This is an English Premier league season, definitely building up to be one of the most competitive title hunts in a long Time. Forget any two-horse lone title chase like we have witnessed between man City and Liverpool in recent years.
Premier league New comers Brentford, defeated Arsenal by 2-0 and may have confirmed what many pundits murmured for weeks, about Arsenal’s ill-preparedness for this season: Some fear they might fight relegation to the championship if action is not taking in the right direction, soon. Think twice before betting on Arsenal.
In football circles, you are considered to be as good as your last season or match! With this in Mind, Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool needs to be at their best this season otherwise reported silent opposition to a continuation of Klopp’s Reign might grow loud.
However, with Virgil Van Dijk back from injury for Liverpool’s defense line, hopefully, in good shape, Liverpool might just surprise Naysayers with some silverware, though something seems to caution me otherwise.
Defending Champions, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City have had 2 major setbacks In less than 10 days to point to the likelihood of a difficult campaign ahead. They lost the Community Shield season opener match to Leicester and got outsmarted by Tottenham by 1-0 in their season opener.
With Guardiola once again failing to bring home the Champions League, after over a record over One Billion euros spent on players, club owners and star players might soon start having negative thoughts. It will take more than just Tiki-Taka to win the EPL this year and be competitive in Europe at the same time.
Chelsea is definitely in my opinion, clear favorites to dominate this season. Manager Thomas Tuchel has definitely won over most skeptics with the conquest of the UEFA Champions League last season, coupled with an authoritative finish to the league season last year, beating Defending champions, Pep Guardiola’s Man. City, 3 times along the way, without a dominant fixed point striker.
With the acquisition of Romelu Lukaku, fresh off a personal best season with Inter Milan, winning the Italian league as the league’s top striker, Chelsea can now further play with more variety that will definitely make them extremely competitive on all fronts. Don’t bet against Chelsea is my advice.
In Thomas Turchel, Chelsea has a coach that has German discipline, the hunger to win, a fresh face, and a tactically sound coach.
By winning the season opener European super league cup over Giant Killers, Villareal of Spain and coupling it up, seemingly effortlessly by a 3-0 victory over Crystal Palace, barely 3 days later to open their premier league accounts for the season, all without Lukaku, It would be financial indiscipline to bet against European Champions, Chelsea.
In an emphatic manner, Manchester United blew away Leeds United by 5 goals to one, with Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandez stealing the headlines. As impressive as they were, I still feel something huge is still lacking at Manchester United. Though I feel, they should be highly competitive for the title this season, I wouldn’t put my money on them being champions without Erlin Haarland’s acquisition from BVB Dortmund.
Keep an eye out for Tottenham Hotspur, I believe they have contracted a very good and hardworking coach in Nuno Espírito Santo. As expected, they shocked Man. City for a 1-0 season opener victory with some intelligent tactical organization that rattled Guardiola’s team.
One thing is definitely for sure after watching all these teams play at least once this season, it is going to be an extremely passionate one with the fans back in the stadium stands, we are in for a Rollercoaster. Did you just say? “finally, Football is back” ….
