KEIR RADNEDGE COMMENTARY —- Twenty-two long years of painful near-misses, tactical reinventions and runners-up finishes . . . when the final whistle echoed across the Premier League back in May, the ghost of Arsène Wenger’s 2003–04 Invincibles had been officially laid to rest.

Mikel Arteta, once the apprentice learning his coaching craft alongside Pep Guardiola, joined his players and fans after the climactic 2-1 win at Crystal Palace in celebrating Arsenal’s ascent back to the pinnacle of English football.

The long wait ended with an overwhelming sense of vindication. Yet, as the new Premier League campaign dawns, a heavier reality confronts Arteta’s champion squad: winning a league title is one thing but defending it in the most pressured league in world football is a different monster. Arne Slot could not manage that at Liverpool and the failure cost him his job.

Arteta, encouraged by a decisively easy 3-0 opening win over Coventry after Community Shield victory over Manchester City, can look out at a landscape of rivalry transformed beyond recognition.

The traditional giants have not simply responded to Arsenal’s triumph by signing players, they have undertaken a fundamental reset. No fewer than nine of the 20 Premier League clubs will kick off the season with a new manager standing in the technical area.

With tactical masterminds taking over at Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Tottenham, Arsenal’s title defence takes place amid an unprecedented managerial revolution. Only twice before has a new season been marked by such managerial turbulence.

For Arsenal much may depend on theircontinuing success at corners and free kicks. Last season Arsenal scored 25 goals from set pieces (excluding penalties), the highest total in the division. These included a single-season record with 19 goals scored from corners against opponents who complained about the Gunners’ bullying of goalkeepers on and around their goal-line.

Rules check

Referees are being instructed by the rebranded Pro Ref [Professional Game Referees] to control more strictly ‘blocking’ of defenders and obstruction of goalkeepers by players who have no intention of playing the ball. In line with new international standards players who receive on-field injury treatment must leave the pitch for at least one minute and a five-second countdown and restart reversal will be decreed to punish delays of throw-ins and goal-kicks.

Hopefully this will cut the prevalence of players for teams feigning injury so the coaching staff can relay new tactical orders. Arsenal were not the only offenders last season, so were Manchester City who are expected to be one of their major title challengers along with Liverpool and maybe Chelsea.

City are one of nine clubs beginning the 2026-27 season with a different man in the dugout than the one who ended the last campaign. The only other seasons which started with so many men making their managerial debut for top-flight clubs were 1888-89 and 1946-47. Those were very different times, one the inaugural season of league football and the second following the second world war.

Enzo Maresca is the man to whom City turned after the end of Guardiola’s all-conquering 10-year reign. Maresca knows the City set-up intimately after working as Guardiola’s assistant during the club’s treble-winning 2022-23 campaign. He has inherited a squad overflowing with world-class talent but cannot afford to waste any time establishing his own authority.

Record man

City won the FA Cup and League Cup last season and pushed Arsenal all the way in the Premier League. Their main summer signing has been Elliot Anderson for a club record £116m and Maresca has insisted that everyone has an equal opportunity to claim a starting place. He said: “The only thing I have told the players is that this is a reset. All of them start at the same level. Let’s see how we go.”

Maresca is not expected to raise a tactical revolution. His City will maintain the style which evolved after the arrival of Erling Haaland in 2022 with greater directness and use of wingers leavening their original possession game.

However Liverpool are entering a new tactical era. The Reds, wanting to revive high-octane Klopp-era football, have replaced Slot with Andoni Iraola. It is a gamble. Xabi Alonso had appeared an obvious choice with his knowledge of Liverpool as a player. Liverpool dithered so Chelsea stepped in and now Alonso’s fellow Basque follows in the intimidating footsteps of Shankly, Paisley, Dalglish, Klopp and Co.

Iraola impressed with fearless football over his three seasons at Bournemouth. However he has never managed a club of Liverpool’s size or expectations and he takes over a squad in transition. Liverpool have lost three experienced men in top-scoring Mo Salah plus defenders Ibrahima Konate and Andrew Robertson. In addition Iraola’s work has been underlined by the long-term injuries of Hugo Ekitike and short-term absences of Joe Gomez, Giovanni Leoni and Jeremy Jacquet.

Emergency signing

An initial emergency solution has been the signing on loan of Uruguay defender Ronald Araujo from Spanish champions Barcelona. This has been an unwanted distraction for Iraola as he seeks to succeed tactically where Slot failed in finding the most effective role for Florian Wirtz.

Behind the ‘big three’ Chelsea and Alonso will have a particular advantage in the absence of European competition. This will permit him more time than his rivals to work with his players on the training ground.

This is important both for the club, after last season’s managerial chaos surrounding Maresca and the short-lived Liam Rosenior, but also for Alonso. His success in guiding Bayer Leverkusen to their historic double domestic success was followed by a disastrous seven months at Real Madrid. Hence he must rebuild his reputation quickly at a complex and notoriously impatient club.

Chelsea will expect an instant return on their heavy spending. The Blues smashed their transfer record yet again with a £117m deal for Aston Villa’s attacker Morgan Rogers. He should be the focal point of Alonso’s attack alongside Portuguese prodigy Geovany Quenda (£44m from Sporting CP), French defender Maxence Lacroix (£52m from Crystal Palace), and Atalanta’s versatile wing-back Marco Palestra (£49m).

Experience and stability will be provided by veterans Jordan Henderson (from Brentford) and 35-year-old Danny Welbeck who was Brighton’s 13-goal top scorer last season.

Betting adverts

Chelsea are one of two clubs without a main shirt sponsor. This follows the Premier League’s ban on advertising by betting companies to meet increasing concern about both legality and social impact. Adverts are now permitted only on sleeves and training kits. Also missing a shirt sponsor are newly-appointed Oliver Glasner’s Nottingham Forest.

Adidas still kits out eight clubs followed by Nike and Hummel (three apiece).

The Adidas ‘stable’ includes Manchester United who expect to be among the challengers for a top-four place, at the very least, under the management of Michael Carrick. He was confirmed in charge after a successful spell as caretaker which included guiding United back into the Champions League.

Yet another late-term arrival last season was Italian Roberto De Zerbi who rescued Tottenham from the threat of relegation on the final day of the season. Spurs have spent £237m on new players so far this summer, second only to Chelsea (£336m). Not so profligate have been Aston Villa. Manager Unai Emery responded to losing Rogers by spending more than £50m on Johan Manzambi from Freiburg but Villa have to be careful not to breach UEFA’s fairplay rules again.

As usual, the three promoted clubs will be favourites for instant relegation. That means Coventry, Ipswich and Hull. However Sunderland and Daniel Farke’s Leeds upset such predictions last season, underlining the surprise factor which maintains the Premier League’s popularity around the world.

Last season the Premier League attracted a cumulative worldwide audience of 15,380,351 fans, decisively ahead of the Bundesliga (11,830,600), Italy’s Serie A (11,662,951) and Spain’s La Liga (11,406,042). This owes everything to the high competitive standard throughout the league, however many managers and players come and go.

As Arteta says every year: “This season will be tougher than the last.”

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