The Big Kick-Off: Guardiola’s Here, Pogba’s Joined the Party, Mourinho’s Back

The moth had barely left Cristiano Ronaldo’s face when thoughts turned to the Premier League. Football is an impatient master.

A dour 2016 European Championship tipped its hat at the transcending power of the collective over the individual, largely due to the absence of anything remotely spectacular or sexy. In essence it was the sporting equivalent of gushing earnestly at being served a vegetarian meal at a dinner party, while secretly craving steak.

After the polite grey slab of football that was Euro 2016, the return of the Premier League should provide the perfect antidote. The gruel of international fare makes the gaudy yet comforting allure of Premier League football ever more appealing, like slipping into a T-shirt after a day in a suit.

Unapologetic in being bigger, bolder and brasher than ever before, English football has come out swinging haymakers after being told to sit in the corner by the Bundesliga and La Liga in recent years. It’s a good job hipsters wear ironic glasses.

When Jose Mourinho signs Paul Pogba for Manchester United at a world-record fee, it’s safe to say the Premier League has its swagger back.

The hype around a new Premier League season is traditionally so overwrought and wired, it is usually the case it has become a parody of itself before a ball has been kicked. The continued success of Sky Sports News owes a debt to its short-lived predecessor The Day Today.

With broadcasters like circus ringmasters on acid, whipping crowds into a frenzied state of open-mouthed wonderment before anything has even happened, is it any wonder that when the actual games kick off it’s all a little underwhelming? An elephant lifting a man with its trunk is impressive, less so when it has been billed as the greatest stunt of all time.

Yet this season seems a little different. English football is operating in a slipstream of goodwill on the back of Leicester City’s title-winning campaign. The Premier League is still a beast, but having been slain by little old Leicester, it feels a little friendlier, somehow less corporate. Of course it isn’t, but it just goes to show how a little romance can thaw even the chilliest of hearts.

Let’s not go soft just yet, it’s far from completed its metamorphosis into the BFG, and it would be fallacious to the point of being fraudulent to label it a dream factory on the back of Leicester’s fairytale alone. However, any league in which as many as seven of its 20 members could conceivably win it (albeit with a fair wind behind them), holds genuine appeal for players, managers, supporters and neutrals alike.

It’s not unimaginable any of Leicester (although Claudio Ranieri has said of his side’s chances of retaining the title, per the Guardian: “It’s easier that ET comes to Piccadilly Circus”), Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool or Chelsea could be crowned champions in May.

Claudio Ranieri: There is more chance of ET landing in London than #LCFC retaining the Premier League ? ? pic.twitter.com/3uBand1ZQf

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) August 11, 2016

If little old Jose and Manchester United can set themselves brave if “unrealistic targets” of the title, according to Sky Sports, daring to dream on the back of spending only around £400 million over the past three years, why can’t other minnows?

This season it is likely to be a league of no single outstanding team, but numerous good ones in transition. And that’s all the better for a diverse and open title race.

Ranieri has the rare luxury of being a manager allowed to tell his own supporters at the start of the season that it won’t be as good as the last one. Several bookmakers have the champions as more likely to go down than retain the title.

Both Manchester clubs and Chelsea would struggle to be worse than last season, but given Leicester have only lost N’Golo Kante, seem to have bought well and, for now, have managed to keep hold of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, there’s no reason why at least a top-six finish shouldn’t be obtainable. Juggling domestic exertions with European ones will be Ranieri’s biggest headache.

The confluence of trends coursing through the Premier League at present makes it irresistible. It has become the league of the Galactico coach. It has become the league of choice for Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola and Chelsea boss Antonio Conte. It has become the league of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. It has become the league of the world’s most expensive player. It has become the league where a team can finish 14th one season and win it the next.

Manchester United have spent £89M on Paul Pogba despite mixed reviews for the product… pic.twitter.com/hWjLx7GnnM

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) August 9, 2016

Maybe saying only seven teams can chase for the title is ungenerous?

Gone are the days when the title race was a two-horse race, and jockeying for a UEFA Champions League spot only ever involved four jockeys.

Talk of austerity has been banned in most boardrooms, with a good number of Premier League clubs spending their portion of an eye-watering television deal as though beholden to the same stipulations as those outlined in Brewster’s Millions. The film’s premise is Brewster is challenged to either take $1 million upfront, or spend $30 million within 30 days to inherit $300 million.

It’s unconfirmed at the time of going to press whether the chief executive who sanctioned a £28 million bid for Yannick Bolasie is in fact Richard Pryor. The game will be up when Sean Dyche announces he is to quit Burnley to run for Mayor of New York City.

West Ham United spent the summer bidding on half of Europe’s eligible strikers, hell-bent on smashing their transfer record. Rumour has it they were so desperate that they knocked on Marco Boogers’ caravan door, albeit to no avail. Eventually they got the record they were after, paying £20.5 million for Swansea City’s Andre Ayew, in one of those rare transfers where it’s difficult to work out who got the better end of the deal, if anyone.

New Everton boss Ronald Koeman has already reinvested around £12 million of the John Stones windfall in acquiring Swansea City captain and talisman Ashley Williams. Without wishing to be churlish about Stones’ potential, which is considerable, Everton will now almost certainly have a stronger defence this season than last. 

After a summer of spending across the whole division that has evoked the last days of Rome, at least half of those players transferred must be thinking, “I’m not worth half that (but the signing on fee was nice).”

As Woody Allen once sagely remarked, …

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