Manchester City clear favourites for Premier League title

City have spent more than £200m on a squad revamp following last season’s underwhelming campaign.

“Six players were out of contract”.

“We’re not expected to beat teams like City”.

“We didn’t have full-backs and you have to buy full-backs”, the Spaniard added.

Townsend’s old employers Chelsea are the defending champions and he thinks it likely the forthcoming title race will be a showdown between them, Manchester City and Manchester United.

Guardiola actually enquired about Busquets last summer but a move never materialised, and it will surely be a hard task again this summer after Barca lost Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain in a world record transfer.

“It started with Real Madrid and Ronaldo going for £80 million and then Bale for £85 million and everything went more expensive”. Now Neymar. But it’s going to finish.

Bosnia is just one of 105 nations outside the British Isles who have supplied players to the Premier League in its 25-year history.

There should not be any shoehorning of players into unfamiliar roles this season after Guardiola signed three top-level full-backs – Kyle Walker, Benjamin Mendy and Danilo – at a combined cost of around £124mn (B5.35bn).

Chris Hughton wants his Brighton players to go into the Premier League with no fear.

“Most of the players – Sergio [Aguero], Raz [Raheem Sterling], Leroy [Sane], Gabriel [Jesus], Bernardo Silva – all of them are young and will stay for the future”.

As Pep Guardiola readies his team for his second season in England, Kompany’s fitness comes as a major boost for the Catalan.

The eternal battle of Pro Evolution Soccer and FIFA translated well to the mobile format, with PES 2017 offering a different, slower, and some would say more realistic take on the concept of a football simulation than FIFA Mobile Soccer does. The club from northern England were in desperate need of strengthening at the position, and that’s exactly what they have done.

“I was very lucky, I worked with hundreds of players and some have gone on to Premier League and worldwide careers”, he said. “We go to sign and other clubs are always going to ask us for more”.

“If you see in the first games [last season] against Sunderland and especially against Steaua Bucharest, between last season and now, it’s completely the same”.

He said: “We have to rest well because we have a very important game on Sunday against West Ham”.

Guardiola seemed unprepared for the rude physicality of English football and was derided for saying he was “not a coach for the tackles” after a one-sided 4-2 defeat at Leicester City.

With Pascal Gross and Markus Suttner signed from Bundesliga side Ingolstadt, Brighton have quickly followed the Premier League trend, creating a multinational squad with a strong European influence.

Manchester United perhaps dealt the most fierce blow to the Blues before the season even began, prying away defensive midfielder Nemanja Matic and reuniting him with Mourinho, under whom the Serbian had his best season till date. I feel the same pressure at Barcelona when I arrived.