The Premier League is back after a busy summer following the World Cup and excitement is building with a sense of great opportunity at both ends of the table.
Arsenal will begin their title defence and hope to capitalise on immense change and uncertainty spreading around the league.
After Pep Guardiola’s seismic departure, the debut managerial campaigns for Enzo Maresca, Andoni Iraola, Xabi Alonso, Matthias Jaissle, Pierre Sage, Oliver Glasner, Marco Rose and Alvaro Arbeloa bring intrigue.
While the promoted clubs, Coventry City, Ipswich and Hull, face a daunting task to survive, though one they will relish.
With an absence of superstars, perhaps beyond Erling Haaland and Bruno Fernandes, new, younger talent could rise up to become the household names this league creates. Here is what our writers are expecting and looking forward to:
Who will be champions?Miguel Delaney, Chief Football Writer: It might feel a bit easy to just pick last season's champions, but just being champions may well further improve Arsenal given all the pressure on the club over the past few years. Above anything, though, we know they are an excellent team amid a Premier League that has so much uncertainty.
Richard Jolly, Senior Football Correspondent: Arsenal - The squad with the most depth and the team with the fewest flaws. Adding Bruno Guimaraes gives more quality while, if they have Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz fit all season, there is the potential for more goals. And they will have the best defence, again.
Jack Rathborn, Sports Editor: Chelsea. This is more to do with what Arsenal are up against: lingering fatigue, a style of play that led to a lot of narrow victories (though the tension of a first title could erase that issue) and the underrated challenge of back-to-back titles, something Arsenal haven’t achieved since 1935. So who is seizing the moment? The stars could be aligning for Xabi Alonso. One game per week and undoubtedly enough talent to mix it with the champions, if it can click early, then Chelsea’s trajectory, in stark contrast to last season after Enzo Maresca’s strop and the inevitable Club World Cup fatigue, should leave them primed for a remarkable rebound. Alonso’s poise when it truly counts, with experience from Bayer Leverkusen’s title tilt may just prove enough should the Gunners shift focus slightly towards Europe.
Lawrence Ostlere, Chief Sports Writer: I would love to be bold here and back plucky underdogs like Chelsea or Manchester City, but the answer is just Arsenal, isn’t it? I still wonder whether the biggest problem of last season, unlocking stubborn low-block defences, might persist. But the other bits – the defence, the set-pieces, the tactical side, the options from the bench, the experience and knowhow – that will all add up to a title-winning points tally.
Kieran Jackson, Senior Sports Writer: Arsenal. No originality here. With every other top team in transition, the Gunners look perfectly placed to defend their title, having finally got the monkey off their back last season. The additions of Bruno Guimaraes and perhaps Ezri Konsa only enhance their notable strength in depth.
Alex Pattle: Arsenal. I don’t buy the argument that aiming for back-to-back titles brings pressure; if anything, Arsenal should be wholly without the tension that coloured their last several seasons. I think the weight off their back will prove immensely advantageous, and with all the other top clubs in transition, Arsenal’s stability should see them across the line.
Flo Clifford: Arsenal. They have greater strength in depth than any other side, but probably most significant is the fact that they held on to win after all the psychodrama and will-they-won’t-they of last season. Now they have that self-belief, it shouldn’t be such a torturous process this time around.
Martin Odegaard's form has spiked in pre-season for Arsenal (Getty)Who will take the Champions League places?MD: Arsenal,Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur.
RJ: Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham. It seems a fairly safe assumption five Premier League teams will be in the Champions League. I have got Manchester United and Aston Villa just missing out.
JR: Chelsea, Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Man City. Erling Haaland’s goals should prevent a total crisis for Enzo Maresca, but it feels like a lot could go wrong and quickly after so much change.
LO: Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City.
KJ: Arsenal,Chelsea, Man City, Tottenham, Liverpool.
AP: Arsenal, Man City, Man United, Liverpool, Aston Villa.
FC: Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool.
Michael Carrick is expected to continue his impressive work after becoming the permanent manager at Old Trafford (Getty)Who will be relegated?MD: Fulham, Coventry City, Hull City.
RJ: Coventry, Ipswich and Hull. Apologies for being predictable by picking the promoted trio, and hopefully at least one will stay up. A personal view is that Coventry stand the best chance.
JR: Fulham, Ipswich, Hull City. Lots of goals missing after Wilson and Jimenez’s departure and a manager without much experience, Fulham look vulnerable, but I can’t see more than one of the promoted sides surviving.
