EPL 2015-16: Six Pressing Questions For The Upcoming Season

Blink and you’ll miss the English Premier League’s offseason. The new season resumes on Aug. 8, when Manchester United plays Tottenham in the first game of the campaign. Let’s take a look at some of the unresolved questions 10 days from the start.

* What else is Manchester United planning?

Louis van Gaal isn’t done yet, even after the additions of Memphis Depay, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Sergio Romero, Morgan Schneiderlin, etc. What’s next? A striker? A center back? Sending Angel Di Maria to PSG?

Consider this: the EPL season resumes on August 8. The transfer window in England doesn’t close until the end of the month. Can anyone accurately forecast the coming 10 months with rosters still so much in flux?

* Does Manchester City have another big move in store?

As of late July, City’s two additions to its senior team this summer are Raheem Sterling and Fabian Delph. Rumors continually link City to Paul Pogba — but given Juventus’ summer it’s hard to see the Italian champs parting ways with him now that Arturo Vidal and Andrea Pirlo have left Turin. Wolfsburg’s Kevin De Bruyne is mentioned in links with City, but would the ambitious German club sell their best player on the eve of its first Champions League campaign?

Although it underachieved last season, City’s core is still strong and adding Wilfried Bony in January likely limited what they’d do this summer and led to Stevan Jovetic’s departure for Inter Milan. The question City will have to find out is if captain Vincent Kompany is back at his top form in the middle of the defense or not. Center back is the hardest position on the field to find world-class talent globally, so City best hope Kompany is back to being the player he was when the team won league titles because finding a replacement for him will not be easy, or cheap.

* The Good Ship Arsenal?

If Arsenal’s summer needed a sound track it would be this:

Crazy, right? Everybody loves Arsene Wenger once again and expect the Gunners to challenge for the EPL title all the way. The Gunners ended 2014-15 in great form, winning the FA Cup and have only improved with the Petr Cech addition in goal.

Arsenal could use another reliable center back should something befall Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny or Gabriel, and given the Gunners history leaving this to chance could prove problematic. More realistically, the fortunes at the Emirates this year will be tied to the goal-scoring success of Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott.

Should the rumored Karim Benzema move ever pan out, expectations at Arsenal will become win the League or bust. Great expectations and such.

* Second Time Around?

Chelsea strolled to the title last year and seems content to rest on those laurels. Radamel Falcao replaces Didier Drogba as reserve striker. Stoke’s Asmir Begovic takes Petr Cech’s place on the bench as Thibaut Courtois’s backup in goal. Jose Mourinho doesn’t rotate his squad so much, creating situations where Chelsea sign Serbian teenageer Danilo Pantić and immediately loan him to Vitesse in the Netherlands.

A better question: can Chelsea expect its two most important players, Eden Hazard and John Terry, to start all 38 EPL matches again? Daily reminder: Hazard is really, really good at soccer from last night’s Chelsea/Barcelona friendly:

* Does anyone else have a shot at the Top Four?

Steven Gerrard-less Liverpool is very much a work in progress in late-July, even with the additions of Roberto Firmino and Christian Benteke. Like many clubs, the Reds will be afforded no time to find chemistry. Liverpool’s first five matches of the EPL season are: Stoke City, Bournemouth, Arsenal, West Ham and Manchester United. That’s a good swath of the Prem and should provide a good indication of where the Reds are headed.

Tottenham, yes them, is in the midst of a smart summer. Ridding themselves of extra parts like Lewis Holtby and Paulinho — for decent sums, too — is smart. Toby Alderweireld is a useful addition. The problem for Spurs is that Harry Kane is still backed up by Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado, so he’d better have another 20-goal season in him. It’s hard to say what winning or losing the MLS All Star game tonight in Denver will do for Spurs’ morale.

Jokes aside, one of the assumed Top Four is going to need to backslide or struggle for any outsider to mount a serious challenge. The gap isn’t insurmountable, but Manchester United came off its awful David Moyes season, struggled mightily early on in 2014 and still managed to finish fourth in Louis van Gaal’s first season.

* Anything worth saying about the Promoted teams?

In brief … Bournemouth is taking the tact that the team that won the Championship is good enough to compete at the Premier League level. You’ll read and hear a lot about young manager Eddie Howe, be certain of that. Instead of casting its net for retreads, Bournemouth spent its biggest outlay on 22-year-old English defender Tyrone Mings which is a smart play.

Watford, the former club of U.S. international Jay DeMerit, is unique. The Pozzo family owns Watford, along with Udinese in Italy and Grenada in Spain, so it shuffles players around those three stops. Watford’s roster is like FIFA, as in, hey I’ve heard of players like Valon Behrami, Jurado, Jose Holebas and Sebastian Prödl, whom the Hornets added this summer.

Playoff-winning Norwich City kept many of the players who were relegated two years ago, such as Wes Hoolahan, Alexander Tettey, Sébastien Bassong, Gary Hooper and Nathan Redmond. The change is previously unknown manager Alex Neil revived the club midway through last season. The Canaries won’t be short on Premier League experience, but all that might lead to is another relegation fight.

[Photo via USA Today Sports Images]