The Daily, 9th August 2023
Treat it like a soap opera and no more and it almost becomes watchable; it's time for the 2023/24 Premier League.
It’s that time of year again, and this year’s Premier League preview on my part did get a little… out of hand. But here it is anyway, in all it’s “Jesus H Christ, did it *really* have to be more than 12,000 words long?” glory.
It’s back. The Biggest League in the World returns at the weekend and if you let it, it will drive you completely round the twist. This bubble filled with noise, exuberance, abuse and hubris just keeps on expanding, but if years of experience of having to observe all of this playing out, I’ve found that if you treat it primarily as weird intersection of reality television and soap opera, it starts to become something approaching sense, with the only significant difference being that the good guys seldom win.
With pre-season tournaments still being easy enough to ignore and even easier to completely disregard, it does feel as though the Premier League has been away for quite a while. At the end of the previous season—a word that feels appropriate in both a sporting and televisual sense—Manchester City had proceeded to their fourth title in five years and their third in a row, with the season finale ending with them winning their first Champions League too.
So, where do they go from here? No-one has won four English league titles in a row, so that’s the obvious place to start, and it is often said that titles are more difficult to defend than they are to win in the first place, so defending the Champions League is another obvious challenge. The 115 charges will continue to rumble on in the background—it is inconceivable that they will be resolved this season, since any verdict on the part of the Premier League other than, “no, actually we were wrong, and while we’re about it no-one says enough about how great they are so you should all blow smoke up their arses too” will be challenged by the club and the (increasingly) swivel-eyed element of their fan base.
Within the Premier League’s bubble of a universe, there are controversies which will dominate the new season. Many of them are familiar. VAR will continue to divide without conquering. Social media abuse will continue, flamed by people getting angry by social media abuse and highlighting every incidence of it they come across. Refereeing decisions will continue to be scrutinised as if under an electron microscope by people with a rudimentary understanding of the laws of the game who will declare decisions made by people whose livelihoods depend upon knowing and correctly interpreting these laws to be wrong and their own interpretations (which just happen to always benefit the team they support) to be correct instead. There will be screenshots with arrows drawn on them.
But this season will bring some new matters to the table as well. It seems unlikely that the ongoing interest in Premier League players will end with the summer transfer window at the end of August. The soundtrack to the autumn (and the winter, and the spring) will be a steady drone of ‘transfer to Saudi Arabia’ rumours, many unsubstantiated but with some coming to pass. Will others follow Jordan Henderson’s hypocritical lead and put solidifying their family wealth for generations above principles that they may or may not have claimed to have in previous interviews with Gary Neville?
But actually, there is a noise that could–most likely temporary, as we’ll see–drown out the sound of those rumours. It has already been confirmed, and witnessed, that there is to be a crackdown on time-wasting this season. For years, players have been getting slower and slower in the closing stages of matches, using every tactic in the book to stop football from actually being played, should they be in a winning position. There have been attempts to deal with this before–FIFA regularly now attempts something similar in their competitions–but it doesn’t take a crystal ball to foresee how this noble attempt doesn’t last for very long.
The first time that a Premier League club loses a match after twelve minutes of stoppage-time, or has a player sent off for picking up two yellow cards, or whatever, all hell will break loose. There’s nothing to say that this won’t happen on the first weekend of the season. Raphael Varane has already made his unhappiness on the matter clear, mixing up his criticisms into a soup about playing too many matches, having too little rest time, and the increasing ‘intensity’ of games (which we can only presume means the Premier League’s relatively laissez-faire attitude towards fouling), and it’s highly likely that this hostility will be widespread.
If there’s one thing players and managers hate, it’s being told how to play football by the nerds at the Premier League or the FA. It’s impossible to say what the straw will be that breaks this particular camel’s back, but it’s highly likely that it will involve one of the very richest clubs–because, let’s face it, terrible refereeing decisions were happening to Brighton all season last time around and no-one did anything much about that–and that it will be about something that is in the overall scheme of things almost entirely inconsequential. All that really remains to be seen is whether it’s quietly dropped, or whether a big deal is made of them making a volte face on the issue. Because apologies–and not just any apologies, but grovelling apologies, preferably accompanied by crying more–will be expected.
(Ironically, the biggest thing preventing this about turn from happening is probably the sheer obduracy of the governing bodies, who seem to be hoping that players simply haven’t noticed how much time they spend generally dawdling about during matches when they’re winning rather than it being part of a carefully cultivated plan, which is pretty cute, if you think about it.)
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This season’s club-by-club guide is based on five questions, which are definitely not the most important that could be asked this summer but are definitely the most burning issues in all of our heads, at this time of the year:
How’s the summer been?
How beloved is the manager?
What’s the club’s financial /state?
What’s this season’s kit like?
How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
I’m also going to put the clubs in the order that I think they will, might, or possibly might finish in the Premier League this season, though I should asterisk this by adding that this sort of predicting business is really, really silly, and that it has little consequence on anything. But you’re all smart people. You already know that this is all just for funsies.
1st: Manchester City
- How’s the summer been?
It feels a little as though Manchester City have had a summer of two halves, so far. On the one hand, the arrival of Josko Gvardiol and Mateo Kovacic brings another two very fine footballers to the club. But on the other, Ilkay Gundogan was one of their very finest performers last season, and his departure does leave a hole in the centre of their midfield which hasn’t been filled.
Elsewhere, Riyad Mahrez has gone to Saudi Arabia, and he was always an important and under-estimated squad player, and it hasn’t yet been confirmed that Bernardo Silva will be staying either, while bringing Joao Cancelo back from his Bayern Munich loan doesn’t seem especially enticing, considering the manner in which he left. Barcelona have offered a loan deal for both.
But I got my fingers burned by this, last year. I wasn’t the only one to do so, but I failed to back Manchester City to win the league. Few of us really expected Erling Haaland to catch fire in quite the way that he did, and with few signs of that slowing and goalscoring options still coming from all over the pitch as well as him, it remains difficult to see who beats them this time around, though that will come down to whether their rivals have learned from last season.
- How beloved is the manager?
Does that question even need to be answered? Few other Premier League managers are loved to quite the extent that Pep Guardiola is by Manchester City supporters, to the extent that the likely biggest threat to their long-term dominance may well be what happens once he leaves the club, which he will one day.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Richer than Croesus, obviously, but it’s a bit more complex than that. City’s ability to sell players seems to be keeping them comfortable from an FFP point of view at the moment, though historical issues on that matter, of course, remain unresolved and almost certainly will not be resolved over the next ten months.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
It’s actually pretty nice. You’ve got to love a shadow stripe, and it does show a degree of restraint on the part of the club that they didn’t take a Champions League-winning opportunity to smother the following season’s kit with gold, or anything daft like that.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Always very high. Manchester City supporters have been cultivating their theory that the entirety of UEFA is a construct set up specifically to defend the best interests of Liverpool and Manchester United for years now, so if (okay, when) they do, it’ll be more likely to be aimed at a governing body than at a referee.
