Pep Guardiola may be gone from the Premier League but his shadow remains. Footage from a new Manchester City documentary has revealed the desperate and unusual lengths the great Catalan went to in a bid to energise and motivate his players over the course of his final two seasons.Watching a genius struggle for new ideas is painful but insightful. Every manager in the game reaches a stage where old methods fail, players stop hanging on every word and the stresses and strains of the job simply become too much.Guardiola did a decade at City. Jurgen Klopp did almost nine years at Liverpool. So it’s now pertinent to ask how far down the line Mikel Arteta can go with Arsenal.Now deep into his seventh season at the Emirates, Arteta is already the eighth longest serving manager in Premier League history. This season the pressure to retain last season’s Premier League title will be significant and we must hope for the good of the competition that the 44-year-old will find the energy he needs to push on into what should be a bright Arsenal future.The Premier League needs a strong Arsenal and it needs Arteta. The golden age of English top-flight football is over. City v Liverpool – Guardiola up against Klopp – was thrilling but has left a chasm in its wake. Footage from Man City’s documentary revealed the desperate lengths Pep Guardiola went to in a bid to motivate his players during his final two seasons at the club The Premier League must hope Mikel Arteta, now in his seventh season in charge of Arsenal, still has the energy to push on into what should be a bright future at the clubArsenal will defend their title as favourites this season and Arteta has suggested his team may play more expansively. We hope he can make good on that intention.Last season’s Premier League pivot towards more direct play was as startling as it was sudden. Arsenal were in its vanguard and for all that it brought them a much-deserved title, nobody can pretend it was particularly exciting to watch.All leagues move in cycles in terms of their dominant team and indeed their styles. Last season felt rather fallow in England. The league’s enormous wealth should ensure it recovers over time but it needs an example to be set at the top end and if that doesn’t come from Arsenal this year then it’s hard to feel particularly excited by those who would hope to challenge.City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham. We can write the word ‘transition’ on a large blanket and throw it over the lot of them.Aston Villa? The double responsibility of domestic and Champions League football will in all likelihood prove onerous again for Unai Emery’s impressive and likeable team. Newcastle, meanwhile, may yet freefall having felt the hammer of the league’s spending rules.So Arteta will lead his champions into action at home to Coventry tonight carrying the pressure that comes with expectation. Hoping to win a title and being expected to are quite different things. Arteta suggests Arsenal will play more expansively and the league needs the Gunners to set an example in a season when their most likely challengers look to be going through transitions New guidelines for referees may reduce Arsenal’s effectiveness at corners and set piecesHis team’s meek defeat by PSG in the Champions League final last May underlined the limitations of Arteta’s pragmatic football. This season new guidelines for referees may reduce Arsenal’s effectiveness at corners and set pieces.With all this in mind, Arteta faces the challenge of refitting his plane while flying it. It may take more than a season to successfully transition from one way of playing to another. But it feels as though he must commit to it.Certainly we must hope the Arsenal manager has the motivation and well of energy and resourcefulness to pull it off. For if we can’t look at Arsenal for hope this season then where do we look?Can Isak save flawed Liverpool? Liverpool’s fall from grace has been as rapid and complete as any champion team since Leicester a decade ago. Whether they can make up lost ground under Andoni Iraola will depend at least in part on the form of the country’s record signing.The 2025 title winners would appear to have holes everywhere, not least across the back four. Virgil van Dijk, now 35, will be required to carry an enormous load once again.But it’s Alexander Isak who has most questions to answer over the coming nine months. The £125million signing from Newcastle was a disaster last season and if the Swede doesn’t bring his best to the table this time, it’s hard to see who will score Liverpool’s goals.With Mo Salah gone and Hugo Ekitike facing a long road back following an Achilles rupture, Isak must provide his team with a focal point and a regular supply of goals if this season isn’t to go the same way as the last at Anfield.Isak, who turns 27 next month, had a decent World Cup – with a goal and three assists – and has looked fit during Liverpool’s pre-season. He needs to hit the ground running back at his old club on Sunday afternoon. Alexander Isak needs to step up this season to help a Liverpool side that look to have holes all over the pitchPalmer and Foden must flourish once more The truth is that England had a poor World Cup summer. A semi-final appearance may have papered over cracks while Thomas Tuchel’s side played Argentina in Atlanta but the fissures were alarmingly big.What is clear is that England missed the clever, technical and instinctive contributions of players such as Cole Palmer and Phil Foden.The national team simply cannot afford to go into a home European Championships in two years without such gifted and creative players. So can Palmer and Foden be rehabilitated by new coaches at Chelsea and City respectively?Palmer is still only 24 and has had injury