair Play rule” hanging over their neck, Chelsea also maneuvered the high wire of the balance sheet by selling off world cup flop David Luiz for a record breaking £50million and ridding themselves of a nagging problem in the unpredictable and blunder prone defender as well as young Belgian Romelo Lukaku. Lukaku who has had run-ins with Jose as well as Belgium’s World cup coach Marc Wilmots was sold off to Everton for £28 million.

With Mourinho giving plenty of excuses last season, his “Little Horse” as he repeatedly referred to his team, is surely now a Championship winning “thoroughbred race horse” in the run up to the new season and he’ll have no-where to hide this time round if he fails to deliver on the ruthlessly demanding club owner, Russian Oligarch, Roman Abramovich’s huge investement!

No room for failure, there will be no-where to hide for the "special one"

Manchester City will be Chelsea’s biggest challengers with a squad oozing class and beaming with world class players. Adding to an already potent squad, the Sky Blue’s Chilean Coach Manuel Pelligrini snapped up the chance to bring former Gunner right back Bacary Sagna on a free, who deferred on a contract extension at Arsenal. 

 

Sagna’s quality will surely improve City’s back line which shipped in a huge amount of goals last season affecting their overall goal difference, partly due to their ultra-offensive style that mostly ensured they outscored most of their opponents. Though missing a few of their star players such as Captain Vincent Kompany and deadly striker Sergio Aguero, the team that paraded out for the Community Shield game was good enough to have given the Gunners a game to think about, many would argue but the manner and ease with which Arsenal carved open City implied something else. 

City's ageing squad in need of revamping

Under the Al Mansour family, the Abu Dhabi oil tycoons’ millions have continuously bankrolled City’s big money signings over the past several seasons, engendering their meteoric rise from also runs to the EPL’s summit in record time ensuring their second title in three years. Their preferred pickings have largely been the experienced, mature and proven players of quality from other teams at a premium. This simple tactic has however come back to bite them with the club incurring continental body U.E.F.A’s wrath, with heavy financial penalties and even transfer restrictions on new signings after defaulting on the Financial Fair Play rule.

This has left them no choice but to bring in Sagna on a free transfer as well as former Chelsea legend Frank Lampard who opted for an interim loan move before he embarks on an M.L.S career in New York next March. The take home message from their Community Shield lose is that City’s squad is ageing and desperately requires some serious infusion of youth, and soon!

Gunners are two players short of a serious title challenge

With their recent treasure trove of trophies, Arsenal comes in as the third best team overall after an impressive pre-season with the long suffering Gunner fans now near bursting with expectation after a long torturous decade that has seen them endure a long trophy drought.

Revenge is a dish best served cold as the saying goes. Arsenal lost out on their coveted signing of controversial Uruguayan striker Louis Suarez from Liverpool at the beginning of last season after Suarez allegedly got talked out of a potential move to the Emirate Stadium by team Captain Steven Gerrard.  Well, Liverpool’s lose in Suarez’s subsequent £70 million sale to Catalan giants Barcelona is Arsenal’s gain because the Uruguayan’s arrival at the Nou Camp meant that there would be no room for talented Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez, who would have fallen further down the pecking order. Sanchez quickly jumped at the opportunity to join Arsenal for £32 million, snubbing a move to Liverpool in the process opting for the glamour of the Capital rather than the Merseyside Port City.

Alexis Sanchez’s signing is a game changer and with Arsenal’s Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis assuring club fans last week that his signing is just but a tip of the ice berg with more movement expected before the close of the transfer market, with cash available after the club paid off the debt owed from the construction of their home ground. 

Alexis Sanchez, Gunner's X factor

Most connoisseurs of the game have assessed that Arsenal are two signings away from a Championship team and I couldn’t agree more! Wenger requires one world class central defender and an anchorman of equal caliber to guarantee a serious title challenge. A tough tackling and robust left back to cover for the feeble Kieran Gibbs would also help matters.

These three signings would ensure that the Gunners match the big boys who took them to the cleaners last season where Arsenal conceded a total of 17 goals against the top 5 teams with the holding midfielder and central defense as their most glaring weakness. Arsenal’s offensive depth will certainly send chills down the spine of most teams with Wenger spoilt for choice. With the likes of Wilshire, Ramsey, Carzola, Ozil, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Giroud, Sanogo, Campbell and Sanchez, Arsenal’s offense will definitely turn most opposing managers red with envy! 

Acquisition of top fitness expert Forsythe, should resolve Arsenal's perennial injury woes

With nagging and niggling injuries the norm and an impediment in the past, Arsenal’s biggest and most important signing however is their summer acquisition of American fitness and conditioning expert, Shad Forsythe from World Champions the Die Manschafft! Forsythe had been one of a four member backroom team contracted by the German DFB from American Fitness experts EXOS for the World cup in Brazil. EXOS’ decade long association with the German national team introduced personalized systems and revolutionized their fitness, training, nutrition, and recovery methods, a major contributing factor in their World cup win in Brazil.

The Red Devils ready to prove the doubters wrong

Manchester United is an unknown quantity after last season’s tribulations and comes fourth alongside Liverpool. After a successful pre-season, where they won all their matches Man U’s biggest and most significant summer signing is their acquisition of Dutch Coach Louis Van Gaal. LVG brings with him a proven coaching acumen and a winning track record equaled by few. He has been triumphant on two stints at Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Ajax, AZ Alkmaar and the Dutch national team. 

