By Kabelo Mafiri
The English Premier League is back in action this coming Friday, the 11th of August 2023, and the league's first action will be kick-starting at Turf Moor, where Burnley FC (the newly promoted side) will be taking on the defending champions Manchester City. The blockbuster games to look forward to are Newcastle against Aston Villa, Brentford against Spurs, and lastly, the Super Sunday special of Chelsea against Liverpool. The opening weekend will round off at Old Trafford as The Red Devils will take on Wolves.
Figure 1 Arsenal seems to be the favourites to compete for the league after their excellent pre-season games, the win against Man City in the Community Shield cup this past Sunday, as well as the new signings that they have made.
Well, it is no secret that Arsenal made some quality acquisitions over the summer transfer window whereby they signed the likes of Kai Havertz from Chelsea, and Declan Rice from West Ham Utd with a club record fee of 105 million pounds. Making him the most expensive English player in history, followed by Jack Grealish, to strengthen their midfield department. After those two quality signings, Mikel Arteta also went for Jurrien Timber from Ajax Amsterdam to beef up his defence coming into the new season. It honestly looks like the Arsenal management has put their faith in Arteta as the right man to bring back the glory days. Hence, they have shown him an abundance of support in terms of acquiring the players he wants. With regards to that, it comes back to Arteta being under pressure from the management to win some silverware in the new season as evidence of progress. Still, most importantly, the Arsenal team is surely eyeing the league title as they finished 2nd to Man City last season after leading the log for 10 months.
Therefore, Arsenal will be the team to watch based on the stats, and how they have done their business in the transfer market. Most definitely, the treble champions Man City will also be the favourites to win the league title after their impressive run last season and after acquiring top-quality players this transfer window in Mateo Kovacic and Jasko Gvardiol. Both players don’t only bring quality to the team, but they also bring depth that will create competition in the team and help the team in reaching its full potential. Therefore, that is another exciting prospect that makes Man City one of the favourites.
Another team to look forward to is Liverpool FC because they are a formidable team that competed with Man City for the past 6 seasons and were a team to play against in Europe for the past 5 seasons. However, last season was a season to forget for Jurgen Klopp’s men because they were so inconsistent and easy to play against, whereby they lost crucial games that cost them not to qualify for the UEFA Champions League this season. Hence, Klopp and his technical staff decided to do a midfield rebuild whereby they acquired the services of Alexis Mac Allister from Brighton FC and Dominik Szoboszlai from RB Leipzig as two top talents to bring versatility and quality in terms creating scoring opportunities in Klopp’s team and decided to let Fabinho, Keita, Chamberlain, Firmino and club legend Jordan Henderson leave as a matter of their midfield rebuild. Therefore, there are also several sources that confirm Liverpool is in talks with Romeo Lavia from Southampton, as the Merseyside club looks set to have the Belgian international as their newest addition to complete the puzzle.
Figure 2 The English Premier League log, as we anticipate another exciting season full of drama, highs, and lows, but most importantly, pure passion and love for the game.
The English Premier League looks set to give us another season of unmatched entertainment, mixed emotions, and pure passion. It is the world’s best football league because of its element of unpredictability, high-quality football all around and constant entertainment throughout the season.