The 30th Premier League season went down as one of the most dramatic, certainly in terms of the final day swings and roundabouts. Manchester City just about fended off Liverpool in a frenetic tussle at the top between two exceptional teams, Tottenham pipped Arsenal for the final Champions League spot and Leeds overhauled Burnley at the final hurdle to preserve their top-flight status and consign the Clarets to the Championship. What odds of there being similar drama on 28 May 2023?
There’s a few new faces in town, including some big-name arrivals. Erik ten Hag is in at Manchester United as the latest candidate to try and revive the glory days of the Sir Alex Ferguson dynasty, bringing with him some of the Eredivisie’s standout talents. Todd Boehly is the new owner at Chelsea, taking the keys from Roman Abramovich after government sanctions prompted the Russian’s departure. Liverpool have smashed their transfer record to sign Darwin Nunez, who they hope will continue the recent tradition of successful South American forward signings.
Perhaps the standout new name, though, is that of Erling Haaland to make Man City an even more fearsome outfit. The Norwegian plundered goals for fun at Red Bull Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund, and considering that Pep Guardiola’s men scored 99 league goals last term without an out-and-out centre-forward, it’s frightening to think of what they might do with Haaland added to the ranks.
They are very much the team to beat, with Liverpool hoping to push them all the way yet again. Optimism abounds in north London, where Antonio Conte is making Tottenham a lot less ‘Spursy’ and Mikel Arteta continues to put faith in youth at Arsenal. Man United will also expect a revival in fortunes under Ten Hag, although uncertainty surrounds Chelsea in the post-Abramovich age.
Behind the so-called ‘big six’, can West Ham and Leicester continue to punch above their weight and sample European football once again? Is this the year when the PIF project at Newcastle truly takes flight? Can big-spending Aston Villa finally get bang for their buck? Will Brighton, Crystal Palace and Brentford build upon their surprisingly strong 2021/22 campaigns?
Leeds and Everton both sailed far too close to relegation winds last time around, but with key players being cherry-picked from both clubs, will it another season of struggle? Will there be a hangover at Southampton and Wolves from their dismal endings to the previous campaign?
Two of last summer’s promoted sides sank without trace in 2021/22, and that’s the fate that Fulham and Bournemouth in particular will be trying to avoid. The former won a third promotion in five years in April, but that statistic also subtly reflects two swift relegations.
Finally, welcome back to the Premier League, Nottingham Forest! Not since May 1999 has a top-flight ball been kicked at the City Ground, but Steve Cooper will hope to write some new history for a club which is steeped in it, rather than being burdened by the achievements of the past.
A bit like how the COVID-hit 2019/20 campaign ended in late July, the 2022/23 Premier League season will have a rather unique schedule, owing to the World Cup in Qatar later this year. That could prove a welcome breather for teams struggling for form, or conversely an unwanted obstruction for those who are riding the crest of a wave.
There’s plenty of new faces in the English top flight this year, but as you may see from my club-by-club predictions, we can expect some very familiar storylines to play out…
ARSENAL
Still no Champions League return for Arsenal more than five years after they last partook in the competition, although there is a sense of genuine hope around N5 which hasn’t been seen for some time.
Mikel Arteta will be three years into the job as manager by Christmas, and in that time he has moulded the Gunners team into his own, placing plenty of trust in young gems like Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and Gabriel Martinelli while offloading plenty of his predecessors’ signings. The product is arguably the most exciting Arsenal team since the peak Arsene Wenger era, but a youthful and somewhat naive outfit which is still prone to psychological failings which continue to form a barrier to top-four entry.
The hope is that the additions of Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus, both of whom have won multiple Premier League titles with Manchester City, can give the Gunners a more champion-driven mindset which will cut out the away-day no-shows which saw them beaten at Brentford, Crystal Palace, Everton, Newcastle and Southampton, and royally thumped by Liverpool and Man City, last season.
Arsenal are definitely good enough to push for a top-four finish again this time around, but they now need to show a more ruthless mindset if they are to bring Champions League football back to the Emirates Stadium. It could be touch-and-go whether or not they succeed in that mission.
Prediction: 5th
ASTON VILLA
The end of last season certainly didn’t mean that Steven Gerrard and Johan Lange downed tools, for Aston Villa promptly got to work in bringing in Boubacar Kamara and Diego Carlos, along with securing permanent deals for Philippe Coutinho and Robin Olsen, by mid-June.