2nd: Arsenal
- How’s the summer been?
In a summer of transfers that hasn’t fully caught light yet Arsenal’s decision to drop £105m on Declan Rice is the boldest move yet, though it should also be added that Rice is as close to you can get as a sure thing for that sort of money, and the addition of Jurrien Timber similarly ticks a lot of boxes, and at a far from unreasonable price.
There remain one or two questions concerning Kai Havertz, whose time at Chelsea was largely characterised by him being stuck between a rock and a high place, but Mikel Arteta presumably has a plan for him too, and all departures seem to have been players that the club would have wanted to let go. The departure of Granit Xhaka marks the end of an era, but Rice is a trade up and the addition of David Raya gives them the strongest pairing of goalkeepers in the Premier League by a substantial margin. Arsenal are improved upon last season, but the level to which they need to get is about as testing as it gets in world club football and whether they’ve improved enough to catch Manchester City remains an open question.
- How beloved is the manager?
Mikel Arteta has been at The Emirates Stadium long enough now to have probably half-forgotten when #ArtetaOut was a thing, but such is the febrile nature of the Premier League these days that it would probably only take a handful of underwhelming results for the huge progress that he’s made with his team to be completely forgotten by the more entitled end of the Arsenal support. But for now, Arteta is absolutely safe.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Arsenal’s last set of company accounts, for the year to June 2022, reported an operating loss of £45.5m and it says something for how football clubs run themselves that this was actually a considerable improvement for a club after the previous set, which had reported losses of £107.3m. Arsenal are currently on a 20-club UEFA watchlist over FFP, though it should also be added that their revenues will significantly grow with the return of Champions League football this year. Disquiet with the ownership has quietened with success on the pitch.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
It’s… okay. As mentioned above, I’m pretty implacably opposed to the hubristic use of gold on football kits and this season’s Arsenal kit is slathered in it, all of which raises the question of whether it might not have been more appropriate had it been silver. The “Visit Rwanda” badges on the sleeves strike a particularly discordant note, considering the government’s attempts to send refugees there. But the lightning bolts on the shirts are a nice callback to more innocent times.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Arsenal Twitter has naturally been a somewhat calmer place since the team started winning matches, but they are a huge club and as such The Madness never far from the surface, especially if refereeing decisions start going against them or results turn.
3rd: Newcastle United
- How’s the summer been?
For all that we talk of “infinite money”, Newcastle United’s summer has if anything highlighted the challenges that a football club faces if they intend to become a Gargantuan Sporting Mega Project Which Definitely Doesn’t Sportswash Anything. Summer spending hasn’t exactly been enormous, with only Harvey Barnes, Sandro Tonali and Tino Livramento having arrived and Yankuba Minteh having been purchased and then shunted straight out on loan to Feyenoord.
And that, perhaps, is the issue for Newcastle supporters. The Champions League means more matches, and while few would argue that most of the players who’ve left this summer would have been suitable for use as much more than ballast in that competition (Alain St Maximin is the obvious exception, there) that Newcastle seem likely to start their season with a slightly thinner squad than they ended the last does raise a question or two.
- How beloved is the manager?
Eddie Howe remains popular on Tyneside, though one does wonder whether his ‘profile’ matches that of an ownership that aspires to global domination. But while he’s finishing in the top four and getting to domestic cup finals it remains difficult to not see him getting the sack.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
A game of two halves, Brian. The Saudi PIF has, to all practical purposes, infinite money, but Financial Fair Play is an obvious issue, especially with the mood among other clubs in the Premier League making it likely that any sponsorship deals that Newcastle sign will likely be watched like a hawk. Newcastle supporters broadly seem to continue to have no issue with murderous governments, so long as those murderous governments are subsidising their favourite football team wins more matches.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
Pretty good, though the home kit isn’t really a Newcastle kit since it has white socks rather than black. Having had a Saudi-reminiscent white and green kit last season, their change kit for this season is Saudi-green. Keep it subtle there, lads.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Quite high, but the bigger risk with this lot is upsetting the owners and finding yourself having an appointment at their embassy to discuss matters further.
4th: Aston Villa
- How’s the summer been?
Quietly impressive. Unai Emery’s rebuilding of Aston Villa over the second half of last season felt like football righting itself by making one of its traditionally grandest clubs competitive in the Premier League again for the first time in years. Incoming transfer activity has been understated but very good. Moussa Diaby, Pau Torres and Youri Tielemans are excellent additions while none of those who’ve left have been players that Emery would have been desperate to hang onto, all of which indicates that he has the buy-in of the players for the coming season.
- How beloved is the manager?
Since 2011, Aston Villa’s managers have been: Alex McLeish, Paul Lambert, Tim Sherwood, Remi Garde, Roberto di Matteo, Steve Bruce, Dean Smith and Steven Gerrard. It isn’t the lowest bar to have to get over, but it’s reasonable to say that Villa upgraded substantially, not only on Emery’s predecessor, but on just about every other manager they’ve had for more than a decade.
Furthermore, Emery’s European experience gives him an excellent chance of being able to manage a Europa Conference League campaign and a Premier League season simultaneously. With some of the others who we’d expect to be challenging near the top looking distinctly flawed, Villa will be one of the few clubs in the top half of the Premier League to be starting the season in a truly optimistic frame of mind. It might yet carry them all the way into the Champions League.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Pretty stable, all things considered, though this was largely on account of the sale of Jack Grealish to Manchester City. The Grealish money accounted for half of the £203.5m spent on the team, but the club’s main financial focus for the coming season is likely to be funding for the planned expansion and redevelopment of Villa Club, which would increase the capacity of the ground to more than 50,000.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
According to this summer’s received wisdom, Aston Villa are wearing a Burnley shirt this season, while Burnley are wearing a West Ham shirt and West Ham are wearing a Villa shirt. (Of course, as Villa supporters already know, West Ham and Burnley both wear Aston Villa shirts, since other clubs adopting those colours were doing so because the Villa were absolutely the dominant team of that era.)
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
After a period during which Aston Villa’s final league position reads 16th, 15th, 15th, 17th, 20th, 13th, 4th, 5th, 17th, 11th and 14th, supporters still seem in a state of something approaching bemused bliss at the way things have panned out in 2023, especially considering the fact that the high-profile appointment of Steven Gerrard had deliver precisely as little as many had feared it would. Hysteria in the face of a losing run is always likely, but Aston Villa supporters start this season more sanguine than most.
5th: Liverpool
- How’s the summer been?
Mixed, but ultimately optimistic. The arrivals of Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai for a combined £95m have finally provided a degree of the rebuild that Liverpool’s midfield was in dire need of last season, while Darwin Nunez looked sharper towards the end of last season and has continued that trend throughout this year’s pre-season. But the Europa League is a trophy worth winning, and although the new signings add strength to the midfield, the departures make it look a little thin numbers-wise, a situation that would only be partially fixed should Romeo Lavia arrive from Southampton.
