Now that UEFA EURO 2024 and Copa America have ended, our attention has turned back to domestic football.
The Premier League doesn’t start until Friday 16 August - but it is already pulling focus.
How can it not? Some Premier League clubs including Manchester United, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers have already played their first pre-season friendlies.
Most clubs get off to a tame start in the hope of building fitness and confidence ahead of the 2024/25 campaign, but it isn’t long before some high-profile friendlies are played around the world, from Man Utd v Arsenal in Los Angeles (27 July) to Brentford v Benfica in Lisbon (25 July).
There is plenty on the agenda and much for supporters to keep an eye on - five manager changes, big transfers in and out, and important tests for those head coaches still under pressure from the previous season.
Here are 10 things to look out for as pre-season begins.
Ten Hag trying to solve his tactical problems
He might have signed a new contract earlier this month, but there is little doubt that Erik ten Hag needs to hit the ground running as he enters year three at Old Trafford.
Results in pre-season friendlies don’t tend to matter, of course, but Man Utd are in an unusual position.
Certainly INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe would like signs that Ten Hag is shifting United’s tactics in the right direction to confirm that they came to the right decision.
With one match in pre-season already played and with Dutch forward Joshua Zirkzee through the door, Ten Hag will hope a new centre-back has arrived before friendlies against Arsenal and Liverpool.
If that happens - and reports suggest a deal for Lille’s talented teenage centre-back Leny Yoro is imminent - Ten Hag can push up the defensive line, drop Zirkzee into his preferred "false nine" role, and - in theory - compress some of the wide open spaces in midfield.
Summer must not feel like a continuation of the spring.
Maresca changing Chelsea’s playing style in one short summer
Considering how lavishly they have spent on young attacking players from around Europe, the arrival of Leicester City midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall might not have captured the imagination of many Chelsea supporters.
But his signing is instructive. New head coach Enzo Maresca is wasting no time knocking down the Mauricio Pochettino methodology and rebuilding the team in his image, complete with signings from his old club.
Chelsea have a busier summer schedule than most, playing six matches in only 19 days in a tour of the USA that includes fixtures against Wrexham (24 July), Manchester City (3 August), Real Madrid (6 August), and Inter Milan (11 August).
Results in these won’t be important, but it is vital that Maresca’s vision - patient, slower possession football in the style of Pep Guardiola - takes hold during these friendlies.
Historically, Chelsea managers haven’t been given long to prove themselves to the boardroom or endear themselves to supporters. Maresca had better make good use of pre-season.
Seeing how much Cooper changes at Leicester
Losing Maresca was a huge blow to Leicester and a disappointing interruption to their return to the Premier League.
Leicester’s choice to replace him is an intriguing one. Steve Cooper successfully kept Nottingham Forest in the Premier League in 2022/23, but he did so by abandoning many of the attacking principles that won Forest promotion, installing a deep block and simplistic counter-attacking football.
Will he do the same at Leicester? Or will he deem Maresca’s foundations strong enough to play adventurous football at King Power Stadium? These are questions he will begin to answer during a short pre-season versus Shrewsbury Town (23 July), Palermo (26 July), Augsburg (3 August), and Lens (10 August).
Can new Brighton boss integrate signings?
Brighton & Hove Albion might just be the most interesting team in the Premier League this season thanks to their eye-catching decision to hire 31-year-old Fabian Hurzeler, who has just 18 months of experience managing at a professional level.
Hurzeler’s football isn’t too dissimilar from Roberto De Zerbi’s in that the focus is on sharp vertical possession that makes use of the opposition press. Significantly, it’s also fairly similar to that of new Liverpool head coach Arne Slot, whose Feyenoord team starred two players Brighton have just signed.
In friendlies against Kashima Antlers (24 July) and Tokyo Verdy (28 July) in Tokyo, we will get a first look at how Hurzeler will develop the De Zerbi model - and how Yankuba Minteh and Mats Wieffer will fit in.
Minteh’s dribbling on the right wing will excite fans the most, but arguably more important is whether central midfielder Wieffer can provide Brighton with what they missed last season after the departures of Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo to Liverpool and Chelsea respectively.
Villa begin European adventure after large rebuild
The busiest team so far have been Aston Villa, who have brought in six players competing for a starting spot while losing arguably their best player, Douglas Luiz.