Gerrard had a knack at Rangers for getting his transfer business done early in the summer and, considering his team’s feeble finish to 2021/22, it was no surprise that he swiftly got to work. Villa are not averse to large-scale summer investment, as we have seen since their return to the top flight three years ago, but the spending sprees have yet to yield a top-half finish.
That will no doubt be the target for the Midlanders this term, but in order to accomplish that, they’ll need to become much harder to beat – they lost 19 league games last term, two more than relegated Burnley. They could also do with someone other than Ollie Watkins providing a reliable source of goals – Danny Ings has been as predictable as a Jack-in-the-box since his move from Southampton a year ago.
The jury remains out on just how far Gerrard can take this current Villa crop. One thing is for sure – a repeat of their 14th-place finish from 2021/22 will be seen as failure.
Prediction: 12th
BOURNEMOUTH
They did it the hard way, but Bournemouth are back in the top flight after a two-year absence, relinquishing numerous winning positions as they eventually stumbled their way to a second-placed finish under Scott Parker, who in his fledgling managerial career has already won promotion to the Premier League twice.
Dominic Solanke barely had a look-in at either Liverpool or Chelsea but was one of the main reasons for the Cherries’ rise from the Championship, netting 29 goals last season. Parker will again look to him, and the archetypal target man Kieffer Moore, to find the net with enough regularity to stave off relegation. Ryan Christie, who looked the part during his time at Celtic, now gets a chance to prove himself on the Premier League stage, while Irish fans will be intrigued to see how goalkeeper Mark Travers performs as a regular at this level.
Bournemouth had a happy habit of taking big scalps during their previous five-year stint in the top tier, notably scoring some emphatic wins over Chelsea in particular. A few of those wouldn’t go amiss this time around, but their fate is likely to be determined by results against the teams with whom they’ll probably be battling at the bottom. Eddie Howe kept them up for five years; Parker will gladly take one right now. As it stands, the Cherries look short of the standard required to stay in this league – that their manager has admitted as such is worrying.
Prediction: 20th
BRENTFORD
Brentford were a breath of fresh air in their first Premier League campaign, playing enterprising football and not being afraid to take it to the big names (just ask Arsenal and Liverpool). They also gave Christian Eriksen a route back into senior football after his Euro 2020 scare, a chance that he seized with both hands, while Thomas Frank is an affable manager who hasn’t been overawed by competing at the highest level.
The challenge now will be for the Bees to ensure that 2021/22 wasn’t a glorious one-off where they could simply enjoy the ride. Sheffield United and Leeds act as recent cautionary tales of teams who enjoy a bounce after promotion before regressing significantly, while the element of surprise may not be as big a factor this time around.
They’ll also have to manage with Eriksen this season, although they had still been in a decent position before his January arrival so they should cope without any great difficulty. They also seem to have recruited well, bringing in Thomas Strakosha on a free transfer from Lazio, strengthening their defence with full-back prospect Aaron Hickey and the top-flight proven Ben Mee; and snapping up highly-rated winger Keane Lewis-Potter from Hull.
Some pundits have tipped Brentford for the drop but I reckon they have the squad and the mentality to at least consolidate on their 13th-place finish from last season, particularly if Ivan Toney continues to be a reliable goalscoring presence.
Prediction: 13th
BRIGHTON
The most surprising name among the top-half finishers last season, can Brighton repeat that feat this time around or even aim for Europe?
Either way, Graham Potter is entrusting the bulk of the 2021/22 squad to continue the Seagulls’ upward trajectory, with minimal transfer activity either into or out of the Amex Stadium thus far. However, one notable departure which will make things harder this time is midfield dynamo Yves Bissouma, who has been plucked by Tottenham. The south coast club also have a fight on their hands to keep hold of energetic full-back Marc Cucurella, who is wanted by Chelsea.
Brighton did particularly well to finish ninth last term considering that nobody in their squad hit more than eight league goals. While it can be helpful that they are not overly reliant on one or two centre-forwards to find the net, they still seem to lack a proper goal-poacher who’ll routinely rack up double figures in a season.