- How beloved is the manager?
There were points last season, when things were going badly on the pitch, when dissenting voices started to be heard regarding Jurgen Klopp, but the truth remains that he still has the overwhelming support of the overwhelming proportion of Liverpool supporters, a situation that will not be changing unless the team manages to perform worse than they did throughout the first half of last season. And let’s face it, that would be a challenge.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Missing out on a place in the Champions League cost the club £50m in revenue for this season, and with that competition expanding to a ‘Swiss model’ format from the start of next season, it is critical that Liverpool get back on their horse and competing for a top four place again. The good news for them in that regard is that there are no guarantees that any of the other clubs who underperformed last season are going to drastically improve this season. Third or fourth place is achievable.
The bad news is that it’s going to be difficult. The owners, FSG, have come in for a lot of flak over their Project Big Picture and European Super League machinations, but they’re still there, with announcements that the club could be up for sale being rowed back upon and eventually, it would seem, being put to one side.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
Liverpool do periodically go back to the classic ‘all red with round white collars’ that they wore from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, and that’s what they’ve done for the coming season. Neither thrilling nor disastrous, it looks like… a Liverpool kit.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
There are few other Premier League clubs at which there is such a stark contrast between the match-going fans, the people of the city, and the Very Online fans whose interest in the club comes as a result of their global heft. Liverpool remains a solidly socialist city and the memory of Hillsborough and its lengthy aftermath weighs heavily in the culture of the club. You’ll likely see #KloppOut or #FSGOut on social media, but the more swivel-eyed reactions to results are more likely to come from a distance removed from the actual club itself.
6th: Manchester United
- How’s the summer been?
Not great, but not quite a disaster either. A domestic trophy won and third place in the Premier League would be a good return for most football clubs, but Manchester United are categorically not most football clubs. Takeover talk has dominated the summer, but this doesn’t seem any closer to being resolved than it has at any point since it was first announced that the club perhaps might be eventually for sale if the price is absolutely right, and the protracted nature of all of this hasn’t done much for harmony within the club’s vast global fan base.
Transfer activity hasn’t been as gold-plated as it might have been had infinite Qatari money been pouring into the club since the start of June. Mason Mount is an excellent player in many respects, but was he really the player that Manchester United needed this summer? Their pursuit of Harry Kane seems to have ended with the signing of Rasmus Hojlund for around £70m, but with only 18 career goals to show for three years as a pro, he feels–as does Mount–like a little bit of a gamble when Manchester United really need a sure-fire hit. The same could be said for Andre Onana, who supersedes David De Gea in goal but in the past has been known to have his occasional ‘moment’.
- How beloved is the manager?
It remains the case that no Manchester United manager can be as beloved as Sir Alex Ferguson is around Old Trafford, but Erik ten Hag remains the most popular manager the club has had since Ferguson retired. Shortcomings on the pitch, should they show, will largely be blamed on higher echelons within the club than the team manager.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Manchester United projected record annual revenue of up to £640m for the 2022/23 financial year during the summer. It’s unlikely that there will have to be a fire-sale of players any time soon. But historical failures to have qualified for the Champions League have impacted upon the club’s ability to spend in the transfer market, and there was much guffawing from the other side of their home city when they were fined £256,744 for a 'minor breakeven deficit' over UEFA’s FFP regulations during the summer.
But the ultimate question of Manchester United’s summer is that of who the new owners will be, if they end up with new owners at all. This has now been dragging on for almost ten months, and the levels of distrust of the owners are such that some have been wondering for a while whether this was all just a wheeze to inflate the club’s stock market value. Rumours continue to circulate, but with just over three weeks until the transfer window closes it now seems unlikely that any new owner would be able to bring the superstars this summer that would make those United supporters who remain resistant to being a tool for yet more sportswashing forget their long-standing taunting of Manchester City over the origins of their financial largesse.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
It looks like a Manchester United kit. You know, red shirts, white shorts and black socks. The away kit, which looks like the sort of thing that Boris Johnson might wear to the Henley Regatta, is certainly visually arresting.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Almost certainly, though what they’re getting angry over may well depend on how many Qatari flags they have on their profiles.
7th: Chelsea
- How’s the summer been?
Marginally less chaotic than last summer. Chelsea have a manager who meets their self-evaluation of ‘eliteness’ and have got rid of a sizable number of their excess parts from last season. But with that cull has come an enormous loss of experience. With three days to go before the start of the new season Chelsea have shed 28 players, and while this may have been necessary, the loss of Kai Havertz, Mateo Kovacic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Mason Mount, Christian Pulisic, Kalidou Koulibaly, Edouard Mendy, N'Golo Kante and Cezar Azpilicueta in one summer is a lot of voices and characters to lose from the changing room on one fell swoop.
Replacing all those old heads with young players on long contracts carries an element of gamble about it, though few would expect Chelsea to be as dismal as they were last season. Matters won’t have been helped by the news that shiny new striker Christopher Nkunku damaged his knee during a pre-season friendly with Borussia Dortmund in Chicago (but it’s those FA Cup replays that need to go, amirite?) and will probably not be available until getting on for the middle of the season. That is a big, big loss, and one which leaves the club yet again without a proven centre-forward for the start of a new league season.
- How beloved is the manager?
Debatable. Under normal circumstances, Mauricio Pochettino would be a natural fit for Chelsea, an ‘elite-level’ manager (ie, he’s managed a petro-club before and wasn’t a complete disaster) with a reputation for bringing through young players. But the Tottenham connection will die hard, and should not go well for Chelsea, a club with a long-standing reputation for being unbelievably impatient with managers, it seems likely that those former connections will suddenly be recalled again.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Well, that’s a piping hot question. Chelsea have raised not far off £200m in player sales this summer, which should be sufficient to allay the worst concerns regarding FFP, but while missing out on any form of European football will please those for whom only the Champions League will reach the required standards of their delicate palates, the effect on the club’s balance sheet may be less desirable.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
Well, for a while it looked as though the shirts wouldn’t have sponsors’ names on them at all. Their previous deal with Three was not renewed when it expired at the end of last season, but the Premier League blocked a deal with streaming service Paramount+ because of concerns about upsetting its broadcast rights holders while, to their credit, Chelsea decided against a shirt sponsorship agreement with an online gambling company. A deal now seems to have been agreed with just days to spare with a company called Infinite Athlete. No. Me either. Otherwise, as ever, blue is the colour.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
It has already been confirmed that Todd Boehly will be taking a less public position, with his frequent interjections into the public sphere having not always covering the new owners in glory, and it should be clear that he is already skating on very thin ice with elements of the club’s support over a first season of running the club that was several levels short of the minimum required competence level that fans would expect.
