English Premier League Preview: Premier League Is Back With A Bang

By Citizen Correspondent Sir Stephen

Date Posted: 09/12/08

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The Premier League returns on Saturday after the international break - and what a weekend it promises to be. A host of multi-million pound signings will make their debuts, including £30.75m Manchester United striker Dimitar Berbatov and shock Manchester City buy Robinho who cost a British record £32.5m. Berbatov will make his Man Utd bow against Liverpool on Saturday, coming up against his old Spurs partner Robbie Keane, while Man City host Chelsea in a battle of the big spenders. There is also the intrigue of a potential Newcastle protest against owner Mike Ashley after the exit of boss Kevin Keegan and whether England's hat-trick hero Theo Walcott will even start for Arsenal against Blackburn at Ewood Park...

A lot has happened since the last weekend of Premier League action. England have rediscovered the lost art of playing football, while Newcastle United and West Ham United have lost their managers, but the most notable event of the past fortnight has to have been the arrival of Manchester City as a global football superpower. Mostly because it still feels very strange to say that, but their signing of Robinho on transfer deadline day is the evidence that they are here to play with the big boys now.

Appropriately, the first game of this Brave New Era for City is against the last team to hit the jackpot in a big way with a rich new owner, not to mention the club that Robinho had looked set to join on transfer deadline day. Chelsea will have watched the events of Monday 1st September with probably more alarm than any other club in the Premier League (even City's neighbours United), like the kid on the school playground who realises that someone they used to bully has got a bigger, stronger dad than they have.

There have been plenty of rumours flying around about who the new City regime will bring in to help them achieve their world domination goals, but the most entertaining of these has been that they will poach Peter Kenyon from Stamford Bridge in the same way that Chelsea took him from Old Trafford. Whether there's any truth in that or not, there are plenty of reasons why this new nouveau riche rivalry looks set to be an intense one, not least that Robinho will be playing for City rather than Chelsea.