That, and Bissouma’s absence, could prevent them from finishing inside the top 10 for a second successive year, although Potter has still done tremendously to even get the Seagulls soaring that high with what he’s got. He was already touted with some of the biggest jobs in English football; a repeat performance from 2021/22 will surely see those calls grow louder, especially if a lucrative opportunity opens up.
Prediction: 11th
CHELSEA
Almost 20 years after Roman Abramovich rocked into town and transformed Chelsea overnight, the Blues begin a rather uncertain new era under Todd Boehly, with the frivolous spending sprees of previous summers set to be consigned to the past.
Thomas Tuchel’s public evisceration of his players after the 4-0 pre-season drubbing by Arsenal in Orlando does not bode particularly well ahead of the new campaign, nor does the manner in which they tailed off in the second half of 2021/22, having kept pace with Man City and Liverpool until January.
Their search for a reliable centre-forward goes on, with the unconvincing Romelu Lukaku shipped out on loan and Timo Werner still to rediscover the form he showed at RB Leipzig. Raheem Sterling is an eye-catching coup to try and put this right, as is the acquisition of Kalidou Koulibaly to atone for the defensive losses of Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen to La Liga.
Chelsea finished third despite winning less than half of their home league games last term, and they carry an air of uncertainty around them at a time that other ‘big six’ rivals are beginning to look far more assured. Champions League winners just 14 months ago, there’s a distinct possibility that they won’t be in the competition at all next season.
Prediction: 6th
CRYSTAL PALACE
Transitioning from an experienced, pragmatic manager whose style of play was unexciting but got results, to a relative rookie bravely implementing a more effervescent methodology can be a massive gamble. It was one that Patrick Vieira made to look easy, steering Crystal Palace to a very respectable 12th with a young and vibrant new-look team.
Aside from Conor Gallagher, who has returned to parent club Chelsea, the Eagles have kept all of their prominent talents for now, including the ever-talismanic Wilfried Zaha. Michael Olise and Marc Guehi came of age last season, while Eberechi Eze will hopefully return to the levels that he showed prior to his serious injury at the backend of 2020/21.
Vieira has made the shrewd pick-up of Sam Johnstone on a free transfer while splashing out on £20m midfield enforcer Cheick Doucoure as a long-term successor to the ageing Luka Milivojevic. Keep an eye out, too, for teenage addition Malcolm Ebiowei, who was wanted by Manchester United and could be a clever acquisition from the Championship in a swoop akin to the signing of Eze from QPR in 2020.
Palace have finished between 10th and 15th in each of the nine seasons since they returned to the top flight. I expect that sequence to continue, but with the Eagles finishing at the highest end of that particular bracket as Vieira continues to make Selhurst Park a thoroughly exciting place to watch football.
Prediction: 10th
EVERTON
The season hasn’t even started yet and already the natives are restless, with fan protests outside Goodison Park amid a 4-0 pre-season friendly humiliation by MLS outfit Minnesota United. The euphoria of the springtime escape from relegation wasn’t long evaporating.
The mood of Evertonians would not have been helped by the departure of 2021/22 top scorer Richarlison, one of the Premier League’s least likeable players but one who nonetheless came up with the goods towards the end of last term when the stakes were at their highest. Even though the Toffees banked £60m from selling him to Tottenham, only a third of that has so far been invested in new signings – or, more specifically, on one new signing in Dwight McNeil, as James Tarkowski has arrived on a free transfer and Ruben Vinagre is in on loan.
Until their late dash to survival, Everton often looked a spiritless and spineless team during the previous campaign, one whose wage packets did not get the performance levels to match. Granted, they were hamstrung by Dominic Calvert-Lewin missing several months through injury, but it’s going to take more than his return to convince me that Frank Lampard’s team have turned a corner. He will also miss the start of the new season, heaping further misery on Toffees fans.
Perhaps Farhad Moshiri will get to work between now and 1st September and bring in players who’ll genuinely improve Everton’s squad. With the millstone of Financial Fair Play restrictions around their neck, though, that’s far from guaranteed to happen. The Toffees are the only club outside the so-called ‘big six’ to have played in all 30 Premier League seasons so far. That’s a claim they might no longer be able to make in nine months’ time…
Prediction: 18th
FULHAM
If it’s not Norwich who tread that purgatory zone of being too good for Championship but out of their depth in the Premier League, it’s Fulham. This is the fifth successive year in which the Cottagers have traded divisions; the very simple goal (in theory) is to break that sequence now that they’ve taken the Canaries’ place as the top flight’s returning short-term guests.