Roman Abramovich is not coming back. That much we can say for certain. But his name will continue to be sung from the stands at Stamford Bridge, especially should things not be going so well on the pitch, and that very present reminder of considerably happier days will prove to be a millstone around the neck of the new owners until they’re looking like matching the former owner for silverware. Chelsea start the season needing to play catch-up with those above them in the table. It’s far from certain that they’ve done enough to get back into the Champions League for 2024 reorganisation.
8th: Tottenham Hotspur
- How’s the summer been?
Well, it should be said that this is all coming from an extremely low base, but… not absolutely hopeless? It’s important to bear in mind that last season was calamitous for Spurs supporters for reasons which aren’t completely obvious. Spurs supporters don’t demand instant success and they’ve been pretty patient in recent years, but last season indignity really did rain down upon indignity, whether it was the manager publicly dumping on the whole of the club or the inexorable slide away from contention which took the team from a Champions League place fight to practically a mid-table position in just a couple of months.
James Maddison is the sort of creative midfielder that Spurs have been crying out for for years, while the club are understood to still be interested Gift Orban of Gent, a talented young player whose name being mentioned in the same breath as Spurs is surprising because he is an extremely young talented player. Manor Solomon and Guglielmo Vicari seem like decent squad additions, and there’s talk of other additions, too. The new manager has made a good start and most seem relaxed about the issues that owner Joe Lewis is facing because he’s barely ever seen at the club anyway. New manager Ange Postecoglou, has had a comfortable landing in a potentially extremely thorny position.
Watching Bayern Munich collectively lose their minds at Daniel Levy’s refusal to accede to sell them their best player for buttons has been more entertaining than most anticipated it being, despite the ongoing cloud that is The Harry Kane Situation. But at the same time, with Spurs being Spurs there’s always a feeling that something could happen to cause the immediate implosion of any feeling of optimism. As such, matching last season’s worst league finish in fourteen years–but not doing any worse–continues to feel about right. Who knows, perhaps they might even do something in one of the domestic cups.
- How beloved is the manager?
Spurs are a club who feel like they need to be enjoying football again, and Postecoglou’s personality makes that feel more likely than it ever did under his two predecessors. But it is worth remembering that the second half of last season was the most poisonous atmosphere to be seen within Spurs for a very long time, and that this atmosphere might not take long to return, should the new season begin as the previous one ended.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
They won’t be going bustor anything like that, but Spurs are the second most indebted team in the Premier League after Chelsea and just ahead of Manchester United. The good news here for Spurs is that infrastructural work is done. The club has built an outstanding stadium and a state of the art training facility. So at least they got something for it, whereas for all the money that Chelsea have thrown around like confetti over the years and all the money that Manchester United have thrown away in interest payments and director dividends, those two clubs still need to carry out considerable renovation at their increasingly dated facilities.
ENIC remain on the borderline of inspiring mutiny among the supporters, without really doing quite enough to get thousands of people turning up outside The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with badly written placards that don’t really make much logical or grammatical sense. Well, not quite yet, anyway. The stories concerning Joe Lewis are a concern–the decision over links between Lewis and Spurs will likely be decided by a court rather than the club’s statements on the matter–but even this is tempered by the fact that Spurs are highly sellable, with this huge shiny stadium on the outskirts of London and more than thirty years unbroken time in the Premier League.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
White shirt, navy blue shorts, white socks, with white shorts for European matches. Like most clubs, Spurs’ kit is pretty simple when you boil it down to its constituent parts, but there will be no European matches this season, so… this season’s home kit has the white shorts instead. Perhaps this is part of the Kane deal, to make the team at least look something like Real Madrid. Whatever. It’s not a Spurs kit, if it doesn’t have navy blue shorts.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Having largely been unburdened by actual trophy success over the last (insert the number of decades old you are here) decades, most homegrown supporters are long past the point of being that weighed down by it all, but it has been observed that a younger generation raised on something approaching regular Champions League involvement may have different expectations to old ‘uns like myself. Similarly, the club’s overseas support may have been raised without that dyed-in fatalism that sinks into you like a stain after being raised at close proximity to the very particular way in which Spurs tend to mess things up.
9th: Brighton & Hove Albion
- How’s the summer been?
This was always going to be a difficult summer for Brighton & Hove Albion following last season’s extraordinary 6th-placed finish in the Premier League. Vultures had already been circling for several months, and the harsh reality of life in the cut-throat financial world of modern football. Albion had already experienced that, over Graham Potter and the backroom staff he took with him.
Alexis Mac Allister has gone to Liverpool. At the time of writing, Moises Caicedo hasn’t gone to Chelsea, who not only want Brighton’s best player, but also want to pay significantly below Brighton’s valuation for him, and to claim the high ground over the fact that Brighton have thus far refused to budge on their valuation. With Caicedo having signed a five-year contract earlier this year, Brighton’s negotiating position couldn’t really be much stronger.
And this sort of sideshow is exactly what makes maintaining any sort of success practically impossible unless you’re already a massive club. But Brighton have used their summer in the transfer market wisely. James Milner arrives from Liverpool as a living, breathing role model to younger players. Igor Julio, Mahmoud Dahoud, Joao Felix and Bart Verbruggen have all arrived via Tony Bloom’s algorithm. There are plenty of reasons to believe that Brighton can maintain the momentum they built last season, and with a first-ever season of European football also to contend with, some form of fall-off from last season’s heights might be inevitable.
- How beloved is the manager?
Oh, extremely. Roberto De Zerbi walked into a potentially extremely difficult situation at Brighton following the sudden departure of all and sundry from the Amex and if anything got the team playing even better than they had been under his predecessor. When push came to shove he couldn’t quite get them to an FA Cup on the 40th anniversary of their only other ever appearance in one, but he hasn’t really been linked with anyone else over the summer and will start the new season with his reputation undiminished.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Club owner Tony Bloom remains as popular as ever, as does CEO Paul Barber. An upward swing in the club’s financial position had already started with a 9th-place finish in 2021/22 sending the club’s finances from a £53m loss to a £24m profit. A higher league position, further player sales and compensation from Chelsea for Graham Potter may improve that figure further still when the figures for 2022/23 come out next year, while even more money in transfer sales and Europa League money would seem to indicate that they could at least match that the year after.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
With stripes but blue collars, shoulders and sleeves, this season’s Brighton shirt is similar to last season’s but jettisons the yellow flashes that have been seen on it over the last couple of years.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
As time passes, Brighton supporters who vividly remember the bad old days of the 1990s will continue to diminish and younger supporters whose perception of the club is completely different will continue to grow in number. But for now, the collective attitude of Brighton supporters towards their team is to enjoy it for as long as it lasts.
10th: Burnley
- How’s the summer been?
Ebullient. When Burnley fell from the Premier League at the end of the 2021/22 season there were justifiable reasons for concern. The team needed a complete overhaul, a substantial cash balance at the bank had been wiped out by a takeover, and this was a club highly dependent on Premier League television revenues.
