{"id":835620,"date":"2026-07-30T09:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/835620\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T09:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T09:47:24","slug":"premier-league-preview-is-it-the-most-open-title-race-in-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/835620\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier League preview: Is it the most open title race in years?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">How do you replace the irreplaceable?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-city\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester City<\/a> are often title favourites having won six of the past nine Premier League trophies, but they start this new season without their greatest ever manager, Pep Guardiola.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 55-year-old led City to 17 major trophies in 10 years, but left at the end of last season and has since been replaced by his former assistant Enzo Maresca.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Maresca has been out of work since stepping down as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chelsea<\/a> boss in January. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Blues also have a new gaffer. They replaced Maresca with Liam Rosenior in January but he was let go before the end of the season and now former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/liverpool\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liverpool<\/a> player Xabi Alonso is at the helm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alonso won the Bundesliga with an invincible Bayer Leverkusen team two years ago but last term had a difficult spell in charge of Real Madrid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Many thought he would replace 2024-25 title-winner Arne Slot at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/liverpool\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liverpool<\/a> but the Reds instead have appointed Andoni Iraola, who finished sixth with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/afc-bournemouth\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bournemouth<\/a> last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That&#8217;s three huge clubs with three new managers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">What&#8217;s more, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a>&#8216;s Michael Carrick and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/tottenham-hotspur\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tottenham<\/a>&#8216;s Roberto de Zerbi only took charge part way through last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So five of the traditional big six will start to the new campaign with a different manager to the one they had at the start of last season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Only Mikel Arteta of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a>, appointed in 2019, remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do you replace the irreplaceable? Manchester City are often title favourites having won six of the past&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-835620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}