On the face of it, this season might be a very good opportunity to add to our major trophy haul.
New managers at Liverpool, Chelsea, and City, which means a range of conditions, but quite likely at least one big bounce followed by a decline in results and a sacking from among those three rival clubs.
Liverpool are in a bit of an uncertain rebuilding mode without a clear identity, and City are coming off the back of one of the best-performed league managers, which at other clubs has always led to a period of soul-searching. Chelsea are probably going to do very well and become annoying with Alonso in place.
There's no reason to expect the conditions to get better than this in future seasons. We are the incumbent champions.
Premier League objective: winners
Expectations should be more qualified regarding Europe. The Champions League offers a humdrum predictability up to a point. It's likely we get out of the league stage in a good position. After that, as soon as we encounter Bayern, Barcelona, Madrid or PSG I can see us losing again. These big clubs bullying small leagues have it easier than us week-in, week-out. I don't say we can't get past these opponents, but I won't be surprised if we don't.
Champions League objective: semifinals
Despite our stable foundations and strong squad, this will be an ugly, bloody and gruelling season like few others even if we do well. We are going in with several stars carrying serious, chronic injuries, and that means the second string also getting bashed up. We now have an aging squad in relative terms, and some of its hallowed leaders such as Ødegaard and even Saka have had variable form and impact.
Off field objective: a position as good or better with respect to results, injury troubles, squad average age, squad depth, total wages to revenue, and development of our next generation of players at the end of this season