But the club’s decision to bring in Vincent Kompany at the end of the 2021/22 season proved to be inspired. Kompany’s team romped to the Championship title playing expansive, attractive football, and consequently Burnley return to the Premier League a very different team to that which fell through that trapdoor, and they’re probably the club best equipped to be able to hold their own in the Premier League season. If momentum has much to merit it, Burnley should be fine this season.
- How beloved is the manager?
Vincent Kompany clearly has a job to complete at Turf Moor. Getting Burnley into the Premier League was only the first chapter of this story. Now he has to keep them up, and preferably comfortably. Fortunately, he seems well-equipped to do so, and it’s difficult to imagine that he would be kicked to the kerb should they have a slow start to the season. Transfer activity has been on the quiet side, with the Nathan Tella saga with Southampton looking unlikely to end happily, but Burnley repeatedly proved their credentials at a higher level in the Championship last season. If they can carry that momentum through they should survive comfortably, and mid-table is far from beyond them.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Discussing the club’s recently-released financial picture on The Athletic in April, writers Andy Jones and Matt Slater commented with reference to the club’s owners that, “they appear to have spun the wheel and come up smiling.” It’s a fair comment. Relegation 18 months after taking over the club could have been disastrous, but they appear to have come up smiling.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
*checks notes*
As per social media received wisdom, Aston Villa are wearing a Burnley shirt this season, while Burnley are wearing a West Ham shirt and West Ham are wearing a Villa shirt.
Listen, I don’t make the rules.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
As with all newly-promoted clubs, there is a tacit acceptance upon returning to the Premier League that 17th is the first target following promotion, and this tends to lengthen patience even in the event that losses start to mount up. It seems highly unlikely that there is anything much that could send Burnley Twitter into meltdown short of Vincent Kompany unexpectedly announcing that he has decided to take up a new challenge at Blackburn Rovers. And that seems… unlikely.
11th: Brentford
- How’s the summer been?
It says a lot about how Brentford have dealt with life in the Premier League that this certainly doesn’t feel like only their third at this level since the 1940s. But after having finished 13th and 9th in their first two seasons, it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be able to grow much further this season. The elephant in the room is the absence of Ivan Toney until January on a betting ban. It’s a big loss. That much is obvious. But such has been Brentford’s steady continued improvement over the last two seasons that they should be able to withstand that, but the loss of goalkeeper David Raya to Arsenal could be just as big a loss as Toney, and this one will be permanent. In Frank, supporters will have to trust.
- How beloved is the manager?
Thomas Frank remains extremely popular at Brentford, not least for the extent to which he has pledged loyalty to the club himself. There will have been repeated interest in his services from other clubs over the last two seasons, but it has never really felt as though he was likely to respond positively to the overtures of others.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
If you want an idea of how promotion to the Premier League Brentford’s latest accounts, Brentford’s for the 2021/22 season, which covered their first season in the Premier League, offered a pretty powerful example. The club posted a record turnover of £140m and a pre-tax profit of £30m for the season, earning more money in that one season than they had in the previous 15 combined. An improved performance last season will almost certainly have pushed that figure even higher.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
It’s a Brentford kit. To that extent, all is pretty much normal. The cognitive dissonance comes in a club that has its star striker missing for the first half of this season because of a gambling ban still carrying the name of a gambling company on their shirts this season. I know they’re not the only ones. I know they’re probably in a contract that they just can’t break out of. And I know that they’re not breaking any rules or laws. But it continues to look out of place considering the context of Toney’s ban.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Brentford had their fair share of existential issues in the bad old days and this, coupled with the club’s relative modest size, means that they’re unlikely to be completely swamped with maniacs demanding that they replace Thomas Frank with Jose Moourinho and then give him £500m to try and qualify for the Champions League, or anything daft like that.
12th: Crystal Palace
- How’s the summer been?
It feels as though problems may be starting to mount at Selhurst Park. Wilfried Zaha has gone, while Michael Olise seems unlikely to miss at least the first couple of the seasons with injury and Eberechi Eze has rejected a new contract with the club. But for all of that, there are few reasons for Palace supporters to be particularly worried, going into the new season.
Redevelopment work at Selhurst is finally due. For all the talk of Eze’s contract, Zaha remains the only high-profile player to have actually left the club, and while their incoming new players only number a couple at this time, they’re a mixture of a good fit and an exciting prospect.
Jefferson Lerma arrives from Bournemouth with getting for 200 appearances for them under his belt, while Matheus Franca’s £26m transfer from Flamengo brings a highly-regarded young player to the club, although the latest on him is that he will miss the start of the new season with injury. Ultimately, Crystal Palace will finish 12th in the Premier League because Crystal Palace are always 12th in the Premier League. (Anything you read that says that they’re not is an optical illusion.)
- How beloved is the manager?
Well, this is Roy Hodgson we’re talking about here, the Father of the House in Premier League terms and one of the elder statesmen of English football. He loves Palace and Palace love him. But none of this precludes a slight unease at the decision to keep him on for the new season when he’d returned to Selhurst Park in the first place as a stopgap after the club were unable to find a replacement for Patrick Vieira. He’s 76 years old today, and for all the positives that we can say about his knowledge of the game and his love for the club, it’s a tough sell to say that this decision looks to the future in any way whatsoever.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Palace generated record revenues of £160m during the 2021/22 season, representing a rise of just over a fifth on the previous season. But the club still made a pre-tax loss of £24.2m, although this was an improvement on the £40m lost the previous year or the £61.1m loss sustained the year before that. Of course, Covid’s deathly hand is behind the dreadful losses over those two seasons, but Palace are among those clubs who’ve had a long time in the Premier League and are very used to its finances. Falling from it would be extremely damaging, but this doesn’t seem likely to happen this season.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
The obvious answer to this question is ‘AFC Richmond’, and it may well be more than a coincidence that Palace’s home kit for this season bears a striking resemblance to that used by the fictional club with which they shared Selhurst Park for three seasons. But at the same time, Palace have always played fast and loose with their home colours–is there any other club about whom you can confidently say they have two quite different home kits, even if one is used relatively sparingly?–but this is quite evidently a Crystal Palace kit, and therefore no further discussion of Richmond is required.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Not particularly, but having finished 11th, 10th, 15th, 14th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 14th, 12th and 11th in the Premier League in the decade since they last returned from the Championship it doesn’t seem out of the question that one or two might go through some sort of existential crisis should they have too many more consecutive mid-table seasons.
13th: Bournemouth
- How’s the summer been?
In a word, surprising. Bournemouth ended last season with a doughty yeoman of an English manager, but will start it with their first-ever foreign manager. And it’s not just any foreign manager. Andoni Iraola took Rayo Vallecano to promotion into La Liga and to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey in Spain. He has a very good reputation, and his arrival will mark a definite change in the culture of the playing side of the club.
