By David Bellington
The Premier League may only be a couple of games into the new season, but there is already plenty to talk about. Record-breaking transfer fees, ambitious rebuilds, frustrated supporters and managers under pressure have all made their presence felt, while some of the newly promoted sides have wasted little time announcing themselves.
Manchester City have added another major piece to their midfield, Liverpool have gone big in their search for goals, while Manchester United are working to secure the future of their influential captain.
Elsewhere, Aston Villa are dealing with a period of major change, Tottenham are struggling to produce the attacking football their supporters were promised, and Newcastle have reshaped their frontline. With plenty still to unfold, here is this week’s look at the stories shaping the Premier League.
FERNANDEZ THE FINAL PIECE OF CITY’S MIDFIELD JIGSAW?
Enzo Maresca added the final piece to his jigsaw with Enzo Fernandez signing a five-year contract after Manchester City equalled Alexander Isak’s Newcastle to Liverpool record fee of 125 million pounds.
I never quite understand why these important deals are done at the final hour, as both Isak and Fernandez were purchased within hours of the transfer window closing. The Argentine midfielder had been top of Maresca’s wish list since joining the club when he replaced Pep Guardiola.
City now have fantastic midfield options including 116 million pound signing Elliot Anderson, brought in from Nottingham Forest to replace Rodri. Although Fernandez has played as a holding midfielder before, Maresca wants the Argentine to use his ability to create more scoring chances and to score goals himself in an advanced position up the pitch.
Maresca formed a solid relationship when he managed Fernandes at Chelsea and the two have remained close. City now have an arguably unrivalled riches in possibly the best midfield in Europe. Anderson, Fernandes and new signing Ayyoub Bouaddi are top of Maresca’s priorities to be moulded into a unit and he began the work immediately bringing them together, joining them for meals, constantly talking and training with them.
Fernandes sent a warm message to his new teammates and City supporters and he said,
“I want to thank everyone for the warm welcome. I’m honestly feeling at home and that is very important for a player’s confidence. I want to tell them that I’m going to give 100% every day, in every training session and every match, to help this club achieve all its objectives throughout the season, win many trophies together and enjoy it.”
BARCOLA AND ISAK COULD BE LIVERPOOL’S ANSWER TO GOALS
Paying for the best in 2026 usually means arranging with the bank to fund over 100 million pounds. Bradley Barcola has cost Liverpool approaching 123 million pounds. Is the Paris Saint-Germain winger worth it?
He is unquestionably a top talent with explosive acceleration who, unlike most wingers these days who cut inside early, he tends to take a full back on, passes them and attacks the space left behind. Half of Barcola’s 2025-6 PSG Champions’ League moves were made running behind the defence.
I have been told that manager Adoni Iraola’s plan is for Alexander Isak to be the focus for defending centre-backs enabling Barcola to speed down the wing. That fits in perfectly with Liverpool’s strategy of moving the ball quickly after winning possession. If the defence then tracks Barcola in an attempt to stop him, it allows Isak more space in the middle and in front of goal.
Liverpool did their homework over the last few months and discovered that Barcola’s ‘win the ball and create opportunities’ approach produced 72 open-play chances last season. That was higher than any other PSG player. Combining Barcola with Isak is Iraola’s master plan and why he persuaded the club hierarchy to spend big.
For Iraola, his challenge is to make Barcola a more complete player. His decision making needs improvement and also his finishing. That will be the main focus for the assistant trainers during the next few weeks.
He is not the replacement for Mo Salah; however, being right footed but playing more on the left gives him opportunities to drive down the wing or move inside and directly at goal. His linking up with Isak and Wirtz should be one of the most exciting moves this season.
ARTETA SAYS ARSENAL WILL BE EVEN BETTER THIS SEASON
Following the World Cup, Bukayo Saka decided himself to take only one week off as a recovery holiday, and then he returned to training in readiness for the new season. His commitment has worked perfectly, scoring against Coventry and Aston Villa and putting in excellent performances.
Mikel Arteta told us that Saka is anxious to make up for lost time due to his Achilles problem which prevented him from playing a normal season.
Arteta said, “Bukayo certainly looks to have a real edge this season.”
The winger was absent from the red carpet at the Professional Footballers’ Awards in Manchester last week as a number of his colleagues, David Raya, Jurrien Timber, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes and Declan Rice were honoured with a place in the Team of the Year.
Arteta is convinced Arsenal can be even better this year because Saka has conquered his fitness problems. He acknowledged his players achievement by pointing out that almost half the team were represented at the PFA .
As he approached his 250th match in charge before the Villa win he said,
“It tells you the story of last season as well, that we had some of our best attacking players out for five and six months and we still managed to accomplish what we did which is a huge credit to the rest of the boys.”
PLAYER SUBSTITUITION BOARDS NOT WORKING
Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola was fuming during and after the game against Nottingham Forest because it took the fourth official far too long to highlight the numbers on the substitutions board. Iraola had players waiting to go onto the field, but the delay meant Liverpool were unable to make their changes before Liam Delap’s quick throw-in led to Neco Williams being brought down by Alisson and Nottingham Forest scored from the penalty spot.
In this particular instance, the electronic board failed, but there are other problems which I have noticed before. Advertisers use the boards for commercial purposes, and the boards are heavy to hold and are often changed on the groundthis adds to the time the whole process takes.
Iraola said at full time,
“We’d already given him the subs names two or three minutes beforeit cannot take three minutes to set up the board!”
Each player’s shirt number has to be entered by the fourth official, and they can only do one at a time. One name might be quite quick, but Liverpool were changing three players at once and therefore the delay.
