Premier League returns with plenty of flash and excitement, but also some very real concerns

It’s backkkkkkkk.

I mean, technically it was back last week when we had the Community Shield but that feels more irrelevant than ever so this weekend is the start of the new season of English top-flight football.

The greatest show on turf returns a little over 80 days after it all came to a conclusion. Between the end of May and now we’ve seen Chelsea lift the Champions League trophy, a thrilling Euro 2020 tournament and a surprisingly enjoyable Olympic Games that featured victories for Brazil and Canada in the football. Oh, and Lionel Messi left Barcelona.

The little Argentine won’t be coming to the north of England to ply his trade, instead preferring a move to Paris but the world’s most popular football league isn’t wanting for lack of new superstars to cheer for.

Jadon Sancho is back after a very successful masters degree in Germany, swapping the light blue of Manchester for red in the process. He will very soon be joined by World Cup and multiple Champions League winner Raphael Varane. However on the other side of town the champions haven’t stayed quiet, adding Jack Grealish from Aston Villa in a record-breaking £100 million move and doing everything to pry Harry Kane from the clutches of Daniel Levy.

They’ve been busy down in London too. Ben White joined Arsenal to become the latest member of the £50 million club and Romelu Lukaku is poised to return to Chelsea in a move worth nearly double that. The former champions have been active too, Liverpool welcome back talisman Virgil van Dijk and will now partner him in the heart of defence with Ibrahim Konate, a new recruit from RB Leipzig.

For the first time in nearly a decade we could have a proper title race involving more than two teams - something we've not really had since the 2013-14 season, when four points separated Chelsea, Liverpool and eventual champions Manchester City at the top. It’s one of the most awkward things about the “most competitive league in the world” that bar Liverpool and City’s epic battle in 2018-19 the title has been a relatively forgone conclusion quite early on, give or take.

That should change this season. City will start as favourites but they will have to contend with a rejuvenated Liverpool, beefed up United and a Chelsea team who beat them in the Champions League final and now can add Lukaku to their ranks as well as having a full pre-season with Thomas Tuchel. Don’t count out Leicester City either, the Foxes have had a hugely impressive (and typically smart) transfer window and will be looking to finish at least ahead of both north London clubs.

Speaking of, it’s hard to see much joy for either side even though Bryan Gil should be a lot of fun and White should finally offer some defensive solidity. Still Arsenal fans can take heart in the fact that at least their club has won the off-season marketing awards with this beauty. Got to count for something, right?

Elsewhere Villa look an absolutely fascinating prospect in the post-Grealish era and newly-promoted Brentford and Norwich City look poised to make some real noise. Did somebody say Moneyball?

It should be great fun to watch, and if we’re not sure whether it is fun or not there will be countless pundits on TV, websites and social media telling us that it is. #BestLeagueInTheWorld and all that nonsense you know. But seriously, it should be good. There are only a handful of teams (as opposed to maybe 8-10) that you don’t want to see play. Conversely there are loads you’d pay money to see on your television and in person (hello Marcelo Bielsa!) and it’s truly remarkable to see smaller sides play in the way they do, not to mention refreshing.

But a few spectres do hang over the league and need to be talked about.

The first is racism. With no fans in stadiums it’s not something that we’ve had to really think about but the horrific racist abuse of Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, now all Premier League players, after they missed penalties in the final of Euro 2020 shows there is still a lot of work to do. Players will continue to take the knee before matches but there needs to be real and visible change here.

The Premier League and their clubs are right to aggressively challenge big social media companies, who do not take enough action. But there also needs to be tougher sanctions on clubs whose fans chant or tweet from the safety of a crowd, or their couch. Lifetime bans are a good start but more can be done. Force clubs to play behind closed doors or, in extreme circumstances, consider points deductions. It may seem like a big step but if their actions are costing their club points they may reconsider what they’re doing, clearly any sort of empathy or understanding does not exist for some. Plus punishments directed towards the club might give a needed jolt to those fans who hear things but do nothing.

Covid-19 is another possible issue with reports starting to trickle out that there are some players who are not vaccinated yet. (PSA: get vaccinated, it is saving lives and is the only way we will get out of the pandemic. In the UK you can find out where you can get vaccinated here). The bubble worked pretty well last season but with restrictions in England lifted, players will be free to do what they want.

In America the NFL have stated that games will not be rescheduled if they cannot be played due to Covid. They are trying to put pressure on players to get vaccinated in a country that, like the UK, has some serious Covid misinformation flying around. How clubs and the league deal with this issue will be fascinating and it should be worrying that not a lot has been said ahead of a new season in a country where there is still a lot of cases comparatively.

The announcement of random Covid screening and some clubs requiring proof of a negative test is a good first step. But there has to be the logistical infrastructure put in place otherwise we could have the same chaotic scenes that we witnessed ahead of the final of Euro 2020. Covid is real and whilst we are making some real progress it is not over yet, particularly with winter approaching (insert your own Game of Thrones joke here) and if football gets complacent it will backfire.

Over to the players and the workload concerns aren’t going anywhere after a condensed season and, for some, a brutal off-season. The first weeks we’re going to see some weird stuff (like we did last season) and we’re going to see a lot of injuries. Like above there has to be action. The scrapping of the League Cup seems an obvious place to start.

It’s also worth a quick hit on Brexit, which has definitely been lost in all the sporting, and global drama, of the past eight months. New rules will make it harder for clubs to sign players from abroad (hence a lot of English youngsters moving clubs this summer) and could become a real issue in the next year or two. On the plus side it might see more young English players given an opportunity, but realistically a lot of the effects long-term are still unknown.

We also don’t know how the financial situation will develop. It was astonishing, and frankly sickening, to see some of these global mega-brands try to take advantage of the government’s furlough scheme and some of the accounts showed just how haphazardly these teams are run. Another lockdown brought on by a serious mutation could be dangerous to some of these teams and the looming threat of what the new TV deal in 2025 looks like is very real, if still some way off.

Finally don’t think that the Super League has gone away. Andrea Agnelli and Florentino Perez were spotted in Barcelona this week and you don’t have to be Miss Marple to work out what they were talking about. Do you really think the big clubs care about any possible sanctions if they try to breakaway again? Spoiler, they don’t. If anything the sanctions now mean that it is more likely that we see a breakaway league form along with a cup competition. The battle for football isn’t over yet. Not while we allow billionaires, heartless corporations and countries to run riot with the game we love.

But for now let’s turn out attention to the Brentford Community Stadium where analytics will play host to… something. For 90 minutes at least, we can just enjoy football for what is supposed to be. There’s work to be done, but we deserve some fun as well.