Unlike in 2018 and 2020 when they were promoted via the play-offs, Marco Silva’s team romped to the Championship title this year. Of their 106 league goals, a mammoth 43 came from Aleksandar Mitrovic, whose four seasons at top-flight level have seen him accrue just over half of that tally. Therefore, it’s no exaggeration to say that his goalscoring fortunes over the next few months could determine which side of the relegation dividing line Fulham will finish.
Many of the squad who were feebly relegated in 2020/21 are still at Craven Cottage, although teenage gem Fabio Carvalho has been poached by Liverpool, while Joao Palhinha and Andreas Pereira are interesting summer arrivals. They’ve also made the clever loan signing of Manor Solomon, the winger who looked a fine player for Shakhtar Donetsk in last season’s Champions League.
One hopes that, unlike Norwich – or indeed Fulham themselves two seasons ago – the Cottagers will make a better fist of the Premier League this time around. The squad at Silva’s disposal should, on the face of it, take the fight for survival into May at least. They still look a bit short, though.
Prediction: 19th
LEEDS
It took them 16 years to get back into the Premier League until their 2020 return, but Leeds supporters will just be glad to still be there after the drama of last season. Life is never dull at Elland Road, and the upcoming campaign could be another rollercoaster ride to rival anything that Florida’s theme parks can offer.
Jesse Marsch may have ultimately kept the Whites in the top flight but has yet to endear himself to the fan base in the way that Marcelo Bielsa managed so effortlessly. The American is not helped by the inevitable summer departures of Leeds’ undisputed best player of 2021/22 (Raphinha) and perhaps the best player of the last four years since Bielsa first came in (Kalvin Phillips).
Those two will unquestionably be tough acts to follow, but at least Victor Orta and the Leeds hierarchy can’t be accused of idly standing by and hoping for the best. Marsch has put his Red Bull connections with his previous employers in Salzburg and Leipzig to good use by bringing in Brenden Aaronson, Rasmus Kristensen and Tyler Adams. Perhaps the best capture of all, though, could be livewire Colombian winger Luis Sinisterra from Europa Conference League runners-up Feyenoord, although he unfortunately goes into the season sidelined through injury.
If those newcomers can make the Leeds faithful get over the exits of Raphinha and Phillips, and if the injury-plagued Patrick Bamford has better luck on that front over the next few months, Marsch and co will be alright. The Whites never do things the easy way, though, and it could be another uncomfortable campaign for a fan base who’ve known happier times.
Prediction: 16th
LEICESTER
Finishing eighth last season, when injuries were rife, was no mean feat for Leicester, yet it felt like an underwhelming return considering that the last three years have yielded two fifth-place finishes, an FA Cup triumph and a run to a European semi-final.
Brendan Rodgers will certainly be praying for better luck in terms of his squad’s fitness in 2022/23, as the Foxes have watched from afar in the summer transfer window up to now. On one level, that looks like an admirable show of faith by the manager in his current crop, who should be helped by having the likes of Wesley Fofana and Jamie Vardy back fit and fighting.
On the other, it leaves the Leicester faithful hoping that the concession of a free kick or corner in the Foxes’ defensive third won’t automatically lead to a goal – they shipped a pitiful 19 goals (roughly a third of their season’s tally) from set pieces last term. That’s despite them having a two-metre tall centre-back in Jannik Vestergaard. Talk about logic going out the window…
Leicester’s fortunes this season could depend on whether or not they manage to retain some of their key players. Kasper Schmeichel has already left for Nice, while Fofana, James Maddison and Youri Tielemans are all the subject of strong transfer speculation.
As it stands, they should have enough to finish well inside the top half, providing they can stop giving away cheap goals. If the bulk of the aforementioned names depart over the next month, though, the Foxes can expect a slide into lower mid-table territory.
Prediction: 8th
LIVERPOOL
The grave disappointment of coming up just short in the Premier League and Champions League during a sorrowful week in May should not detract from just how brilliantly Liverpool performed last season, particularly when two other trophies were still bagged. The worry is how much those psychological scars will seep into the new campaign, although victory over Manchester City in the Community Shield last weekend has laid down a promising early marker.
