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It feels like the World Cup has barely finished, and already we are ready to go again. Manchester United and Leicester City kick off the 2018-19 Premier League season on Friday night, the first of 380 games which will decide the destination of the famous silver trophy.
Surely it won’t be long until the familiar routine takes hold; just who is in crisis this week? Who is getting sacked in the morning? Which player is ambling for a move in the transfer window? But, just for now, it feels as though the Premier League will be swimming through the wash of the World Cup. The transfer window seems barely to have opened and yet is already in its last week, slamming shut at midnight BST tomorrow, whilst players have been still drifting back from holiday over the past few days. Nothing seems to have had time to settle.
That should, in theory, mean this title race is less predictable than usual, at least at its outset – and, while it would be misleading to suggest that the season after a World Cup has a habit of throwing up surprise winners, it is true that the Premier League in a season after a World Cup tends to be won with fewer points than usual. Not since Manchester United in 1998-99 has a post-World Cup league champion attained more points than the average of the champion over the previous three seasons – and that was in a pre-globalised world before every team had half a dozen players who had been at the tournament.
Set against that, though, is Manchester City. It is not just that they broke every conceivable record in lifting the title in May, it’s that for a couple of months around the midpoint of the season they seemed to be playing a different game to everybody else. They clearly have the resources to buy if they need to – and the attempt to sign Jorginho suggested Pep Guardiola sees a potential shortfall in the middle of midfield – but they are in the enviable position of having a balanced squad that is still growing together and are under no compunction to buy. As mutual understanding develops, it is possible that their interactions could become even slicker.
There are questions about their defence against the very best opponents, but just because Liverpool were able to expose them twice last season does not mean other sides will be able to; Tottenham tried to take them on in both league games and ended up losing by an aggregate 7-2.
A bigger threat would seem to be City’s nature, the vague whiff of ‘Cityitis’ that has perhaps not yet entirely been expunged by Shaikh Mansour’s billions. There was something slightly uncomfortable about Guardiola’s remark in his first season in Manchester that City were a club that lacked history, but he was right to the extent that they are not a club with the sort of history he is used to. City have never before retained the league title and, while their relegation as champions in 1937-38 remains an extreme example, even recently they have tended to respond to winning the league by dozing through the campaign that followed.
It is hard to believe a coach as driven as Guardiola will allow that to be an issue again and he has a squad with the depth to cover for any World Cup fatigue, particularly after the acquisition of Riyad Mahrez. It is not quite like his final two seasons at Bayern, when the league seemed a given, but, even more than in 2017-18, Guardiola will be judged this season on how City fare in Europe.
As to who City’s main challengers will be, the best guide is probably José Mourinho. There is a reason why the guns of his propaganda machine, when they have not been trained on his own board and their inability to land him the players he wants, have this summer been largely directed at Anfield. The arrival of Alisson has addressed Liverpool’s obvious goalkeeping deficiency, while Fabinho, Naby Keïta and Xherdan Shaqiri are necessary additions to a squad that by the end of last season was looking threadbare. Jürgen Klopp is the only manager in the world with a positive record against Guardiola and, while it would be absurd to suggest Liverpool have anything like the depth of City, they are edging towards the point at which concrete returns will be expected.
The implication is Mourinho already sees the battle this season as being for second behind City. He tried to portray being runners-up last season as a triumph but the mood this summer has been flatter than it was last – in part because of the way Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba looked better players at the World Cup, having escaped Mourinho’s clutches.
Given how late Daniel Levy likes to leave things, Spurs’ transfer business cannot properly be assessed until the final second of the window has elapsed but, with no major arrivals, a squad that played more minutes at the World Cup than any other in the division and with a new stadium, still unfinished, to move into, it is hard to imagine them presenting a stronger challenge this season than they did last.
Chelsea’s endless flux goes on with another new manager – sadly, they did finally sack Antonio Conte, denying us the possibility of him and Maurizio Sarri competing in the same technical area to direct the side – while it is not even clear Arsenal are still part of this conversation. Have they appointed a Europa League specialist because they have accepted they are a Europa League club, or is Unai Emery ready to step up a level and drag them with him? Their spending has been interesting rather than extravagant, which may ultimately be for the best, but hardly speaks of a club intending to surf back into the top four on a wave of new blood.
With my history of predictions blowing up in my face, I’m more than happy to plump for City to retain the title as a Man United fan. Sadly, I think they will at a canter, and to compound matters, I believe Liverpool will be their closest challengers.
Without a top-level European campaign as a distraction, I’m backing Chelsea for third, and maybe following my heart more than my head, I’ll back United to scrape the fourth Champions League spot above the two North London clubs.
As for going down, I think Brighton and Huddersfield will suffer from second-season syndrome having barely scraped through last year thanks to their blinding starts, with Cardiff joining them. I don’t think they have enough in their squad to keep afloat, and manager Neil Warnock might be the greatest ever Championship specialist, but he’s always struggled in the top tier.
My surprise package is Wolverhampton Wanderers, who arguably look like having the strongest squad from a promoted side in Premier League history and should be good for a top half finish.
As for shock strugglers, I think Burnley will have a tortuous, relegation-threatened campaign with the added pressures of midweek Europa League football to compound their already paper-thin squad. Last year was their greatest ever season in the modern era, almost impossible to top on their budget. The only way is down.
Above all, let’s hope this season is a little closer with more thrills and spills. Nobody wants a league that’s already done and dusted by Christmas … except maybe City fans!
Kristian’s predicted Premier League table:
1. Manchester City
2. Liverpool
3. Chelsea
4. Manchester United
5. Tottenham Hotspur
6. Arsenal
7. Everton
8. West Ham United
9. Wolves
10. Crystal Palace
11. Fulham
12. Newcastle United
13. Leicester City
14. Southampton
15. Watford
16. Burnley
17. Bournemouth
18. Brighton and Hove Albion
19. Huddersfield Town
20. Cardiff City