Villa fans may not have wanted such a high level of turnover, given they will be playing in the UEFA Champions League this season, and yet trust in Unai Emery is such that supporters are optimistic that Ross Barkley, Ian Maatsen, Samuel Iling-Junior, Enzo Barrenechea, Lewis Dobbin and Cameron Archer will all improve the team.
How Villa adapt without Douglas Luiz is the question mark hanging over their summer, given that Barkley is not a direct replacement and Emery will have to reshape the whole midfield to cope.
Beyond that, there is also intrigue regarding friendlies against RB Leipzig (31 July) and Borussia Dortmund (10 August), the sort of fixtures Villa must get used to playing in 2024/25.
Ipswich friendly with Shakhtar will test momentum
We eagerly await Ipswich Town beginning their first Premier League campaign in more than two decades following back-to-back promotions under Kieran McKenna.
Such has been the speed of their rise, we have no idea whether Ipswich can be competitive at this level, although our first indication may come when they face Shakhtar Donetsk on 20 July.
McKenna’s side beat Leipzig 1-0 in Austria around the same time last year, a result that should have been recognised as an early sign of what was to come.
A similar result against the Ukraine champions would suggest Ipswich are still riding that momentum - and are ready to take on the Premier League.
Slot era getting under way against Arsenal and Man Utd
Liverpool’s 2024/25 campaign is going to be very interesting. That much is obvious, and although the summer hasn’t been busy just yet, Slot will hope to have made his mark on the side by the time they face Arsenal (31 July) and Man Utd (3 August) in Philadelphia and South Carolina respectively.
We know not to read too much into all-Premier League friendlies, but unusually there is something valuable to learn from these matches: how much and how quickly will Slot develop Liverpool’s tactics from the Jurgen Klopp era?
And will he stick to his attacking principles with Ange Postecoglou-like stubbornness when playing the bigger clubs?
It will also be a first look at what Slot considers to be his best XI. Look out for a renaissance for Cody Gakpo and Ryan Gravenberch, two of Slot’s Dutch compatriots who are better suited to his tactics than the blood and thunder of Klopp.
Both players made their name in Dutch football while Slot was Feyenoord manager; Gakpo amassed nine goals and 12 assists in 14 matches for PSV Eindhoven in the first half of 2022/23 before he joined Liverpool, while Gravenberch earned his move to Bayern Munich as an Ajax stalwart during Slot’s time in the Eredivisie.
Kane return to Spurs in big summer for Postecoglou
One of the things Tottenham Hotspur appeared to be lacking towards the end of last season, when they won only six points from the final seven matches of the season, was a reliable goalscorer.
Some supporters may not give Harry Kane a warm welcome when he returns to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 10 August for the second Bayern v Spurs contest in the space of eight days.
Those two meetings could serve as a cruel reminder of what Spurs have been missing.
Postecoglou is unlikely to be concerned with the result of either match, but he does need Spurs to avoid anything that could be construed as chastening.
Following a strong start to the season, he won 40 points from the final 28 Premier League matches of the season. Things need to improve again.
Palace v West Ham meeting to provide a valuable test
It doesn’t exactly jump out as the most high-profile all-Premier League friendly this summer, but Crystal Palace versus West Ham United in Florida on 3 August is an intriguing litmus test of where both clubs are at.
For West Ham, it is arguably the most challenging of all their pre-season friendlies and therefore, our best opportunity to see how much new head coach Julen Lopetegui has become a good fit.
His prosaic possession football of the past may not fulfil supporters’ desire for an attacking coach, and a sharp handbrake turn from the David Moyes era might prove unwieldy.
Oliver Glasner made an incredible start at Palace, but it’s important to note that Michael Olise started five of the six Premier League matches Glasner won.
Olise’s move to Bayern leaves a gaping hole in the team.
Fulham learning to cope without Palhinha
Another Premier League departure, again to Bayern, is Joao Palhinha, who finally got his way this summer after a proposed move to the German giants reportedly broke down on transfer deadline day in summer 2023.
For two successive years, Palhinha has topped the Premier League charts for tackles, making 148 in 2022/23 and 152 in 2023/24. It’s highly unlikely Fulham will be able to find a like-for-like replacement.
But there’s an unexpected twist. Since 2022/23, Fulham have won four of the eight Premier League matches in which Palhinha did not feature, including a first victory against Man Utd at Old Trafford since 2003, in February of this year.
Fulham have two big friendlies in the diary: Benfica in Portugal (2 August) and Hoffenheim in Germany (10 August).
Both matches will be a test of Marco Silva’s side's ability to adapt to life without their star midfielder.