UEFA uses a different system and the clubs themselves have to enter the shirt numbers. Therefore the board is ready for when the manager or coach wants to make changes. The board is then given to the fourth official who raises it towards the referee.
Many clubs have called for a change and Liverpool’s anger could well motivate the FA to take action.
NEW CONTRACT FOR BRUNO FERNANDES
The importance of Bruno Fernandes to Manchester United can be measured in last weekend’s 5-2 win over Ipswich. He ran the show from beginning to end and scored a hat-trick to make sure Michael Carrick started his home Old Trafford fixtures with a success.
The United hierarchy have opened talks with their captain for a new contract. His reported 300k-a-week pound current deal runs out in 10 months, but there is a one-year option in place. Turkish giants Galatasaray had ambitions to sign Bruno but United definitely want him to stay and hope a new contract can be completed before the end of 2026. Saudi Pro League team Al Hilal earlier made an approach, but Fernandes decided to stay at Old Trafford.
The Portuguese international has scored 110 goals and made 109 assists in 329 games since arriving at Old Trafford in 2020. Since then, he has cemented his place as one of the club’s greatest ever players.
ALL THE CHANGES AT VILLA
Change has come to Aston Villa and supporters are reeling from what has been a couple of chaotic months. Quite near to the ground stands a wall on which pictures of Ollie Watkins and Emiliano Martinez were painted. Watkins had a clenched fist and Martinez had a finger pointed to his lips.
Watkins has now left the club for even greater Saudi riches and Martinez almost ran out of Villa Park to join Chelsea last week and such was his leaving speed that his name was still on the club programme for the Arsenal game.
Fans streaming past the wall can now only see purple paint where their former heroes have been rubbed out and painted over. Back at Villa Park, the north stand area sits eerily empty as it is redeveloped to make way for more seats, taking stadium capacity to over 50,000.
And Villa have started the season with two defeats, having lost Ezri Konsa, Lucas Digne, Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers.
Into the club have come Martinez’s replacement Zion Suzuki from Parma and new record signing Nicolas Jackson from Chelsea, but many are questioning whether they are of the same calibre as the players who have left.
Ibrahim Mbaye, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Joao Gomes, Johan Manzambi, Matteo Ruggeri and Leon Goretzka are also new arrivals, but again they will be severely tested against the top teams.
The one constant who is keeping it all together is coach Unai Emery. He is a master of turning bad things around but there are rumours that he might just walk away from Villa in the near future if those two catastrophic first-game failures point to the way in which Villa could go in the next few months, but this is merely speculation.
BORING TOTTENHAM ANGER FANS
Tottenham fans in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium were frustrated and angry with their team and I suspect they mirrored feelings around the world as TV viewers watched the game. I was at the game against Newcastle and could feel and hear the reaction of the crowd.
Roberto De Zerbi was brought in to manage, turn a drab two season failure into fast paced, attacking and creative football. He had a reputation for it.
Sunday’s game against Newcastle was anything but that quality of football. Playing out from the back should be done with purpose, with accuracy, but most of all the bigger picture should be to get the ball up to the midfield attackers this giving the forwards chances to go on and score.
Instead, Tottenham’s approach was typified by goalkeeper Anton Kinsky standing over the ball for almost half a minute before passing out sideways to Micky van de Ven, who then passed to Jan Paul van Hecke, who passed it back. He then received the ball again and passed it back to the goalkeeper to begin the process once again.
I could hear the groans from supporters. It was boring. I saw Rodrigo Bentancur repeatedly passing sideways instead of feeding players bought for their speed and skill, such as Omar Marmoush. Midfielders Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes, usually attacking with energy and aggression, were held in check by Newcastle playing a block in the middle of the pitch. It is De Zerbi’s job to sort it out.
De Zerbi says he is not worried about losing the first two games of the season. If he won’t change his approach, there is a big problem. Supporters are paying huge sums for tickets and expect their team to provide excitement, positivity and hope. Newcastle did that all through the game and deserved to win. De Zerbi needs to take a look at his masterplan and listen to the supporters.
Mixed progress for newly promoted clubs
No one can argue that Hull are the surprise package of the season so far. Two games, two wins and two clean sheets. Sergej Jakirovic has prepared his side for Premier League battles with a confidence that they are the better team, whoever they are playing. It is working. Ipswich took on and beat Sunderland, last season’s surprise successful club, but fell to United 5-2 when they should have earned a draw, but controversial refereeing decisions denied them.
Players, the manager and assistants all lodged complaints during and after the game. Frank Lampard’s Coventry have problems to sort out and are already being whispered as possible relegation candidates.
FERNANDEZ-PARDO REPLACES WOLTEMADE AT NEWCASTLE
Newcastle striker Nick Woltemade is being loaned out to Juventus for the season, and he has been replaced by French club Lille’s Matias Fernandez-Pardo for 51 million pounds.
Woltemade cost 69 million pounds from Stuttgart, but he has struggled to make an impression in the Premier League, arguably because of ex-manager Eddie Howe and his replacement Matthias Jaissle using a high-intensity, fast-paced attacking strategy which doesn’t suit Nick.
Fernandez-Pardo will embrace that style of play.
German international Woltemade received interest from both Napoli and Borussia Dortmund, but Juventus stepped up the pressure after failing to sign Manchester United’s Joshua Zirkzee.
Juve will pay 3.5 million pounds as a loan fee for the 24-year-old, but there will be no option to purchase him after the loan period ends.
– Ends
