Fresh legs in short supply as top clubs stagger to start line
World Cup and pre-season tours taking toll
STRAINED muscles, squeaky bums and announcements of exits by mutual consent used to be the sole preserve of frenzied end-of-season run-ins.
But there will be more than a few weary lungs and limbs – not to mention a major managerial hot-seat sitting vacant – when the new Barclays Premier League campaign kicks off at Old Trafford at a quarter to one today.
After the tumultuous summer of a World Cup campaign in which, where England players are concerned, it was emotions rather than energy levels that were depleted, marathon pre-season tours slung Champions League stars to all corners of the globe.
Louis van Gaal, the man charged with the task of rebuilding Manchester United into a title-chasing force after the abridged misery of the David Moyes regime, has already stated in no uncertain terms that such long-winded – and undeniably lucrative – summer tours are a thing of the past.
Van Gaal’s assertion will undoubtedly carry weight. Pity Tony Pulis, whose own concerns over the size of the Crystal Palace transfer budget have led to his departure from the club without a new ball being kicked.
Van Gaal’s insistence that the interests of his squad should triumph over those of conquering so-called emerging markets blew a breath of fresh air through a game which has been in- creasingly over-burdened by the interests of those in charge of the balance sheets.
With Chelsea easing back on their transfer outlays and Manchester City hardly breaking the bank by their own standards, it would be all too tempting to suggest the new season marks a shift in the kind of rabid fortune-building which has so frothed up previous campaigns.
Such a notion would be nonsense, of course. Jose Mourinho’s £32 million splurge on Diego Costa was hardly financed by sweeping up loose change around Stamford Bridge, and nor can we can expect Manuel Pellegrini’s hands to be tied when the next superstar is made available on the open market.
What the summer’s strictly relative financial prudence does allow is a fascinating insight into the minds of those at the respective helms of the teams we can safely assume will make this season’s Premier League title at most a fivehorse race.
Mourinho must believe – and is probably right to do so – that only problems with his front-line denied his side the title last term, and that Costa is the man to bridge that gap.
City fans concerned about any whiffs of complacency ought to be buoyed by the fact that Pellegrini has spent the summer focused on his problematic defence, with shrewd purchases of the likes of Porto’s Eliaquim Mangala and Bacary Sagna from Arsenal.
There is eminent good sense, too, in Arsenal’s acquisitions of Chilean World Cup star Alexis Sanchez and Newcastle full-back Mathieu Debuchy as the Gunners, boosted by an emphatic Charity Shield success over Pellegrini’s men, aim to prove once again that Arsene Wenger has not lost his touch.
Clearly Van Gaal has not stopped spending, and there remain too many imponderables swirling around Old Trafford to make a safe judgement on United’s prospective fate this season, although if the Dutchman did somehow steer them straight to the title, it would rank as arguably the greatest success of his storied managerial career.
Liverpool inadvertently endured a desperate World Cup, the group game between Italy and Uruguay effectively hastening Luis Suarez’s departure, and despite reaping a sizeable £75million fee from Barcelona, the problem for Brendan Rodgers remains quite how cash can replace a player regarded on his day to be the best striker in the world.
None of Rodgers’ slew of replacements set the pulses racing in quite the same way as Suarez did when he bore down on the Kop with the ball at his feet and the goal in his sight, and it can be expected that rather than repeat the heady title charge of the previous campaign, the Reds will be involved in a scramble with city rivals Everton and perhaps even United and Arsenal for that lucrative fourth Champions League place.
At the opposite end of the table, Nigel Pearson’s Leicester look well equipped to avoid the yo-yo fate of so many newly promoted teams, and a good opening performance against an Everton side banking on the continued emergence of the rambunctious Ross Barkley to lift them back towards the Champions League would lay down a sturdy marker.
Despite the relatively underwhelming appointment of Alan Irvine as their new head coach, West Brom have also bought well and will look for a flyer against a Sunderland side who need to do more to inspire a judgement that they can avoid another season of relegation struggle.
Never mind those end-of-season runins: from a quarter to one, squeaky bum time is back. And this time, irrespective of early-season exhaustion and whitehot hot-seats, it looks like for the next nine months it is here to stay.