The start of the Premier League season is always long awaited, yet it comes around so early in the summer that one can’t help ending up feeling a little but like it’s just a continuation of the preseason.
One week you’re playing Inter Milan in a friendly at home, the next you’re playing Man City and it actually counts… the sun is still shining and the transfer window is still open, but the points count the same as the nail biters come May.
This was the team’s downfall last year – a slow start (despite some good performances) meant that Mauricio Pochettino’s team were playing catch-up all year. They really only got into gear in week 7, when Cole Palmer emerged as a starter, and a huge priority this season is making sure we don’t end up in the same situation.
The fixtures fall pretty kindly for the team on that front. We’re already a couple of points better off, and we’ve got games against West Ham, Brighton and Nottingham Forest up next. There are no easy game in the Premier League, or certainly none that you can count on being easy before they start, but that’s as favourable as runs go.
We had better make the most of it though – after that it gets really nasty through October and November. The subsequent run sees us face Liverpool, Newcastle, Man U, Arsenal and Aston Villa all by the 1st of December – followed by Chelsea v Spurs on the 7th to cap it all off.
That is a horrible run, and one which could see a real spiral of confidence if thing don’t go out way. It’s massively important that the team squeeze every last point out of this softer run, otherwise we could find ourselves in a pretty desperate situation by mid-December.
Enzo Maresca will hope that every passing week helps the squad adapt to his system more and more, and if we see improvement over the next month there’s no reason we can’t win points off those bigger teams. But the reverse is also true – if we struggle in the next month, it’s hard to see us getting into gear against some of the stronger sides in the league.
Unlike Pochettino’s system, which was very effective on the counter against teams who came out and attacked, while Maresca’s seeks more control of the ball. It will be very interesting to see how it performs in these two distinct phases of fixtures.