problems and is about to play for his fourth full-time manager at Stamford Bridge. Foden is a couple of years older and has struggled with some issues away from the field.We will wait and see if recovery comes but what will it say about our Premier League if two of its most talented academy graduates end up broken and bruised by the environment in which they are asked to play? England must hopes creative talents like Cole Palmer, pictured, and Phil Foden can be rehabilitated by new managersSaudis must invest in Newcastle or go Newcastle’s regression represents a huge blow for the watchability and marketability of the English game. The debate over the club’s Saudi ownership remains valid and alive but so too is the fact that losing their best players and their manager this summer says everything about how hard it is for upwardly mobile clubs to secure a long-term seat at the top table.Newcastle flew high under Eddie Howe but ended up with their wings scorched by the sun. Now – with Howe and Anthony Gordon and Bruno Guimaraes all gone – Newcastle’s long-term future would appear to depend on their ability and indeed willingness to build a new stadium.Unless they – and others of their ilk – find ways to make more money, they will never be able to spend more money. The Premier League’s spending rules have understandable motives at their core but as we watch clubs like Newcastle crash into the glass ceiling, it’s hard to say they have worked. Newcastle recently had ambitions of winning the Premier League. If they finish in the top eight this season, it will be a surprise.Will the Saudis stick around? Reasons for doing so are diminishing. Newcastle’s Saudi Arabian owners must demonstrate their willingness to build a new stadium, which looks key for their long-term future. Pictured: Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan
Howe will cast a big shadow Howe’s current unemployment may prove a bad thing for Tuchel if his England don’t begin their Nations League campaign well when they host World Champions Spain at Wembley next month. Meanwhile the former Newcastle coach also provides Manchester United with a ready-made replacement if things don’t go well for Michael Carrick.United had their hand forced by results under Carrick the caretaker in the second half of last season and as such the former Old Trafford midfielder deserves his crack at the job.But Carrick must work under expectation this season and also has a Champions League schedule to contend with. It will be very different.The perfect storm of stumbling rivals and a one-game-a-week schedule that underpinned Carrick’s work when he succeeded Ruben Amorim is no more and whether the recruitment of a couple of midfielders and the return from loan of Marcus Rashford has made United’s squad fit for purpose is open to question.Howe ticks just about every box for a club like United while Carrick has an awful lot to prove. He will need some luck. Eddie Howe’s availability could interest England should the Nations League not begin well under Thomas Tuchel Howe could be viewed as a ready made replacement for Michael Carrick if things don’t go well at Man United, with the former midfielder now working under expectation this seasonRefs already under pressure Retiring referee Anthony Taylor has spoken of the pressure placed upon our officials by the media and in particular by former colleagues now employed as TV and podcast analysts.No mention, though, of the intolerable burden placed on them by the Premier League’s ongoing and misguided drive for transparency when it comes to decisions.Not only do our beleaguered refs have to endure Pro Ref chief Howard Webb poring over their decisions on TV, this season they will see their own explanations behind some calls appearing on the Premier League’s website and audio of in-game conversations with players broadcast during televised games.Remember when the referee’s decision was deemed to be final? Not any more and all we can hope as we await an uptick in standards is that new Premier League guidelines are actually enforced.Less tolerance of holding at corners. A higher bar for VAR intervention. A crackdown on time wasting at restarts and at substitutions.All have been promised and all are desperately needed.Will any of it actually happen? It would be unwise to hold breath. Recently retired referee Anthony Taylor spoke out about the pressure officials are under, highlighting former colleagues discussing decisions on television and on podcasts Frank Lampard has learned his craft out of the spotlight at Coventry and it is now time to see what he has taken from that as he looks to keep the Sky Blues in the Premier LeagueLampard back where he belongs Nine Premier League clubs will begin the season with new managers – ten if you include Roberto de Zerbi who was parachuted into Tottenham at the back end of last season – and there have been some underwhelming appointments.Gary O’Neil to Ipswich and Alvaro Arbeloa to Fulham feel particularly unimaginative.But the return of Frank Lampard to the top flight stage with Coventry feels uplifting and proof that managers can come again after tough times if they are prepared to swallow their pride and work for a while in the shadows.Lampard said on arriving at Coventry in the lower regions of the Championship in 2024 that he was enjoying time learning his craft out of the spotlight. Now it’s time to see exactly what he has taken from that and indeed from hard spells at Chelsea and Everton.Despite some spending, Lampard’s squad still has a top-end Championship look about it and will need some managerial stardust if it’s to fight gravity.The former England midfielder’s humility will help him. So may the general lack of quality we tend to see at the bottom end of the top division.