The main questions of the EPL-2026/27: can Arsenal defend the title, what awaits Man City and who...

The English Premier League is back - and this time it will start in conditions where the old football benchmarks no longer work. Arsenal finally broke the curse of three consecutive second places and won the championship for the first time since the 2003/04 campaign. Mikel Arteta's side finished the season with 85 points, seven ahead of Manchester City. But instead of stability at the top, we got almost the opposite picture. Pep Guardiola left Manchester City and was replaced by Enzo Maresca, Liverpool fired Arne Slote and entrusted Andoni Iraoli, Chelsea invited Xabi Alonso and Manchester United will continue to work with Michael Carrick after his sensational spell last season. In general, the new campaign begins with a record-high number of trainer reboots. Added to this are transfers, the European Cup workload, the return of players after the World Cup and the ambitions of clubs that were considered middle-class until recently. The first match of the season will take place on August 21: Arsenal will host a newcomer to the division, Coventry City. Manchester City - Bournemouth, Newcastle - Liverpool and Fulham - Chelsea await us in the first round. So before the start of the campaign there are questions, the answers to which will determine the entire next football year. Will Arsenal become the fourth club to defend the title? In the Premier League, it is extremely difficult to win the championship twice in a row. In the entire history of the tournament, only three managers managed to lead their teams to two consecutive Premier League titles - Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola. Mikel Arteta will now try to join this company. On paper, it is Arsenal that looks the most stable contender for a repeat triumph. The team is not going through a coaching revolution, football players are already familiar with Arteta's demands, and the championship should remove the psychological barrier that prevented the Londoners from taking the last step for several years in a row. But this is where the main danger arises. Last season, Arsenal won the title after three consecutive second-place finishes, and now the opposition have been given the opportunity to play against the reigning champions without the same effect of surprise. Another risk is the health of key players. Before the start of the season, the conditions of William Salib and Jurrien Timber are raising questions, while Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice could get a serious load after a long season and the World Cup. That means Arsenal have everything to repeat the success - including top-point signings like Bruno Guimaraes. But now he will have to prove that last year's title was the beginning of a new era of dominance, not the culmination of a multi-year project. Manchester City after Pep: the beginning of a new cycle or the end of a golden era? If Arsenal enter the season as a team that has found answers, Manchester City - as a club forced to ask themselves completely new questions. These questions especially increased after the "townsmen" defeated the "Gunners" in a match for the Super Cup of England with a score of 0:3. Pep Guardiola left the team after an incredible era, which can safely be called the most successful in the history of the club. Now he has been replaced by Enzo Maresca, a coach whose footballing principles were largely shaped by Guardiola's influence. Therefore, it is a logical choice, but at the same time a very ribroadcaster one. Maresca must not just maintain City's style, but actually create his own version of the team. And it will have to be done against the background of serious personnel changes and the need to rejuvenate the staff. Several important veterans left the club at once, and the biggest blow was Rodri's departure to Barcelona. On the other hand, it would be premature to talk about a City crisis. Erling Holland remains one of the best goalscorers in the world, Phil Foden is still capable of being a major attacking weapon and there is a whole group of young footballers with huge potential in the squad. That is why the central question of the season does not sound like "will City remain a top club?", but much more interesting: how quickly Maresca will be able to turn Guardiola's team into Maresca's team? Because as Enzo himself said: he will be compared with the teacher in fact immediately. Xabi Alonso and Chelsea: Finally the right coach? Even among all the coaching changes, the appointment of Xabi Alonso at Chelsea is attracting the most attention. The Spaniard has already proven his coaching level in Germany, where he created one of the brightest projects in Europe in the "non-Verluzen" Bayer. Now he got a team with a huge personnel resource, but also huge problems with the balance sheet. Chelsea finished last season only tenth, but by many measures they looked much better