It's Arsenal's to lose now

Sorry to have to report that the new Premier League season is due to begin tomorrow evening, when Arsenal take on Coventy live on the tellybox.

Asenal have strengthened sensibly through the summer, and so have a deeper, better squad than last season.

They will be formidable to say the least.

So, will anyone be able to keep up with the Gunners?

As most of their main rivals, Aston Villa excepted, have if not new managers, or managers/coaches going into their first full season in charge. And some will have to improve by a significant amount if their season is to be judged a success.

Andoni Iraola left Bournemouth to take over at Liverpool. Slott being sacked soon after the end of the season after a disappointing second season in charge. And winning the title twelve months earlier at a canter counted for nothing. To complicate matters, Liverpool are the subject of a minor-shareholding buy-out, with the bald bloke who owns Amazon as one of the consortium. They will own close to 40% of the club, and might buy more of the club next year to take their stake to over 50%.

Watch this space.

Pep lookalike, Enzo Maresca, took over from Pep at Citeh, as a result of Pep standing down after a decade of trophy-strewn years in charge. Mentioning charges, those 115 charges are yet to be decided upon, and winning games might be the least of their problems. In addtion, the midfield due of Silva and Rodri both left. Last week's Community Sheild capitulation has set the alarm bells ringing, and things might not be going well at Citeh this season.

Michael Carrick continues in the Manchester United hotseat, hopes are high at very Old Trafford, but then they are every year. They seem to have bought well, but then do every year, but it is how much slack he is given if and when the going gets tough. Being in the CL as well as the league will be very different to last season's lowest ever number of first team games of 40 (forty)

Chelsea pulled off the coup of the summer in appointing Xabi Alonso as manager, not coach, but this was before the Liverpool hot seat was known to be available. Alonso could have gone to almost any top European club, but decided on one of last season's basket cases, Chelsea. Chelsea have been busy buying up experienced players, and trying to sell of some of their failed younger stars from the last four years. But even still, Chelsea have more than 50 senior players and just 12 days before the transfer window shuts, so they can pretend to balance the books.

Newcastle are still in crisis, as two weeks ago manager, Eddie Howe resigned halfway through pre-season, and appointed Matthias Jaissle (me neither), after selling three of their best players, if not their three best players: Anthony Gordon to Barcelona for £69.3 millions, Sandro Tonali to Spurs for £100 million, and Bruno Guimarães to Arsenal for £75 million. They have spent well in brining in replacements, but none of them are stars or household names, so this could go very badly indeed.

Tottenham Hotspur appointed Roberto De Zerbi on the last day of March this year, and he just did enough to keep Spurs in the Premier League. Coming after the previous season when Spurs finished 17th, the belief was that things could only get better in 25/26. They got 50% more points, but finished 17th again, just above West Ham. Spurs have something like 500 midfielders, and just two forwards: Dominic Solanke and Richarlison, neither of which are prolific and are injury-prone.

And Aston Villa have had their squad raided by their rivals, so have the rest of the window to correct that, but do have a quality manager still in post, so anything could happen.

More interesting than who will be runners up, is how each of the above react to a run of bad results. Heads could roll, and quickly.