No fixture is considered easy as the
English Premier League kicks off today with 20-time champions Manchester
United facing Swansea City and Arsenal hosting CrystalPalace in a
London derby.
Both United and Arsenal will be in the
spotlight for the most part of the season following their dramatic
campaigns last season. United, who were aiming to defend the title they
won in the 2012-13 season, had flopped under manager David Moyes and had
finished the season 7th in the log, a position that was as strange to
the Red Devils as falling to their ‘noisy’ neighbours twice in the
season; the second being a 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford.
Arsenal also had one of their most
embarrassing campaigns in recent time, losing on wide margins to
Liverpool and Manchester City, and finishing fourth, again, after
staying atop the league for most weeks of the season.
Unlike how Arsenal started the league
last season when they lost 3-1 to Aston Villa, they are favourites to
win today’s game against Crystal Palace. Both sides had met 28 times
before, and while Arsenal have recorded 18 victories, Crystal Palace
have two.
The Gunners are even more favoured to
win following their busy summer in which they acquired four key players
to boost the squad. Mathieu Debuchy from Newcastle, Alexis Sanchez from
Barcelona, David Ospina and Calum Chambers have since been signed to
take spending beyond £60 million, and there would appear to be plenty of
reason to be optimistic ahead of the imminent Premier League campaign.
Debuchy and Ospina were both necessary recruits given the departures of Bacary Sagna and Lukasz Fabianski.
The Gunners were believed to have
dominated much of the last season because they played relatively weaker
teams at the start. The second part of the season saw theLondon club
struggling to cope as injuries ruled out Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere and
some other key players.
Arsenal took 15 points from their
opening six games and topped the league for 128 days last term before
falling away in the final stages of the campaign.
None of the Arsenal players will want a
repeat of last season hence Mikel Arteta’s clarion call to his teammates
to begin the season with a win.
“We’ve done our [transfer] business
early this season so we can start from the off and that’s what we want,”
the captain told Arsenal Player.
“We want to set a marker and we don’t
want to miss that opportunity. We’ve got experience now, we are able to
win – we have the qualities to do it, we have the structure, the fans,
the club and the desire to do it.
“I think we have moved forward since
I’ve been here. Last season was a big step forward. To compete in the
most tough and difficult league – where you are facing five or six
opponents ready to win the Premier League – is not easy to find anywhere
else inEurope.
“When you’re playing and you look at the
bench, and you see that we have options to change the game. You can
write down two or three different teams and that’s what you need. You
need competition, players to be on their toes and that’s what the
manager is going to get this season. If we make the right decisions, I’m
sure we will be there.”
New signing Alexis Sanchez is in line to
make his home debut against Crystal Palaceand Arteta believes the
Chilean will only add to Arsenal’s attacking riches this term.
“In the last three seasons, we’ve signed
‘X-factor’ players,” he said. “When Santi [Cazorla] came, I think fans
got really excited because he was giving us something really special.
“With Mesut [Ozil] it was something very
special. Now we have Alexis – but you forget about Theo who missed six
months last year and was superb when he was fit.
“Then there’s Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jack
and Rambo, who was unbelievable last season. Suddenly you’re talking
about six or seven really good players that can make a difference in a
game and that’s what you want to win trophies.”
United will be brimming with confidence
under new manager Louis van Gaal. They will create a tough day for new
Swansea goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski. The ex-Gunners stopper won’t be
able to thwart a rampant attack keyed by the creativity of midfielders
Juan Mata and Ander Herrera.
United are expected to get full points
from the encounter based on the record between the two sides. In their
11 meetings, United have won seven, while the Swans have only two
victories to their name.
The Old Trafford faithful will hope that
having no European football will allow United to focus on the league as
Liverpool did last year.
With less than a month of the window
remaining, Van Gaal has brought in only Luke Shaw and Ander Herrera and
each of these were identified by Moyes, before being signed off by the
Dutchman.
Van Gaal has yet to add one of “his” players to boost options
and only the attackers in the potential starting XI convince.
Juan Mata, as the No10, and the strikers
Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney (with Danny Welbeck a deputy), in Van
Gaal’s proposed 3-4-1-2 (or 5-2-1-2) system are high-class operators.
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