Fresh from a World cup assignment where he masterminded one of Holland’s best ever showing guiding the “Oranje” to the World Cup semi-final, a proven motivator and strict disciplinarian, his rigid and no-nonsense style mirrors that of the long serving Coach Sir Alex Ferguson and is guaranteed to produce results.

With a host of experienced ageing players mainly defenders leaving and others coming on board, LVG has down played the Red Devil’s title credentials and instead emphasized patience on the part of their fans as he embarks on a massive reconstruction project. One area that he urgently needs to work on is rebuilding the defense after losing Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra. The trio’s combined experience surpasses 2000 games and has left a huge vacuum.

What will work to Man U’s favour will be their lack of continental commitments which means that they will garner all their energy on ensuring a top four finish at the very least. It will be interesting to see how LVG executes his preferred 3-5-2 system.

LVG's mentorship of Giggs, a big win win for the Red Devils

Another long term win for the Old Trafford outfit will be the positioning of the club’s longest serving player Ryan Giggs as LVG’s assistant. Under Van Gaal’s mentorship, Giggs will be learning from the best as Chelsea’s Mourinho can attest. The Portuguese tactician came out of his mould when he served as LVG’s assistant during his second stint at Barcelona, a transition period that brought on great players such as Xavi and Iniesta ushering in a new era at the Catalan club at the turn of the previous decade.

Liverpool almost brought the house down last season

Liverpool is treading on shaky ground after they sold their best player Louis Suarez to Barcelona. As the EPL’s top scorer and best player, Suarez single handedly carried the team scoring phenomenal goals as well as setting-up numerous assists for Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling. Even though the huge sale facilitated a hefty transfer war chest, replacing a player of Suarez’s quality is impossible!

Suarez impossible to replace

The other challenge for Liverpool will be that the many new players they’ve brought on board will need time to gel into the squad and with the club involved in both domestic and continental duty, the sheer volume of games will be their bane which may see them suffer as the long season takes its toll. Their transfer activities have seen them acquire quality players such as Dejan Lovren, Markovic, Emre Can, Ricky Lambert and most importantly Southampton’s talented England winger Adam Lallana. 

Barkley has thrived under Martinez

Everton and Tottenham will fight it off for the fifth place. Everton had an exceptional season the last time round as they were involved in the dog fight for the top four spots until late in the season. With Spaniard Roberto Martinez revolutionizing their game by building upon predecessor David Moyes’ defensive style and introducing a more care free, expressive and attack laden style that saw players such Belgian pair Lukaku and Kevin Mirallas and England’s best young attacking prospect Ross Barkley thrive and win admirers across the board in the process. 

Chelsea's lose is Everton's gain

Martinez grabbed on a great opportunity during the summer transfer window signing experienced anchorman Gareth Barry and the lethal striker Lukaku after both completed successful loan spells from Manchester City and Chelsea last season. The club’s form will also partly depend on the long term fitness of their ageing core of Gareth Barry, Steven Pienaar, Phil Jagielka and Sylvain Distin where playing on Thursday night in the Europa cup will surely test their mettle.

Much will depend on the fitness of Everton's ageing core

Tottenham went through one of their most turbulent periods finishing sixth last season. The protracted sale of star player Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a record breaking £85 million facilitated the acquisition of a host of players for the then Coach Andres Villas Boaz. AVB’s attempt at introducing a passing, pressing game with a high defensive line akin to Barcelona was an experiment that went horribly wrong!

 

This saw the Portuguese tactician get fired before the Christmas period with his assistant Tim Sherwood shepherding them to safety.

Their acquisition of Argentine Mauricio Pochettino’s as Coach from Southampton is expected to spark the North-Londoners to a much coveted top four finish. Pochettino recently led Spurs to a successful pre-season where they went undefeated. His relative success at Southampton has created plenty of expectation with Spur’s obvious superior squad quality compared to his previous employers the reason for the new found optimism.

Spurs biggest summer signing, Coach Pochettino

At the other end of the spectrum the newly promoted sides Queens Park Rangers, Leicester City and Burnley will make things quite interesting. The second tier Championship league winners Leicester will bring along a squad short on Premier league experience. If they maintain the form that saw them surmount the Championship scoring a blistering 83 goals, winning 31 games in the process, then they will ask many a question of the more established teams. One of their key players to watch will be Kasper Schmeichel, son of Man U legendary goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, who has matured into a fine specimen in his own right.

Burnley will face a baptism of fire when they face the full might of title favourites Chelsea who visit the Turf Moor Stadium on Monday night. Burnley has a strong team mentality and plays a compact pressing game. Considering how Chelsea struggled against teams that sat back and packed numbers, Monday’s game will be quite interesting and will be a strong test and an indicator as to whether the Blues have resolved their striking problems. 

Rednapp and Hoddle two of the best football brains in English football

Of the three promoted teams, Queens Park Rangers have the best prospects with former Manchester United Captain Rio Ferdinand as their big signing reuniting with his former Coach at West Ham Harry Rednapp. Another interesting acquisition is that of former England star and World cup Coach Glenn Hoddle who along with Rednapp completes a formidable bench full of experience that should steward QPR’s return through the turbulent waters of the Premiership.