A Newcastle fan holds up a Bruno Guimarães scarf
Never liked him anyway...
Is it Tottenham’s turn again? There’s definitely little potential for an Arsenal banter season. But Newcastle? Oh Newcastle.
While the rest of us laugh from afar, the fear of becoming the latest Premier League laughing stock hangs over any new season and so we have taken a look at which of the Big Six (and Villa and Newcastle) will most likely play the fool in the year ahead.
8) Arsenal
Everything is looking rather sensible at Arsenal. They may even have dodged a bullet in Vinicius Jnr.
Fresh from winning the league and being the second-best team in Europe, Arsenal have strengthened with young (bargain) winger Christos Tzolis and look set to add Bruno Guimarães to their already strong squad.
They have the best defence in the league and even with the long-term absence of William Saliba, you would back them to maintain their discipline going into the new season. The attack remains fairly blunt but when you only have to score one goal a game, that’s not really a problem.
The Premier League’s tightening on the rules regarding corners may actually be Arsenal’s biggest foe this season.
The Gunners benefit from stability sorely missing in the other seven names on this list; only Unai Emery and Mikel Arteta retain their jobs from 12 months ago. Unlike Villa, Arsenal have not had to say goodbye to their best player. And their second-best player.
It would take a monumental collapse for Arsenal to even get close to the kind of banter era that suffocated them during late-stage Wenger.
7) Aston Villa
Villa may have started last season with five winless games but the rest of the campaign taught them one thing – trust Unai Emery.
The departures of Morgan Rogers and Youri Tielemans are blows but have added wiggle room to both Premier League and UEFA spending restrictions. In Rogers’ place, Villa have spent big on Johan Manzambi, while Joao Gomes has also arrived from Wolves.
Villa are everything Newcastle want to be: a club consistently moving up. The challenge this year is balancing a Premier League campaign with Champions League football – Villa finished sixth the last time they faced that challenge – and improvements, particularly a striker, will be needed for a sustained push on multiple fronts.
But there are few better managers in the league than Emery, making it hard to see how they succumb to a banter season.
6) Manchester City
It’s time to see how well-oiled the Manchester City machine is.
In the 10 years that Pep Guardiola was at the helm, City garnered a reputation as one of the most efficiently competent clubs in the world. Players were signed for good fees in areas that the club needed and the Etihad outfit won more trophies than any other English side.
Now though, the driving force has departed and there are reasonable doubts surrounding Enzo Maresca.
The Chelsea dressing room appeared to love him but does he have the tactical nous to compete at the very top level? He is a Pep disciple but the departures of Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson heralded eras of underperformance. Even Arne Slot’s succession of Jurgen Klopp was only successful for a year.
City have a great squad with few obvious flaws. If Maresca cannot get a tune out of them, then it may well prove he is not at the top table of elite managers.
5) Liverpool
If you offered Liverpool fans fourth place and exciting football, they would probably bite your hand off.
Losing is one thing but what made Slot’s final season so stale was the style of football, which Liverpool fans quickly grew to dislike after the title-winning season. Andoni Iraola is a welcome shot of adrenaline.
The former Bournemouth boss comes with a massive reputation but unquestionably has a huge number of challenges ahead of him. Mo Salah has gone and regardless of how his final season played out, losing a goalscorer of his calibre is a problem that needs to be solved.
Getting the best out of last year’s signings will also be top of the list. Florian Wirtz never looked comfortable. Alexander Isak looked out of form both before and after his leg break. Milos Kerkez and Emmanuel Frimpong looked out of their depth.
Mixing new signings Jeremy Jacquet and Víctor Munoz with the young players there while also keeping the core of the team happy will be a test but it is a rejuvenation that Liverpool have needed since the late days of Klopp.
Iraola is talented but many managers have succumbed to the pressure of being in a top job. A role where every day new and unforeseen challenges occur under a spotlight not at Bournemouth.
It could go excellently or it really could go tits up.
