City's Arne Slot and new stars: will this season's Premier League surprise us? | Premier League

Ihe Premier League It promotes itself on its competitiveness. It is, as the cliché goes, the league in which, on its day, anyone can beat anyone else. Historically, it has been justifiably proud of the way it has regulated the distribution of broadcast rights (far more so than equivalent leagues across Europe), so that the champions receive no more than 1.8 times as much as the team that finishes last.

So when the high priests of statistics gathered by the great oracle Opta performed their incantations this week and asked the supercomputer to predict the unpredictable and give its forecast for the coming season, what was its gnomic response? What cryptic and hidden prophecies did it offer the diviners to examine for meaning? There is an 82% chance that Manchester City will be champions again.

Football is not – yet – about statistics. It is not simply about taking every variable, feeding it into an algorithm, pressing a button and getting a result. Last season City won an unprecedented fourth consecutive league title, their sixth in seven seasons; the overwhelming likelihood is that this season they will extend that run to five consecutive titles and seven in eight years. The Premier League, for all its importance, is no different to any other league; just as Pep Guardiola turned the Bundesliga into a monopoly, so too has he turned English football into City and the rest.

Even last Saturday in the Community Shield, With nine first-team players missing from the starting XI, there were times in the game when City were incredibly good. James McAtee looks set to step up. The machine is still ticking and, even if for some reason it were to fail, there is clearly money available for improvements.

And this is, really, a story about money. Guardiola is brilliant, arguably the greatest manager of all time, but money is the reason he is at City; it is the reason he has such high-quality parts to work with; it is the reason City have gone from a lovable laughing stock to a crushingly efficient machine in two decades.

Whether they did so within the rules may become clear this season, with the hearing into the 115 charges brought against them by the Premier League. It is apparently scheduled to start next month The verdict is expected to be announced early next year. Whatever happens this season, that will be the key event.

It is 18 months since the Premier League brought the charges, which relate to alleged breaches of financial fair play rules between 2009 and 2018 and alleged failures to comply with the investigation. If City, who deny all charges, are convicted, they could be docked points or face relegation, but this is vitally important even beyond the impact it may have on them. With an investigation also underway into Roman Abramovich-era Chelsea, the Premier League faces a huge credibility crisis. It is not just about the verdict; it is about how the investigation is perceived to have been conducted. Is football capable of self-regulation? And, if it is, what will that look like?

Perhaps the audience will galvanise City, perhaps it will prove a distraction. If they falter, who could take advantage? If Arsenal, who have increased their points tally in every season since 2019-20, could improve for a fifth consecutive season, reaching 90 points or more, they would have a great chance even if City prove to be as formidable as ever. Ricardo Calafiori as a centre-back operating as a wing-back – a strategy Mikel Arteta seems to love – strengthens the team rather than necessarily the starting XI, while the lack of a top-level goalscorer will dominate the discussion as soon as Arsenal fail to win a game in which they control possession.

Liverpool, with Arne Slot as manager and Michael Edwards as executive director of football, are yet to make any signings. They have contractual issues to sort out with Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk, but they have looked good in pre-season. Although they probably still need a holding midfielder, as The persecution of Martin Zubimendi It has been suggested that the last two seasons saw a rejuvenation of the team's front two-thirds; what undermined them at the end last season was an inability, especially against City and Manchester United, to finish off key games they dominated.

According to Opta, no other team has more than a 0.2% chance of winning the league, but the fight for the Champions League places should be intriguing with five serious contenders: Aston Villa, who will have to deal with the pressure of the Champions League; Tottenham, who have signed Dominic Solanke but need to figure out how to defend set pieces; Chelsea, who can’t stop signing players; Manchester United, who can’t stop signing players who have played in Holland; and Newcastle, who would love to sign players but are concerned about profit and sustainability rules.

Crystal Palace, somewhat surprisingly, have a 4% chance of making the top four, despite the sale of Michael Olise and interest in Marc Guéhi and Eberechi Eze. Oliver Glasner impressed hugely in his three months in charge last season, and Ismaïla Sarr, Daichi Kamada and Chadi Riad look sensible attempts to plug potential gaps. West Ham have made promising signings, although Niclas Füllkrug, Crysencio Summerville, Max Kilman and Aaron Wan-Bissaka look more suited to a David Moyes side than Julen Lopetegui, who replaced him as manager in the summer.

The supercomputer sees Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton as the teams most likely to be relegated, as are the three clubs that were promoted last season. And that is the sad reality of modern football: no matter what data Opta feeds into its predictor, the most important determinant of final position will always be money.

Whatever the outcome of the City hearing, that is the most important question the Premier League and football must address: how can revenue be distributed and investment in the game regulated so that future seasons do not start with a team that has an 82% chance of winning the title? Because that level of predictability is good for no one.