The competition that moves the most money is moving lazily in August towards a start that takes place today at Old Trafford, where Manchester United welcomes Fulham in a duel that is presumed to be uneven to start the 33rd edition of the Premier League, the format born in 1992 so that the big English clubs could grow through the television rights of the first league that understood the effects of globalization on football. No one like the English has achieved a similar packaging for their competition, whose clubs earned more than 8,000 million euros in the last year, almost half in television rights. Although a cloud hangs over the theatre: in the 2022-2023 campaign the accumulated losses went beyond 800 million euros and last June six clubs (Everton, Nottingham, Chelsea, Newcastle, Aston Villa and Leicester) were warned that they should present income from the sale of players for their balance sheets to be sustainable. Nottingham and Everton already had points deducted in the last championship for this issue.
The warnings have sparked unusual restraint in an environment accustomed to being spendthrift. So far this summer the biggest transfer transaction has been the sale of Julián Alvarez, who has left Manchester City to join Atlético for a variable figure that could reach 90 million euros. Crystal Palace and Fulham have raised just over 50 million euros each for the sales of Olise and Palinha to Bayern. And Aston Villa even more for transferring Douglas Luiz and Moussa Diaby to Juventus and Al-Ittihad, respectively. To date the most expensive signing in the Premier League is striker Dominic Solanke, a rejection by Southgate for the national team, for whom Tottenham have paid 65 million euros to Bournemouth.
Everything seems to be on hold in a Premier League that begins with a giant asterisk, which can be deduced from the process that Manchester City is immersed in, the team that made history last spring by winning the fourth consecutive league for the first time in the history of English football. The champion of six of the last seven competitions will be awaiting from September the deliberations of an independent commission, external to the Premier, which will elucidate whether from 2009 to 2018 it committed up to 115 infringements of the competition’s financial rules. The forecast is that the verdict will be known within three or four months and could lead to anything from an acquittal with all favourable pronouncements to a relegation, including a deduction in the points of the championship classification that is now beginning. So things are, the ball is not just rolling on the grass.
On the pitch, City once again look superior. Last weekend they won the Super Cup, Pep Guardiola’s eighteenth title with the team where he is starting his ninth season and for which he has only signed Savinho from Girona, after selling players worth 116 million euros, including Olympic champion Sergio Gomez to Real Sociedad. They are the undisputed favourites. The rest are either contenders or at best outsiders in a league in which Aston Villa and Newcastle have thrived to put themselves at the level of a big six which until now included the two Manchester teams, plus Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool. Since 2009, only one of them, Chelsea, and on one occasion (2023), has fallen lower than eighth place.
Two Spanish coaches (five of whom are starting the championship; they occupy a quarter of the league’s benches) are leading the challenge of two classics to establish themselves among the greats. Unai Emery achieved it last year with an Aston Villa of author who entered the Champions League and is looking for reinforcements. Until now he has recruited youngsters such as the pivot Onana (60 million euros paid to Everton) or the left-back Maatsen (signed for 40 million from Chelsea). His path marks the one that Julen Lopetegui wants to follow at the thriving West Ham United. Chelsea and Manchester United, already under the baton of Ineos at Old Trafford, must delve deeper into their reconstruction. Others such as Arsenal and Liverpool will try to follow the route that separates them from the champions. In London, Mikel Arteta is focusing on his fifth season with an increasingly mature team to which he tries to add consistency in the back line with the Italian Calafiori and the return of the Dutchman Timber, injured a year ago. And he awaits Mikel Merino. Arne Slot arrives at Anfield, a Dutchman determined to deny the legend that the picturesque style promoted by his country’s coaches is failing in the prosaic Premier League.
Football is back in the country that invented it. Transitions, tacklingsintensity, connection with the crowd, a melting pot in which the champion’s associative style makes its way among concepts that allow less frippery with the ball. There is essence and soul in the English fields. And for now, this year, a gigantic asterisk.
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