The 2016/17 season is here. Get ready to witness what could be the greatest, most star-studded Premier League in history.
Right across the board, you have managers who are superstars in their own right, and players who come in with record fees on a hype train to match.
We start however with what is already there: the sheer miracle of last season in Leicester City and the breakout stars from Tottenham Spurs.
What a 2015/16!
Leicester City Football Club won the title last season. File Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The stories that came out last year took the world of football, and mainstream sports by storm. A newly promoted team in their second season, having only avoided relegation the previous year, won it all! Leicester City Football Club (LCFC) did the unthinkable by winning the league. They now find themselves in an English League that has muscled up heavily. The likes of Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez have chosen to stay to show a lot of passion and ambition to see where it is that they can take this dream.
A Champions League Final with FC Barcelona perhaps awaits the Legends Of King’s Road?
Also read: The meteoric rise of Leicester City and the men behind it
N’Golo Kante made his exit and bolstered a Chelsea side that already looks like Champions.
Behind LCFC for a large part last season were Tottenham Spurs with players like Harry Kane living up to their potential, Pochettino laying his stake as one of the most talented young managers in the League and wonderkids like Eric Dier, Delle Ali spurring all the way to the Euros for England, proving that Britain’s own production of homegrown stars is still in order.
You have to look no further than Kevin De Bruyne, who, mind you, was in his first season as a Manchester City player and performed like a seasoned vet, to see that the League didn’t suffer from a lack of bad players last season. Multiple clubs like Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United just lost their form and gave way to a host of new contenders to step up, which is absolutely brilliant for the game.
A Game of Thrones?
Former Italian national team manager Antonio Conte will manage Chelsea FC this season. Photo: Nazionale Calcio/Flickr
Antonio Conte, former Italian national team manager and the man who orchestrated the Renaissance Of Turin, brings all that brilliance to replace a well-known Portuguese at Stamford Bridge, the home ground of Chelsea FC as the team’s manager.
This well-known Portuguese called Jose Mourinho, on the other hand, replaces Louis Van Gaal at Manchester United. His arch nemesis Pep Guardiola, a man whose trophy cabinet now touches the roof of his house, joins local rivals Manchester City–all of whom join an impassioned Jurgen Klopp in an impassioned Liverpool.
And yes, then there are Pochettino, Wenger and Ranieri already very much present. It’s like Game Of Thrones, really!
These men alone currently make the Premier League the best in competitiveness, drawing money across the globe and the league to watch. Projections are already touting a record TV viewership and breaking of attendance records. Perhaps the only manager out there with the most marquee value not in the league is Diego Simone.
And there were murmurs of him joining Chelsea before Conte was appointed.
The Transfers
Leicester’s Jamie Vardy rejected an offer by Arsenal. The decision was ‘easy’, he says. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
We will go club by club to really underscore the gravity of the matter but here are some that made the most buzz.
While it would be insensitive to the fans, I feel like giggling to see Jamie Vardy rejecting Arsenal. But come on, if that doesn’t tell you that Arsenal is now perceived as the cream of mediocrity, nothing does.
I mean, when a one hit season wonder (so far) does that, it is telling as to how much top players are repelled by the image that the Gunners have carved for themselves in recent times.
Sign a great striker already!
The signing of Zlatan Ibrahimović by Manchester United, for free, may I add, so far has been the biggest news at Old Trafford, the club’s home ground. Jose and Zlatan reunite to reinvigorate a Manchester United squad that has been banished into the wilderness by three years of under-performance, changes at the helm and a ghastly run of results that the team need to own up to.
This team still had world class players that did not step up when the moment came. The drop in confidence was clear to see as the media ran amok parading the fall of the most famous club in the world.
King’s Stadium at Leicester will host the opening match between Hull City and Leicester City on August 13, 5.15 pm NST. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
That all changes now and with a Community Shield under their belt and the £89 million worth transfer of Paul Pogba (see #Pogback).
The lynch pin of the LCFC setup, a man who was voted The Player’s Player Of The Year last season, N’Golo Kante is the biggest exit from King’s Road so far after his transfer to Chelsea. In him, Chelsea bolster a midfield that already compromises of Matic, Willian, Fabregas, Hazard, Pedro and Oscar. And yet still, he will be on the first team line up sheet because as Ranieri said, in him, Chelsea have signed two players. A man whose passing and tackling were in a league of their own.
As we reach closer to kick off this weekend, we’ll go more in depth and build up to what is the biggest Premiere League season in history !
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