Another Premier League year has come and gone. Another year where City won the league by a mile, beating out United, Liverpool, and Chelsea with ease basically. Now everything is back to normal getting ready for this next season right? Wrong. Several clubs in the league have decided to go absolutely crazy in the transfer window, and they aren’t even done yet. Manchester City, Chelsea, and Manchester United have highlighted this window with their crazy spending. City have went and spent 100 million pounds on Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish, Chelsea have brought back Romelu Lukaku from Inter Milan for 115 million euros, and United have bought both Jadon Sancho & Raphaël Varane for a combined fee of 131 million pounds. The Premier League is looking like it is going to have its biggest year ever. The competition is stacked up, a lot of big players are coming over from different leagues, and new young talents like Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden are being brought to the spotlight. I’m going to be giving you guys five things to watch for in the Premier League, and then I’ll list my predictions this year. Let’s get into it.

1. Patrick Vieira at Crystal Palace

After the legend known as Roy Hodgson stepped down from his manager position at the end of the year, Palace were in need of a strong presence for their relatively young team. The rumors were that former Chelsea & Derby County manager Frank Lampard was the favorite to replace Hodgson, but Palace went in the complete opposite direction. They even had a verbal agreement with former Dortmund manager Lucien Favre, but at the last minute he rejected them. They went and appointed legendary French midfielder Patrick Vieira as the new leader of their team. Vieira wasted no time and got right to spending. The Frenchman brought in 25 year-old Danish defender Joachim Andersen from Olympique Lyon for £19.2 million and 21 year-old Chelsea academy defender Marc Guehí for £25.6 million. Vieira also went and signed 19 year-old attacking French midfielder Michael Olise from Reading for £10.2 million. Olise had an incredible season for Reading last year in the Championship as he was arguably their biggest playmaker. Olise finished second in the league with 12 assists and also knocked in seven goals for The Royals. Palace also started to get rid of the aging players to make the squad a lot younger sending, Patrick van Aanholt (30), Mamadou Sakho (31), and Andros Townsend (30) to new clubs. The achilles injury in May to young star Eberechi Eze will hurt, but he’ll be able to bounce back better than ever. Vieira is the Eagles best chance to make a push for Europe or a deep run in the domestic cups. They aren’t near a top 6 side yet, but they are on the right path.

2. Jadon Sancho returning to Manchester, but in red this time

The former Manchester City academy player has finally returned to England after four years at Borussia Dortmund. The 21 year-old Englishman arrives on a £72.9 million fee (£90 million with add-ons) to join his friend Marcus Rashford in the attack. He will join Rashford, Edinson Cavani, Bruno Fernandes, Mason Greenwood, Anthony Martial, & world-class midfielder Paul Pogba to form a formidable attack at Old Trafford. Sancho had an incredible campaign last year in Germany grabbing 36 goal contributions in only 38 appearances, so he won’t find too much trouble finding his place in the squad. United finished a strong 2nd last year in the league and with the addition of both Sancho and former Real Madrid defender Raphaël Varane, the Red Devils will be making a strong case for the title. Ole is still at the wheel, and is going to be for a while, after getting a contract extension until 2024. For me the top four teams in the league is solidified, it’s up to United to make that push for the top. I’m very excited to see how Sancho does and I know my friend Walter (die-hard United fan) is 10x more excited then me.

3. The pairing of Ibrahima Konaté and Virgil van Dijk

Liverpool’s lone signing of the summer so far is center back Ibrahima Konaté. The 22 year-old Frenchman arrived to Anfield this summer for a fee of $44 million on a five-year contract. Konaté will be joining a deep squad of center backs including Virgil van Dijk, Joël Matip, Joe Gomez, & Nat Phillips. The pairing of Konaté and van Dijk is a fearsome duo to teams in the Premier League, with both defenders standing at 6’4″ and 200+ pounds. Konaté is a very skilled passer with tremendous pace/athletic ability. The young Frenchman is slated to start this weekend against newly promoted Norwich City alongside Joël Matip, so I’m very excited for his debut. Liverpool has another injury problem with left-back Andy Roberston out for several weeks with an ankle injury, but I hope to God that the rest of the Liverpool squad stays healthy this year.