Sadio Mane’s departure was quickly offset by the club-record £85m plundering of Darwin Nunez, who looked devastating for Benfica against the Reds earlier this year, but otherwise Jurgen Klopp’s team is basically the same as last time around. Fabio Carvalho and Calvin Ramsay have come in as fledgling young options to supplement squad depth, while hopefully this can be the year when Harvey Elliott becomes a fully-fledged first team presence at Anfield. Were it not for last autumn’s horrible ankle injury, he’d probably have that boast already.
A team containing Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Thiago Alcantara, Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz and now Nunez ought to be right up there challenging again. Unfortunately, Liverpool may find it tough to replicate their marathon 2021/22 campaign to the same stratospheric standards, considering how much the pursuit of a quadruple would have taken out of Klopp’s side.
I hope that the Reds can run Man City close once more, and at their best Liverpool should be capable of doing so, but the likelihood is that they’ll come up narrowly short again. Right now, I’d settle for us putting up a prolonged title challenge, giving Europe a good go and hopefully bagging another domestic trophy.
Prediction: 2nd
MANCHESTER CITY
Just when Liverpool’s right-to-the-wire title race pursuit may have given hope to the chasing pack that Manchester City could be caught, along they go and sign a certain Erling Haaland, he of the 134 goals in 136 games for Red Bull Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund and Norway.
It wasn’t as if Pep Guardiola’s side couldn’t cope without a bona fide centre-forward after Sergio Aguero, with the champions one goal short of a century as they hoovered up a fourth league title in five years. Given how they so regularly scored with a precision penalty box finish from a perfectly-executed low delivery even before Haaland’s arrival, just think of what they could do now that they have the Norwegian in their ranks. Forget that miss against Liverpool last weekend; he’ll still rip it up this season.
City’s rivals may point to the departures of Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko (with possibly more to follow) as a sign that the Sky Blues won’t be as strong this time around. Those exits wouldn’t have been sanctioned with frivolity, though, while it’s also worth remembering that they still have the likes of Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan, Joao Cancelo and Kyle Walker to terrorise the opposition. Oh, and they have that Kevin De Bruyne fella who’s meant to be handy.
City’s Mancunian neighbours won five Premier League titles out of six between 1995/96 and 2000/01. A repeat triumph next May would give Guardiola’s team that enviable distinction as well, and all the signs point to this being Manchester City’s league in which the other 19 clubs try in vain to keep up. It probably won’t be as close-run a title race this time around, either.
Prediction: 1st
MANCHESTER UTD
The end of this campaign will mark 10 years since Sir Alex Ferguson’s denouement as Manchester United manager, and indeed the club’s last Premier League triumph. Several bosses of contrasting backgrounds have since tried and failed to replicate the all-conquering success of the famed Glaswegian; Erik ten Hag is the next to give it a go.
It’s not just at managerial level that it’s been a summer of change at Old Trafford. Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Edinson Cavani, Nemanja Matic and Juan Mata have all departed, while Ten Hag has seized upon his knowledge of the Eredivisie to bring in left-back Tyrell Malacia and centre-back Lisandro Martinez. He’s also pulled off what already looks the signing of the summer, snapping up Christian Eriksen on a free transfer after the Dane showed with Brentford that he still has what it takes to excel in the Premier League.
The boredom of the ‘will he stay or will he go’ headlines surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo continue to abound, but amid all the hype and hot air he’ll likely stay put. Plus, for all the accusations of him destabilising dressing room harmony, the 37-year-old still comes up with the clutch moments time and again on the pitch. United would be much worse off without him, it’s that simple.
Ten Hag will also be encouraged by the rejuvenation of Anthony Martial and Jadon Sancho of late, and he had been the man I wanted to take over at Liverpool once Jurgen Klopp ultimately leaves. He knows what he’s doing, and United simply have too much talent to be as utterly atrocious as they were last season. They’ve never been out of the Champions League for successive campaigns; I reckon they’ll preserve that record, even if it may be a close-run thing.
Prediction: 4th
NEWCASTLE
When the obscenely wealthy, Saudi-backed Public Investment Fund rolled into Newcastle last October, the Toon Army instantly began dreaming of Hollywood names coming to St James’ Park to inspire their team to English supremacy and Champions League nights on Tyneside.