The new players are a quietly impressive lot, too; Romain Faivre, Justin Kluivert, Hamed Traore and Milos Kerkez, as well as Ionut Ranu on loan from Inter. The loss of Jefferson Lerma to Crystal Palace leaves an obvious gap, but the new arrivals and creative choice of new head coach means that Bournemouth should be looking up the table rather than down, this season.
- How beloved is the manager?
Gary O’Neil didn’t seem to have been managing the team long enough to form a particularly close bond with supporters, and his name already feels half-forgotten as everybody climbs aboard the Iraola Express. Football management can be such a tough environment (though it should also be added that there does seem to be a possibility that he will be with Wolves within a few days).
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Bournemouth were bought by the American businessman Bill Foley in December 2022 and the decision to sack O’Neil and bring in Iraola might be considered a concerted effort on the part of the new owner to stamp his identity on the club. It’s a bit early to say much about their financial prospects under him, and a club with such a small stadium as Bournemouth are always likely to find top flight football a stretch, but there’s been nothing bad to say about the way he’s run the club so far. O’Neil’s departure after having kept the team up quite comfortably may seem harsh, but there is little room for sentiment in the Premier League these days and there are no guarantees that he would have been able to repeat his achievements from last season, either.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
This season’s Bournemouth kit is slightly unusual in that the familiar red and black stripes are this year mostly black. Some–and particularly those who remember the many years during which they wore red and white–may bristle at black taking up more real estate space than red, but I actually quite like this kit. Just don’t go making those red stripes any thinner.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
There will always be a few who get a little over-enthusiastic, but there remains a sizable constituency of Bournemouth supporters who remember the club’s 2008 near-death experience or the 17-point deduction that came with it.
14th: Nottingham Forest
- How’s the summer been?
In comparison with this time last year, pretty mellow. At the precise time of writing, Forest have only brought in four new players this summer, and a couple of them seem like decent captures for a club looking to consolidate its position in the Premier League. Anthony Elanga has been deemed surplus to requirements at Old Trafford but there’s no reason to believe he can’t do a job at The City Ground, while Chris Wood offers another (let’s be frank here; upward) dimension to their attacking options. Matt Turner arrives in goal from Arsenal, having played a small number of cup games for them last year but without having yet appeared in the Premier League.
And the players that they already have at their disposal are a decent bunch. Morgan Gibbs-White was one of the star performers at the European Under-21 Championships in the summer, while Felipe is a solid defensive presence and, providing fit, Taiwo Awoniyi was in sparkling form towards the end of last season. The pieces are there to work with, though there is a risk that injuries could become a crisis, especially with FFP concerns very real following last summer’s unprecedented squad refresh.
- How beloved is the manager?
Steve Cooper has the closest bond with Nottingham Forest supporters of any manager since Brian Clough. That much seems pretty certain. But the very public–to the point of bordering on being ostentatious–declarations that he would be staying with the club had another face to them. They felt like very thinly-veiled threats. Twice Cooper veered dangerously close to the sack, and there is a concern that should the trigger be pulled this season a house of cards could come tumbling down.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
This is, of course, down to the reputation that precedes Forest owner Angelos Marinakis. The Olympiacos owner hasn’t been as eccentric as some had feared he might be since he took over running the club, but it says something for his reputation that Cooper has already done well to survive for as long as he has at The City Ground, even though one of his seasons there involved getting them promoted into the Premier League.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
After six years in the clutches of Macron, Nottingham Forest are back with Adidas this season and something about that (for those of us who’ve now entered our sixth decade, at least) feels right. It’s a relatively understated affair, and as per the first half of last season, is unsponsored.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Well, Nottingham Forest have won the European Cup, and then lends a certain air of expectation to a football club. There have been plenty of times over the last quarter of a century when the weight of that history has felt like an albatross round the club’s neck, but this history also gives Nottingham Forest a sense of scale and weight. Former European champions, you’ll never sing that, and the likelihood is that, for most of us, they’re right. When things are going badly they can definitely get spicy, but Forest are also blessed with plenty of articulate voices who can state the frustration of fans without resorting to abuse.
15th: West Ham United
- How’s the summer been?
May must feel like a long time ago, already. Winning the Europa Conference League was a huge achievement for West Ham, but with the departure of Declan Rice already more or less certain, it had a certain fin de siecle air to it. Rice has now gone for a nine-figure sum, and he’s not the only one. Manuel Lanzini has gone to River Plate on a free transfer. Very wise, too; what an opportunity! Gianluca Scamacca has gone to Atalanta for £27.5m. Manchester City are understood to be either set to make a bid or have already made a bid for Luis Pacqueta.
The eagle-eyed among you will already have noted that, even with a free transfer among them, that still amounts to more than £130m in transfer fees received this summer (which could go above £200m if they sell Pacqueta too), so we could expect a bit of investment in order to push the team back up the Premier League table, couldn’t we? Well, with Harry Maguire now believed to be joining them for £30m from Manchester United, unless the undisclosed fee paid to Northern Irish club Cliftonville for Sean Moore does turn out to be £170m, most of that money is still all present and correct.
Edit: I am now also aware of the James-Ward Prowse deal, which seems to have completed in the last ten minutes before this was published.
- How beloved is the manager?
It’s difficult to see where David Moyes goes from here. He got them to 6th place in the Premier League. He got them to 7th place in the Premier League. He brought them their first major trophy in 43 years. What else is it realistic to expect him to achieve at a club that is neither one of the Premier League’s Big Six or the Big Seven? It might also be instructive to get his unfiltered thoughts on the fact that so little of that £132.5m has been spent on players, with just a couple of days left before the start of the new season.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
The sale of Declan Rice wasn’t the only windfall that the club have enjoyed this year. That Europa Conference League win was worth just over £13m and a place in this year’s Europa League and will be worth millions, though the exact amount could vary greatly depending on how far they get in the competition. Winning it would be worth ITRO £20m.
So in other words, they’re not short a bob or two and this hasn’t gone unnoticed by supporters. With David Gold having died, further change could yet be on the way behind the scenes at the club. Whether supporters are satisfied by this summer remains to be seen, but there is little positive to show for it so far, for those whose primary concern isn’t the balance sheet.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
According to this summer’s received wisdom, Aston Villa are wearing a Burnley shirt this season, while Burnley are wearing a West Ham shirt and West Ham are wearing a Villa shirt.
(I disagree profoundly with West Ham wearing claret shorts, but the older I get the more difficulty I have in actually getting angry about these things.)
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
It does rather feel as though the owners of West Ham United might have forgotten something quite significant. When the pandemic struck in March 2020, the club was on the brink of complete mutiny, with demonstrations planned as the team atrophied on the pitch. West Ham flourished in an empty London Stadium, and by the time fans returned much of the vitriol against the owners had dissipated. But that state of affairs certainly doesn’t have to be indefinite, and it’s not difficult to imagine West Ham supporters starting to remember some of their older grievances should the team start the season slowly.