4. Jack Grealish at Manchester City

Now this just pains me. The seemingly unstoppable Manchester City squad, just got a lot better. The 25 year-old English midfielder arrived at the Etihad Stadium for a massive fee of £100 million, making him one of the most expensive transfers of all time. Grealish is leaving his boyhood club of Aston Villa, after scoring 29 goals in nine years. Grealish’s main ability is to be a playmaker or creator in the midfield. He’ll be teaming up with both Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, and Phil Foden in that City midfield. Bad news for the rest of the league, City have just offered another $176 million offer for Spurs striker Harry Kane. Kane lead the league in both goals and assists as he basically carried Spurs to a 7th place finish. This just adds to my theory that Pep Guardiola is a fraudulent manager who just spends hundreds of millions of dollars to try and succeed. His Barcelona tiki-taka football was his prime, but when he came to City the club has spent so much money to try to win the Champions League. However, in the five years that Pep has been there they have never won a UCL trophy. Meanwhile both Liverpool and Chelsea have won Champions League’s in that time span. If City gets Harry Kane, cancel the season and just hand them the trophy. If they don’t get Harry Kane I think that City will suffer the same fate as Chelsea last year. The new transfers not blending in as well until late in the season, resulting in City finishing about 4th or 3rd. City is just a plastic club and fanbase. Absolute disgrace. That’s all I have to say.

5. Romelu Lukaku’s revenge tour at Chelsea

Two months ago, if you told me that come August, Romelu Lukaku would be a Chelsea player, I would’ve laughed in your face. Inter Milan, in a span of two months, have let go of their coach (Antonio Conte), their best player (Romelu Lukaku), and their best young talent (Achraf Hakimi). Absolutely ridiculous moves by the Inter board. After an incredible season at Inter, pulling in 40 goal contributions in 44 appearances, Lukaku carried the Nerazzurri to an Italian league title, Inter’s first in 12 years, and was clearly the best player on the squad. All of a sudden, in late May, Inter had a dispute concerning transfers with Antonio Conte and both sides agreed to part ways. This was big for Lukaku considering that he had played his best football under Conte and had a special relationship with him. Lukaku’s career has come full circle, as the Belgian forward will be joining the European Champion Chelsea ten years after he originally signed for them in 2011. Lukaku only got to make 10 appearances for The Blues, as he was loaned out for two consecutive seasons (West Bromwich Albion & Everton). Lukaku comes back as a stronger and faster striker, arguably top 5 forwards in the world. I think that Lukaku will easily overtake Timo Werner as Thomas Tuchel’s first-choice striker, and with N’Golo Kante behind him, Lukaku will thrive once again.

YSN 2021/22 Premier League Predictions

1. Manchester United
2. Liverpool
3. Chelsea
4. Manchester City
5. Leicester City
6. Tottenham Hotspur
7. Aston Villa
8. Arsenal
9. West Ham
10. Everton
11. Crystal Palace
12. Leeds United
13. Wolves
14. Newcastle United
15. Norwich City
16. Brentford
17. Southampton
18. Watford
19. Brighton
20. Burnley

As much as my heart hurts to do it, I’m picking Manchester United to win the Premier League this year. Now that fourth place finish by Manchester City I already explained, but if they get Kane that immediately goes to first place. I think that the top four is solidified and very unlikely to change. However, I think that the league will be the most competitive that it has been in a very long time. Don’t expect to see another centurion in this league for a while. As a Liverpool fan, I sure hope that we win the league, but if we don’t make that Renato Sanches or Jérémy Doku signing that is rumored, I don’t know if we have the juice to do it. Especially after losing such a key player in our midfielder like Georginio Wijnaldum. The league officially kicks off tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. ET, with Arsenal traveling to newly-promoted Brentford. Will my predictions come to fruition? Only time will tell. With both football’s coming back very soon, my happiness levels have increased an exponential amount. My favorite time of the year is soon approaching. Until next time, this is YSN, signing out.