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4) Manchester United
Manchester United stumbled on a Premier League hack of it being a lot easier to win league games if you get knocked out of the cup competitions at the first opportunity.
Unfortunately for Michael Carrick, the name beaming out in red light to the sky is Manchester United and the statue of Sir Alex Ferguson below is a reminder that sacrificing any trophy is unacceptable.
That is the challenge for Carrick, whose coaching CV is not one that would have landed him the gig had United not been desperate. The ex-Middlesbrough man did okay at the Riverside but United fans should take his failure there as a word of warning.
Carrick has yet to face four competitions in a season as a manager and those early exits last year mean fans will not accept throwing the FA and League Cup into the long grass.
The squad is certainly the strongest it has been for years and Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans represent good signings but what happens if Carrick loses his golden touch? Ratcliffe and INEOS have hardly proved themselves when it comes to appointing the right manager.
Optimistic United fans would hope for a title push. Their rival fans will be hoping for a familiar self-implosion and a return to mid-table mediocrity.
3) Chelsea
On paper, everything about Chelsea’s summer so far has been sensible. Xabi Alonso is an excellent appointment and was given the title of manager. They have signed experience in the form of Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck. They have also hoovered up some of the league’s best talent in Morgan Rogers and Maxence Lacroix.
On paper then, nothing should go wrong and yet there is that voice in the back of your mind saying “Lads, it’s BlueCo Chelsea.”
It’s easy to back your manager when the team’s not playing games but say Alonso goes three games without winning? Will the BlueCo board get itchy trigger fingers?
There is something about this iteration of Chelsea that never seems too far away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot. Chelsea fans are paying the karmic price of having it too good for too long.
Is it too hard to see a scenario where Alonso is sacked by Christmas and John Terry/Ashley Cole/Frank Lampard step in then win the FA Cup? And then Chelsea are right back at step one of the endless cycle.
2) Tottenham Hotspur
You think a couple of expensive signings will save you, do you Spurs fans? If my lifetime of watching this silly sport has taught me one thing, it is that nothing ever works out the way you think it will. Oh and never, ever trust Spurs.
Much like their west London rivals, on paper everything Spurs has done this summer has been good. They have blown off the dust of the piggy bank and bought any player they fancied and while Roberto De Zerbi’s morals can be questioned, his managerial ability cannot.
But for a club with successive 17th places, you’re only a few missteps away from catastrophising. De Zerbi is an explosive character and if the Spurs board upset him, this partnership could be split up very quickly.
Not to mention they have a very expectant home crowd to please, one that has forked out ridiculously high amounts of money for their season tickets and have seen minimal return on investment.
Away at Brentford is a nice way to start the season and a first home game against a transitional Newcastle should be three points, but if for whatever reason that does not play out, then familiar wounds will quickly reappear.
1) Newcastle United
If there is a god, he must be a Sunderland fan for a Premier League ball has not even been kicked and it is already a banter season for Newcastle.
Just about everything that could go wrong has done so in the past 12 months. £285m of talent has left in the past year. Their most successful manager of the century departed a few weeks before the season began. Their emblematic club captain is on the verge of leaving too.
Newcastle fans are being asked to pick up the pieces of a shattered dream. The arrival of the Saudis was meant to herald their move to the Premier League big boys table and yet, with talk PIF is slowing down on their sportswashing, the future has not looked less inspiring under the current regime.
To replace Eddie Howe, Newcastle have gone for Matthias Jaissle which, regardless of how you rate his accomplishments in Saudi Arabia, is a massive gamble. In the transfer market, Newcastle have also gone for young potential rather than ready-to-go talent. Goalkeeper Lukas Hornicek has been their oldest signing at the grand old age of 24.
All the obvious signs then point to a catastrophic season. Relegation seems unlikely but Spurs thought that. Replacing a first-team player or your coach are single challenges that could derail a club’s season; attempting to do all that at the same time is a recipe for disaster.
At this stage, a top-half finish would seem a decent achievement which is far from the dream Newcastle sold its soul for.
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