Eddie Howe may have masterminded a tremendous turnaround upon taking the managerial reins last winter, but the Magpies still have a road to travel before they truly rub shoulders with the elite of English football, never mind Europe. Following on from January’s £105m splurge, a frantic summer of spending might have been expected. However, with PIF sensibly abiding by FFP regulations, new arrivals have been rather thin on the ground.
Sven Botman looks an astute capture, while Nick Pope is a sensible signing rather than a marquee one. Newcastle are walking before they can run on the transfer front, although it doesn’t take a fully-fledged Geordie to see that they are crying out for greater firepower. Chris Wood has looked like a fish out of water since joining from Burnley in the winter, while last season’s top scorer Callum Wilson is a fine striker but is now 30 and has a dreadful injury record.
The time may well come that, similar to Chelsea and Manchester City after their lucrative takeovers in the 2000s, Newcastle are among the kingpins of the Premier League. For now, though, the best they can realistically hope for is to break into the top half and possibly loiter outside the European places. It will be a case of evolution rather than revolution in the northeast.
Prediction: 9th
NOTTINGHAM FOREST
Few clubs’ promotions to the Premier League were greeted with as much gusto by neutral football fans as Nottingham Forest’s play-off triumph at the end of May. When this club last participated in the top flight in 1999, we still traded in punts and pence, Britney Spears was beginning her music career with that memorable ‘Baby One More Time’ video and the more twitchy among us lost sleep over the prospective impact of the Y2K bug.
The Reds’ current manager Steve Cooper was 19 years old the last time the City Ground hosted top-flight football, but he and the club’s board are determined to make up for lost time judging by the recruitment of a dozen new players over the summer. Chief among these are former Manchester United duo Jesse Lingard and Dean Henderson, along with Wales right-back Neco Williams and the Huddersfield pair of Lewis O’Brien and Harry Tofolo who tasted defeat to Forest in the Championship play-off final.
Of all the new arrivals, though, none carries more intrigue than Taiwo Awoniyi. On the books of Liverpool for six years, he never played competitively for the club due to work permit issues. He eventually moved to Union Berlin, where he rammed in 15 Bundesliga goals last season as the unfashionable club missed out on Champions League qualification by a point.
Forest showed in their FA Cup run earlier this year – during which they defeated Arsenal, hammered Leicester and were unlucky to go down 1-0 to eventual trophy winners Liverpool – that they’re more than capable of mixing it with the big boys. Just like Brentford last term, they look well-placed to use play-off success as a springboard towards a largely positive crack at the Premier League.
Prediction: 14th
SOUTHAMPTON
Southampton can be one of the more curious teams in the Premier League – two draws against Manchester City and victories over Tottenham and Arsenal last season were offset by losing to each of the three teams who were ultimately relegated. Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side are the top-flight’s ultimate bag of Revels.
The Austrian is now the third-longest serving manager in the division, reaching four years in charge if he makes it to December still at the helm. However, the Saints go into the new campaign off the back of a dreary finish to 2021/22 which has supporters more fearful than hopeful about what’s in store for the next nine months.
The good news is that captain, leader and set-piece specialist James Ward-Prowse is still at St Mary’s, despite his performances suggesting that he’s capable of operating for a team who’d be comfortably in the top half. New signings have largely been of the under-21 variety, although Joe Aribo from Rangers appears an astute capture who could offer a much-needed goalscoring presence to supplement Ward-Prowse and the enigmatic Che Adams.
Having finished 15th in the last two campaigns, the Saints don’t look likely to push on to any great extent this time around with their current squad. It could be another season of looking nervously over their shoulders and praying that they can be more consistent in terms of beating the teams around them rather than hoping for the occasional big scalp.
Prediction: 15th
TOTTENHAM
The recipients of rival fans taunting “Tottenham get battered everywhere they go” from the brief Nuno Espirito Santo era, Spurs have looked a rather different beast under Antonio Conte, often making light of their unflattering ‘Spursy’ reputation.
A strong finish to the campaign under the Italian enabled the north Londoners to regain their place in the Champions League, while a double over Man City and a point away to Liverpool shows that they can mix it with the country’s elite. Granted, Conte’s Spurs were still prone to surprise defeats against the likes of Burnley and Brighton, but when the attacking triumvirate of Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and January arrival Dejan Kulusevski properly got going last season, Tottenham were among the most fearsome teams in the Premier League.