LO: Ipswich, Hull and Crystal Palace, though said without much conviction. I think the gap between 18th and, say, ninth, will again be relatively small.
KJ: Sunderland, Ipswich, Hull.
AP: Newcastle, Hull, Ipswich.
FC: Hull, Sunderland, Newcastle. This could be a bad year for the north-east: I fear the added strain of European fixtures on a fairly light squad will cost the Black Cats, especially given a quiet summer, while the Magpies have been shorn of Guimaraes, Tonali, Gordon et al and the Saudi project appears to be running aground.
Frank Lampard, the Coventry City manager, is looking to achieve survival this season (Getty)Signing of the season?MD: Luka Vuskovic, Brighton. When Spurs got him, he was considered one of the brightest prospects in Europe, and Brighton rarely get these purchases wrong. They might just offer him the space to excel.
RJ:Bruno Guimaraes, Arsenal. Another obvious answer and Arsenal won't make a profit on him, but he is an immediate injection of a high-class player who should help them retain the title. On similarly pragmatic grounds, Maxence Lacroix to Chelsea looks a really good buy.
JR:Mamadou Sangare, Brentford. While I think Morgan Rogers to Chelsea will be a big hit, while complementing and rejuvenating Cole Palmer, Brentford’s work to bring in Sangare to a stable environment under Keith Andrews should allow him to immediately contribute and more than make up for the loss of Jordan Henderson.
LO:Youri Tielemans, Manchester United. The type of tempo-setter United haven’t had since... Michael Carrick? Tielemans will only get better under his new manager, too.
KJ: Sandro Tonali, Tottenham. At £100m, he has not come cheap, but Tonali and compatriot De Zerbi look a well-matched combination. With no midweek European football, the Spurs boss has the time in training to embed his philosophy into the squad – and expect Tonali to be at the heart of everything in the centre of the park.
AP: Youri Tielemans, Man United. I’m a big fan of this move. Lots of people seem to think Tielemans is older than he is, and as someone who’s tentatively backing United to have a strong season, I think Tielemans could be central to it (in various senses).
FC: Bruno Guimaraes, Arsenal. Not an original answer but he’s a top-quality addition to Arsenal’s midfield, which - considering the mileage in Declan Rice’s legs - could do with the injection of energy he brings.
Manchester United's Youri Tielemans in action with AC Milan's Christian Comotto (Reuters)What are you most looking forward to?MD: Being surprised. This is a Premier League with so much change, you can't fall back on old expectations and truths. There is going to ne a lot of unpredictability.
RJ:Theuncertainty. Part of it comes from the host of new managers but there are several teams who could finish third or sixth, others who could come eighth or 14th, others who could come 11th or 17th. Several teams could be significantly better than last year, others risk being quite a bit worse.
JR: TheNextGen. Not the Cobham variety, although Geovany Quenda’s flashes of potential should prove compelling enough. But the most talented youngsters overall, bought for a fortune in this league and propelled into the bright lights to fill the vacancies much debated in these pages. Villa’s Johan Manzambi, Brighton’s Luka Vuskovic and Zadok Yohanna, the aforementioned Quenda, Liverpool’s Jeremy Jacquet and Newcastle’s Bazoumana Toure should all be worth tracking in the coming months.
LO: I loved the World Cup and we all needed a break afterwards, but I’ve missed that feeling of getting to Friday and a full Premier League card is around the corner, with a proper 5.30pm showdown on Saturday, and a lightweight Super Sunday that you’ll watch every minute of anyway. Which is perhaps just a long-winded way of saying: thefootball.
KJ: The five-second referee countdown for throw-ins and goal-kicks. What a brilliant rule this is. One of the regulations adopted from the World Cup, it speeds up the play enormously and discourages the excruciating wait for the setting up of long throws. Hopefully, it’ll ramp up the tempo in contrast to last year’s sluggish rhythm of domestic games.
AP: Seeing how the big clubs’ new coaches fare. I’m intrigued to see how Iraola, Alonso, Maresca and (the slightly-less-new) Carrick will fare. With the exception of Maresca, given his Chelsea exit, they all come across well as individuals, but it feels like they can’t all thrive this season – meaning at least one is destined for the sack...?
FC: The end of grappling in the box (hopefully). Maybe not the most exciting aspect to the new season but it’ll be such a relief to just have normal corners without endless wrestling, diving and histrionics.
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