Last season’s top 3 will all start this campaign with a new man in the dug-out. I take a look at the challenges ahead and have a go at some predictions.

Man Utd
The shoes at United are by far the biggest, and David Moyes will have to fill them. No disrespect to Roberto Mancini or Rafa Benitez but the impact of Alex Ferguson retirement blows their departures out of the water. Every move Moyes makes will be analysed in relation to how his predecessor would have done things, and with Ferguson taking a seat on the United board, his shadow will continue to loom large over Old Trafford. This is the biggest challenge Moyes faces. He’s inherited a squad that won the league with plenty to spare last season, and it doesn’t look as though wholesale changes are planned or needed. But if they get off to a slow start, and the opening fixtures haven’t been kind with Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City all to come in the first 5 games, questions about his ability to manage at this level and be a worthy successor to Ferguson will start to be asked, if not from within the club then certainly by the media. A minimum of 4 points from those big 3 games (City and Liverpool are away) will be needed to ensure a bit of breathing room, after which he’ll look to press on and build his own legacy.

Man City
Manuel Pellegrini has arguably the easiest task of the 3 new men. City woefully underperformed last season but as the campaign went on it became increasingly clear that Roberto Mancini, with his “unorthodox” approach to man-management, was the main reason behind this. Pellegrini will likely have the squad onside by dint of not being the Italian and if he can get the old faces to perform as they did the season before last, then that’s half the battle won already.

The club seem to have learnt their lesson from last summer’s transfer activity too, where the likes of Scott Sinclair and Jack Rodwell were rushed in last-minute. They weren’t up to standard, and without a proper pre-season to integrate with the squad, were on the back foot from the start. The new faces have been brought in earlier this time around though and, in Fernandinho and Jesus Navas, are of a much higher standard. That looks likely to continue with the likes of Edinson Cavani and Isco also being mentioned as potential targets. Should one or both of those come in as well, City will fancy their chances of taking the title back from United, or at least running them a lot closer than they did last year.

Chelsea
They say you should never go back, but that’s exactly what Jose Mourinho has done, and he’s likely to find out that it’s never the same. Some old faces remain but the likes of John Terry and Frank Lampard don’t have the influence they used to, not on the pitch anyway. They might expect to be playing week in, week out, just like the old days, and it’ll be up to Mourinho to manage those expectations. That’s not to say he’ll struggle to deal with these sorts of situations, but it’s this type of thing that did for Big Phil Scolari and AVB, and will need to be ironed out.

It’s difficult to judge where they’re at in terms of the strength of their squad. There’s clearly an abundance of attacking talent already there, Romelu Lukaku is due back and Fernando Torres looked to find a bit of form towards the end of last season, even if it was predominantly in the Europa League. Ultimately it will come down to how well that talent is utilized, and how balanced the squad is looking by the end of the transfer window. However, if you were to back anyone to get the best out of them, it’d probably be Mourinho.

So then, predictions. Firstly I think it’ll be much closer than last year, with all 3 sides battling it out until pretty much the end, dropping their fair share of points along the way. But with Mourinho having been there, done it and got the T-Shirt both in this country and at this level, I’ll back to Chelsea to just sneak the title.

2nd place will go to United, with City just behind them in 3rd. But as I said, I can see it being close, with probably no more than 5 points separating all 3 teams.

How do you chaps see it panning out?

I don't get this Chelsea are the best talk that I keep hearing the have been way off the title for the last 3 years yes they have a few good players but so do spurs and were no going on about them even getting in the top 4 and yes Jose is a good manager but has failed badly last year and is going back the right thing? We will see man city will be better and united may have a big change but were massively ahead of both teams last year don't think judgment can be made before the transfers are all done like if united get ronaldo and thiago and baines they would have to be favs and if they don't and city and Chelsea pick up the players they've been linked with then they could be favs so give it a month or so and the choice maybe clear but atm I've gotta go with united because united were to far ahead last year but will agree it's gonna be closer

not sure jose failed badly last year, just wasn't up to catching barcelona. and i'd be really surprised if utd got ronaldo. agree with you though john utd will win the league again just about.