The 2016/17 Premier League Season Promises to Be the Greatest Ever

If the 2016/17 Premier League season was a Hollywood blockbuster, they would have started teasing it months ago. Probably around the time of Manchester City’s announcement that Pep Guardiola would be taking charge at the club this summer. Or maybe even earlier, with the arrival of Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool last October. 

This season doesn’t require manufactured anticipation, though. The excitement, for fans of all teams, concerning the new campaign is utterly authentic. 

Never before have the days been counted down to a Premier League season with so much vigour. Leicester City hadn’t even tied the ribbons on their trophy when talk already turned to what England’s top flight would have in store for us all after the summer.

Well, summer is now over and it’s time to find out.

While last season saw the big boys humbled as the little team that could, Leicester, ran all the way to an astonishing title triumph, the stakes have been raised. Now the Premier League elite have renewed ambition, and renewed squads as well.

Hundreds of millions have been spent as English football’s arms race became something of a sporting space race—the space they’re racing for being the one at the top of the league table.

Focus has been drawn to Manchester, where Guardiola and Jose Mourinho have resumed their personal duel as the new managers of City and United respectively.

The temperature of the city’s derby has been cranked up in recent years, fuelled by the pipeline of Arabian-oil billions flowing straight to the Etihad Stadium, but boiling point will be reached this season. The risk of explosion is high and the threat of intrigue is guaranteed.

Will Guardiola be able to translate his unparalleled success in Spain and Germany into success in the English game? How will he fare in imposing his trademark tiki-taka ideology on a mishmash of a City squad? How many different sweater-shirt combos will he wear on the touchline over the course of the season? The Catalan has plenty of questions held against him ahead of the big kick-off on Saturday.

Mourinho, too, is under pressure to deliver following a catastrophe of a season last term. Sacked as Chelsea manager before the turn of the year, the Portuguese coach now finds himself at Old Trafford with something of a point to prove—and a club to restore to its previous …

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