Premier League preview. Will it be 3 in a row for City

Tonight sees the start of the Premier League season with Liverpool taking on last season's Championship winners Norwich at Anfield. The expectations for both teams are completely different. While Norwich is playing for survival and expecting to struggle this season after two Cardiff and Fulham were relegated last season despite getting promoted from the Championship. However, Liverpool is going all-in for the Premier League after getting denied by City on the final day of last season. However, there could be trouble for them as they have to contend with the Champions League as they defend their title after beating Spurs in June's final. Also, they have to take part in the FIFA Club World Cup in December in Qatar as the country prepares for the World Cup in 2022. Luckily they don't enter until the Semi-final stage which gives them only 1 or 2 matches in the competition.

Liverpool's star quartet

The other title contenders are current Champions Manchester City as they look to create a dynasty and their 5th Premier League title in the decade. One of the big headlines was the departure of captain Vincent Kompany as he now takes over the managers job at Anderlecht. They also sold Fabian Delph to Everton and also Danilo to Juventus. They decided to upgrade their defence and bring in a replacement in Angelino from PSV Eindhoven and Rodri from Atletico Madrid. Though the question is will city go for the title again or throw everything at bringing the Champions League to the Etihad.

Another of the contenders is Tottenham. The Spurs are looking to build on the Europe exploits from the last season after getting to the final but losing. After not spending a single penny in either of the transfer windows last season as they finished constructing their stadium, they started splashing the cash and brought in Tanguay Ndombele from Lyon for 55 million pounds. They also acquired Fulham's star of last season Ryan Sessegnon for 25 million pounds which helped out the midfield and defence. However, they ended up selling Kieran Trippier to Atletico Madrid for 20 million pounds.

Chelsea lifting the Europa League trophy

Another one of the contenders is Chelsea who created headlines by bringing back legend, Frank Lampard to manage the team after his work with Derby in the championship. After last seasons failure with Maurizio Sarri which came to a head at the Carabao Cup final when he got into an argument with his goalkeeper. He has to do it with a limited squad and without Eden Hazard after he was sold to Real Madrid. They also sold Gary Cahill to Crystal Palace for free and also David Luiz to Arsenal for 8 million pounds. Their part of Sky's first Super Sunday of the season against Manchester United.

Aston Villa back in the top division.

Now that all the contenders have been mentioned and one of the promoted teams have been mentioned, its time for the other teams to be mentioned starting with the rest of the promoted teams. One of the teams that got promoted was Aston Villa. Villa spent more than the rest of the Premier League in the transfer window with nearly 100 million pounds on players like Jota from local rivals Birmingham City, Ezri Konsa from Smith's former team Brentford, Anwar El Ghazi from Lille and Tom Heaton from Burnley. Another of the promoted teams was Sheffield Unites as they take on their first season in the Premier League since 2007 and have last season LMA Manager of the season at the helm. One of the signings they made was the return of a former player in Phil Jagielka.  For both teams, the challenge will be to stay up especially Villa after spending a huge amount of money.

Spurs looking to build on last season

The other two contenders are Arsenal who is looking to build on their own European success getting to the Europa League final last season. They spent money on Gabriel Martinelli, Nicolas Pepe from Lille and even weakened Celtic by taking Kieran Tierney on Deadline Day along with David Luiz in an attempt to strengthen their defence. However, they lost Arron Ramsay to Juventus, Alex Iwobi to Everton and Lorent Koscielny to Bordeaux.

Manchester United are the other contender with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. They spent money on signing Harry Maguire from Leicester, Daniel James from Cardiff and Aaron Bin-Wassaka from Crystal Palace. However, on deadline day, they lost Romelu Lukaku to Inter Milan for 74 million pounds. The problem for United is that they haven't had a team that you could call challengers for a long time and it looks like they might not have enough to get themselves in the hunt again this season.

Leicester
One of the teams that have now got respect is Leicester City after their famous Premier League victory 4 years ago. However last season took on an emotional tribute after losing their influential owner in a helicopter crash after a match and having to change manager with Brendan Rodgers coming in for the end of the season and winning 5 matches in 10. He decided to improve the squad by buying Ayoze Perez from Newcastle and Youri Tielemans from Monaco and losing two of their winning squad in Shinji Okazaki and Danny Simpson and also losing Harry Maguire to Manchester United.

Steve Bruce as Newcastle manager

Newcastle 
Newcastle has become a team that has been a headlining favourite especially in the last few years with owner Mike Ashley and him buying companies like House of Fraser and the fans not happy with Ashley not using his money to invest in the clubs future. This came to a head when Rafa Benitez left to China and had to bring in Steve Bruce. They also lost Perez to Leicester however on deadline day they signed West Bromwich Albions' Dwight Gayle to replace him.

London and South Coast
Watford has been one of the teams that you could never predict because of how they are going to play with being contenders for Europe spots one season and having to battle for survival another season but always scrape their way through. West Ham is another team that is always undecided because of the quality of the teams changing every year. Crystal Palace is another team that keeps battling with survival and have lost Bin-Wassaka but managed to hold off bids for their star Wilfrid Zaha and keep him until January at least.

Southampton's new signing Che Adams

Bournemouth is in their 5th season in the top flight and despite losing Tyronne Mings to Villa. They bought Lloyd Kelly and Jack Stacey to strengthen their defence and Dutch winger Arnaut Danjuma for 13.7 million dollars. Southampton is looking to improve their position and bought Birmingham's top scorer last season Che Adams and Danny Ings from Liverpool. They did lose Charlie Austin but are praying that Adams could replicate the production he had last season for Birmingham. Meanwhile, Brighton is starting with a new manager as Chris Houghton was sacked at the end of last season and new manager Graham Potter went from a Europa League campaign with Ostersunds to the Premier League in two years. Potter decided to make changes with new players of his own Leandro Trossard and Neal Maupay coming from Genk and Brentford to give extra help to their star for the last few years Glenn Murray.

Burnley and Wolves
Burnley last season had a hangover from their short-lived European journey and it looked like they just couldn't hit the ground running. This year they have made changes by bringing in Jay Rodriguez and Erik Peters from West Brom and Stoke, however, they lost Jon Walters and Peter Crouch to retirement. So the objective for Burnley is to finish in the top 10. Meanwhile, Wolves have had their season start early as they have been in the qualifying stages of the Europa League. To help they spent money on Raul Jiminez, Leander Dendoncker and even brought in a Real Madrid defender on loan to help strengthen the squad for what could be a long season for them.

I don't always make predictions so I'm not going to do it today. All I hope for is another top-class battle for the title just like last season. I'll be back with more Premier League reports soon.

KRO Mark