THE SEASON STARTS HERE

If the new domestic season is anything like the last one, Fourfourtwo can’t wait.

At the top, the highest-quality title race in Premier League history – Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City 98 points, European champions Liverpool 97 points. In the Championship, the remarkable promotion race, featuring the roller-coaster ride of Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds. In Scotland, competitive Old Firm matches: Celtic two wins, Rangers two wins. In Birmingham, someone threw a cabbage at Steve Bruce.

So how do you follow that? In the nine months of mystery that lies ahead, we’ll find out.

How will Frank Lampard fare at Chelsea? He’s the first Englishman to manage one of the ‘Big Six’ since Tim Sherwood at Spurs – for his sake, let’s hope he lasts a little longer than Sherwood did.

Lampard will be anticipating big things from new arrival Christian Pulisic: in this issue, we meet the £58m signing tipped to become the greatest American player of all time. The secret of his success? Growing up next to a chocolate factory, of course.

Can Pep become only the second manager to win the top flight in three consecutive seasons? No one but Alex Ferguson has ever done it, stretching all the way back to 1888. We also feature Rodri, City’s new record signing.

If you’re not feeling quite so optimistic about your team’s prospects (the FFT staff includes supporters of Newcastle and Bolton, so we sympathise), have a read of our feature on the worst season ever: Doncaster Rovers 1997-98. No matter what happens, it can’t get any worse than that.

There’s plenty more in this issue, too. Harry Redknapp sits down to answer your questions, Tony Evans interviews Graeme Souness about his glory days at Liverpool, Rio Ferdinand ponders robot butlers, and Frank Skinner reviews Mick Mccarthy’s urinal skills.

FFT also travels to Luxembourg to meet the first British university team ever to play in the Europa League.

Then, when you’ve read all of that (and much more besides), get stuck into our additional pre-season preview supplement, profiling 104 teams in England and Scotland. We hope you enjoy reading this issue – we’ve certainly enjoyed making it. To buy Fourfourtwo for even less, and bag yourself some free earphones worth £49.99, check out our latest subscription offer on page 38.

Let the 2019-20 season begin!