Summer recruitment has been plentiful, widespread and done early, so Spurs look even stronger kicking off 2022/23 than they did finishing the previous campaign. It also helps that much-maligned players like Eric Dier have regained their best form under Conte, who looks capable of taking the club back to the heights they occupied in the peak Mauricio Pochettino years.
They still look a tad short of properly pushing Man City and Liverpool for the big prize, although the current Tottenham crop are strong all over the pitch and could be the pick of the chasing pack.
Prediction: 3rd
WEST HAM
Far from being burdened by Europa League football last season, West Ham revelled in domestic and continental double-jobbing, enjoying a memorable run to the last four in Europe while still being very competitive in the Premier League. It was only fatigue and a threadbare squad which saw them miss out on another top-six finish.
David Moyes has remedied one glaring hole in the squad recently, finally bringing in another centre-forward to rival Michail Antonio with the signing of Gianluca Scamacca. Flynn Downes from Swansea looks another fine coup, with the 23-year-old providing added competition to renowned midfield duo Tomas Soucek and Declan Rice. The only potential area of concern is defensively, where the Irons were down to the bare bones at times during 2021/22 – even new left-back Nayef Aguerd has fallen victim to serious injury in pre-season, a sign that Moyes just can’t catch a break at times.
If the Hammers have another prolonged run in Europe, this time in the Conference League, their squad depth will be sternly tested once again. However, last season showed that they have the tools to put up a good fight on multiple fronts, and provided that their players’ form doesn’t sink like a stone, or that they’re not crippled by a spate of injuries, West Ham look like maintaining their position in the top seven as the best of the rest behind the so-called ‘big six’.
Prediction: 7th
WOLVES
Wolves may have finished in the top half last season but the prevailing mood going into the new campaign is one of trepidation around Molineux, particularly after a hugely anti-climactic finish to 2021/22.
Goals were at a premium last term – just 38 in as many league games – and their problems up top have been compounded by injury to leading marksman Raul Jimenez which will seemingly sideline him until October. Unless Hwang Hee-chan can start this campaign like he did the last one, Bruno Lage could be sitting very twitchily in the dugout by the time the Mexican returns to action. Furthermore, even with Jimenez crocked and goals in short supply, Fabio Silva has been farmed out on loan to Anderlecht, although the Portuguese youngster still looks far too brittle for Premier League level anyway.
The only summer addition so far has been Nathan Collins, admittedly a very good signing, but it’s going to take more than that to inspire confidence among the Molineux faithful. The Old Gold have never been burdened by relegation worries since returning to the top flight four years ago, but unless they unearth a reliable scorer from somewhere, there’s every chance that Wolves could be treading some very comfortable water over the next few months.
Prediction: 17th
PREDICTED FINAL TABLE
- Man City
- Liverpool
- Tottenham
- Man Utd
- Arsenal
- Chelsea
- West Ham
- Leicester
- Newcastle
- Crystal Palace
- Brighton
- Aston Villa
- Brentford
- Nottingham Forest
- Southampton
- Leeds
- Wolves
- Everton
- Fulham
- Bournemouth
First manager to be sacked: At this stage, Ralph Hasenhuttl probably owes his status as the Premier League’s third longest-serving manager to Southampton’s patient owners, but a poor start this term could see the trigger being pulled. Bruno Lage and Frank Lampard could also be sweating on their futures if their respective teams begin poorly.
Top scorer: A few familiar names will likely be near the top of the tree again – Mohamed Salah, Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Cristiano Ronaldo. Luis Diaz could be a decent outside bet, but for me the clear favourite is Erling Haaland. The Premier League record for a single season is 34…the Norwegian might just beat that if he replicates his Dortmund form at the Etihad Stadium.
Breakthrough boys: Tim Ireogbunam (Aston Villa), Jesurun Rak-Sakyi (Crystal Palace), Sam Greenwood (Leeds), Cole Palmer (Man City), Hannibal Mejbri (Man Utd), Harrison Ashby (West Ham)
Making a good first impression: Boubacar Kamara (Aston Villa), Joao Palhinha (Fulham), Brenden Aaronson (Leeds), Darwin Nunez (Liverpool), Tyrell Malacia (Man Utd), Gavin Bazunu (Southampton)
Man, Ball and All 