16th: Fulham
- How’s the summer been?
No-one wants to dig too deep into cliche when writing these things, but there’s an atmosphere that is feeling ready to curdle at Craven Cottage. The faintly unsettling aroma of Second Season Syndrome is in the air, though it is worth recalling how far Fulham have come over the last twelve months. A year ago, we were all rolling our eyes a little at the prospect of another go-around on the Fulham yo-yo, as the club bounced back up into the Premier League from the Championship. But as the yings to Fulham’s yang found their kinetic energy slowing as they reached the second tier again last season, Fulham’s came to a rest in the Premier League.
Last season had a lot to commend it, but this summer hasn’t been great at Craven Cottage. Alexandar Mitrovic reportedly wants out, and there is a man with the gait of someone who could cause significant difficulties for the club should he not get what he wants. Willian seems to have chosen to suckle at the Saudi teat despite having only signed a contract with Fulham a couple of weeks earlier. They missed out on Manor Solomon to Spurs despite him having been on loan there last season. And Palhinha has already got himself injured. Everybody knows that sinking feeling you get when you know that every single thing that possibly could go wrong is going wrong. That feeling is starting to emanate from Craven Cottage.
It’s certainly not all doom and gloom. Raul Jimenez has arrived from Wolves, while Calvin Bassey has signed from Ajax. Others will likely follow, certainly if those who’ve expressed dissatisfaction over the summer are persuaded to leave, but it’s difficult to avoid the feeling that Craven Cottage should have been a happier place this summer, considering that last season ended with Fulham’s highest league place in more than a decade.
- How beloved is the manager?
Marco Silva turned down £40m to coach Al-Ahli during the summer, and that surely says something. Much as we may applaud what may or may not have been his ethical compass for having turned them down, it’s difficult to avoid the furrowed brow that comes with acknowledgement of the fact that £40m is an awfully large amount of money and with the current state of things leaning towards the possibility of him being shorn of some of his best players by the end of the transfer window, one can only wonder what sort of activity Fulham would have to pull off in the window themselves to persuade him that he hasn’t made a very expensive mistake.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
The club’s owner Shahid Khan will have to deliver, should this be the case, because his ownership of the club is skating on pretty thin ice otherwise following grotesque price increases for the club’s new Riverside Stand. Fulham supporters have this reputation for being somewhat middle-class and polite, but they’ve got down and dirty and protested to save their club before, and if Khan doesn’t think that things could turn angry if things start to go seriously wrong at Craven Cottage this season, he could be in for a rude awakening on that subject.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
With red Adidas stripes on one black sleeve and white Adidas stripes on the other, there is a callback to 2005/06 about this season’s Fulham shirt. Somewhat surprisingly to an outsider–it really does feel like it should be more–this is only the third time that Fulham have worn white shirts with black sleeves, although it should be added that they did also wear one black sleeve for the 2004/05 season.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
“Lose their minds” would likely be a considerable exaggeration, but there is a feeling of growing disquiet at the directions that the club has been taking of late and if these directions result in last season’s excellent performance turning out to have been a complete one-season-wonder then yes, it is possible that there could be protest against him. But at the same time, Fulham still have a competitive squad for now. Sometimes, it feels as though these previews would be better written following the closure of the transfer window.
17th: Sheffield United
- How’s the summer been?
There’s cautious optimism and there’s cautious optimism, and considering that Sheffield United appear to only have buttons to spend in the transfer market this summer on the basis of previous overspending, they are being extremely cautious indeed this year. The budget quoted as being available to manager Paul Heckingbottom at just £20m, which will not buy you very much at this level of the game these days. As such, while there is obviously excitement at returning to the Premier League after a couple of years away, there is also a definite sense that 17th place in the table will do for the Blades, this season.
- How beloved is the manager?
Paul Heckingbottom is local and took the team to promotion into the Premier League. There isn’t much to not love about all that. But Heckingbottom is a long name manager rather than a big name manager, and it’s not difficult to imagine how the club could make a decision that his lack of experience in the top flight–his only previous Premier League experience is spending his first season as a trainee at Sunderland as they were relegated from it in 1997 and a brief period as interim manager as United were relegated in 2021–makes him look expendable should they have a slow start to the season.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Sheffield United have a turbulent past, when it comes to ownership. Prince Abdullah bin Musa'ad bought the club with Kevin McCabe in 2013 and then bought it outright following a High Court case in 2019. But this hasn’t really gone to plan. Abdullah doesn’t seem to have had the money to match his ambitions, and even though Sheffield United have now returned to the Premier League the club remains up for sale.
That previous sales to Henry Mauriss and Dozy Mmobuosi fell through in 2022 and 2023 respectively due to concerns about their financial standing is a good thing. It’s better that these things are caught early. Mauriss agreed terms to buy the club for £115m in April 2022 having attempted to buy Newcastle United beforehand. Earlier this year, it was reported that he was in prison for wire fraud. Mmobuosi’s bid collapsed almost exactly a year later amid rumours that the airline that he claimed to own might not have existed to the extent to which he had allowed the world to believe it did.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
It’s not my job to lecture Sheffield United supporters on what constitutes a Sheffield United kit and what doesn’t, but that isn’t going to stop me. My rule over this is fairly straightforward: do the red and white stripes have black pinstripes between them? If they do, it’s a Sheffield United kit. If it doesn’t you should probably double-check that you’re not watching Sunderland or Athletic Bilbao.
There’s no particular historical reason for this, it’s purely aesthetic, on my part. These narrow black stripes were first introduced in 1975 and have made sporadic appearances over the years, more commonly in recent years. The good news here is that this season’s kit has them, so Sheffield United will at least be returning to the Premier League in a Sheffield United kit. The bad news is that with less than a week to go until the start of the new season, they’re not fotr sale on the club’s official website.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
In a two-club city, it’s always possible that a disastrous season coupled with your local rivals doing brilliantly well could cause something of a meltdown among the club’s support. But both Sheffield clubs were promoted last season and Wednesday aren’t particularly expected to thrive in the Championship this season. As such, at least United supporters are unlikely to have to worry about their bitter rivals overtaking them, should they slide back down this season.
18th: Wolverhampton Wanderers
- How’s the summer been?
Umm. Well, let’s put it this way. Football editors the length and breadth of the country will be thanking their lucky stars that Wolves are the last alphabetical team in the Premier League, as this will have given them precious time to revise their predictions for the club for this season even lower than they already were following the events of the last 24 hours or so.
Matt Doherty has returned to the club after three years away with Spurs and Atletico Madrida. Boubacar Traore has arrived from Metz for £9.5m. But those two–plus Tom King from Northampton Town–are the sum total of summer signings at Molineux, while the club has lost 26 players, of which they may have received a transfer fee for eight. Those lost include Joao Moutinho, Conor Coady, Nathan Collins, Raul Jimenez and Ruben Neves. But even the player news palls in comparison with the latest manager news.
- How beloved is the manager?
What manager?
It's a coincidence, really, but this isn’t the first time that Julen Lopetegui has left a post shortly before a competition. On the 12th June 2018, with the men’s Spanish national team already in Russia for that summer’s World Cup, it was announced that Lopetegui would take over as the head coach of Real Madrid on a three-year contract after the conclusion of Spain’s involvement at the World Cup. The Spanish FA took umbrage at this, and the following day Lopetegui was dismissed from his job with the national team and replaced by Fernando Hierro.
There had been rumours swirling concerning Lopetegui and Wolves for some considerable time, that something at Molineux very definitely wasn’t right between the manager and the club’s ownership. This reached either a new high or a new low just a couple of days before the start of the season, depending on your perspective, with the news that Lopetegui has left Molineux.
It’s believed that they are intending to bring in Gary O’Neil to replace Lopetegui, fresh from doing kinda okay at Bournemouth. This would look like a decent appointment, were Wolves not in the predicament in which they now find themselves, but they are in a predicament, and the fact that this is all happening so close to the start of the season indicates that none of this was planned.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Wolves have spent a lot of money over the last few transfer windows, and they have broadly spent it badly. They’re now in the third year of their three-year cycle to satisfy the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules. In the first year of that cycle, Wolves announced losses of £45m in February 2023, and it has been estimated that losses for the second year will be between £60m and £70m.
Clubs are permitted to lose £105m over any rolling three-year period by the Premier League, so the figures for the last two years indicate that the club will have to make a profit over the next season, if they’re to avoid sanction. Small wonder so many players have left the club this summer while so few have joined.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
With a reasonably plain, v-necked shirt and few adornments–if anything, it resembles a couple of their kits from the mid to late 1980s–at least we might reflect that those running the club have got one thing right, this summer. At least they won’t be playing in a relegation kit. It’s definitely the best thing the club has done this year.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
By the looks of it, those who haven’t already started to are already giving off a feeling of having given up on this season. And that, arguably, is even worse.
19th: Everton
- How’s the summer been?
The point of these last-day survival escapades, if there is to be one beyond the sheer, visceral endorphin rush of relief, has to be to learn from the experience. But there is little evidence that Everton are learning anything whatsoever from what has started to become a trend.
This summer has seen a vast clearout of players, and many would argue not before time. Everton have shed twelve players this summer, but they only received a fee for three of them. Not for the first time of late, FFP seems to have been in the forefront of everybody’s mind.
There have only been two arrivals, and neither of them set the blood pumping. Ashley Young has signed on a free transfer from Aston Villa. He is 38 years old. Arnaut Danjuma has signed on a season-long loan from Villareal. He scored three league goals in the last two seasons.
What was notable about Everton’s last day escape against Bournemouth was how little joy there was over it all. There was a momentary burst of relief, but pretty soon the mood inside Goodison Park quickly turned to anger. At the end of what seems certain to be Everton’s last full season there, it seems absolutely plausible that they could end this season keeping their fingers crossed that there will be three teams worse than them.
- How beloved is the manager?
It’s probably fair to say that Sean Dyche is tolerated rather than loved by Everton supporters. There’s always going to be a degree of respect to any manager who keeps them in the Premier League, even if it requires a last day win to do so. It’s probably also reasonable to suggest that Dyche is a symptom rather than a cause. He was brought in precisely because Everton needed a relegation-avoiding specialist to dig them out of a hole in which they’d positioned themselves.
Under other circumstances, you’d think, ‘Well, here’s your chance to prove yourself at a bigger club’, but what realistic chance does Dyche have of doing anything much with a budget that seems to have been written in parentheses and at a club at which at which the atmosphere seldom these days seems to be less than mutinous?
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Oh, come on. This does need to be finished before the start of the new season, you know, and I am already more than 11,000 words into this. I’ll get a long read on it done in the next few weeks, I promise. Let’s just say, in the interests of brevity… bleak.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
Everton stick with Hummel for a fourth year, and this summer’s kit is probably the most understated of the four, with collars and cuffs adorned by the distinctive latticed ironwork of Goodison Park. The last time Everton wore a collared shirt was a decade ago, when they finished in 5th place in the Premier League. Different times, and it’s certainly cheaper than spending money they haven’t got on new players that perhaps wouldn’t work out anyway.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Fahaarrrkin BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
20th: Luton Town
- How’s the summer been?
Dreamlike and weird. Once the initial surprise of the fact that Luton Town had made it all the way to the Premier League started to wear off, the scale of the challenge ahead of them immediately looked very clear indeed. Having been a top flight when a lot of football journalists were teenagers, there was always likely to be considerable amounts of interest in this return, but difficulties began almost straight away when it became clear that the new facilities required for the Premier League were not going to quite be ready for the start of the new season, causing the postponement of their first home match of the new season against Burnley on the 19th August.
It’s not a strong look. Regardless of how unexpected last season’s promotion might have been, Luton had got into the Championship play-offs the year before and it’s fair to ask why this work hadn’t been carried out earlier. But it’s also a rare blot on the copybook of owners who’ve been demonstrably excellent for the club, and when we remember that they will be leaving Kenilworth Road for a new stadium in about three years’ time, that they didn’t want to spend £10m on bringing Kenilworth Road up to scratch until there was literally no alternative starts to make a bit more sense.
- How beloved is the manager?
Rob Edwards going to Luton when Nathan Jones decamped–disastrously, as things turned out–to Southampton was certainly a surprise. After all, Edwards had started the season at their bitter rivals Watford, where he lasted just weeks before that very familiar Pozzo itchy trigger-finger was pulled.
It is, therefore, reasonable to say that there was plenty of space into which Edwards could fail, but this didn’t happen and the result was one of the 2023/24 season’s few true feelgood stories. Few expect that Luton will survive the Premier League, but they’re here in the first place and that speaks volumes for the bravery of those who appointed him, because this was an appointment that might easily have backfired in everybody’s faces.
- What’s the club’s financial/ownership state?
Regardless of this summer’s little snafu, the ownership of Luton Town remain extremely popular with the club’s supporters, which is hardly surprising, considering the calibre of ownership they’d previously had this century.
- What’s this season’s kit like?
As somebody who celebrated their tenth birthday in the year that Luton last got promoted into the top flight in 1982, I am duty-bound to insist that the only acceptable Luton Town kit is white shirts with orange sleeves, white shorts and white socks, even though they’ve not worn this design in almost forty years and haven’t even worn white as their home kit in almost a decade and half. This season’s kit is a throwback to the Luton kit of 1974, when they were promoted to the top flight, and of 2014, when they were promoted back into the EFL after five years in the non-league game.
- How likely are the fans to lose their minds on social media?
Luton supporters are best advised to enjoy the ride this season. 17th or higher would be a considerable achievement.