Let’s just pretend that summer never happened, will we?
The Premier League is back on Saturday, and amid all the hoopla, the Sky Sports largesse and the hyperbole, Tony Cuddihy from JOE.ie has a look through the players we genuinely can’t wait to see.
Eden Hazard (Chelsea)
We’ll start with the most obvious shout – Hazard’s talent is disgusting and has no place being shown before the watershed. Down with this sort of thing, for instance.
The Belgian is arguably the most naturally gifted footballer the Premier League has seen since Thierry Henry and, at 24, this ought to be the year he finally breaks the Messi and Ronaldo stranglehold on the ‘world’s best players’ tag.
Lump a few quid on him to break the 20 Premier League goals barrier too.
Memphis Depay (Manchester United)
Eaten bread is soon forgotten, as Granny JOE is always only too quick to remind us.
As June crept into July and fans of Manchester United got more and more antsy about Louis van Gaal’s lack of transfer activity, the early summer capture of Depay seemed to get a bit lost.
While Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin can expect to shore up a midfield that’s been increasingly neglected since the retirement of Roy Keane, it’s the signing of Depay that should properly excite United fans. He’s 21, he’s lightning fast, he scores goals; if he sparks with Wayne Rooney, defences will cower.
Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool)
It’s been a busy summer at Liverpool but arguably their best piece of business was tying Philippe Coutinho down to a new deal last February.
The Brazilian has just turned 23, has cemented his place in his national team and will be joined by compatriot Roberto Firmino this season.
While Firmino’s capture caught the imagination of Reds fans, the fact that Coutinho knows the league well and has added goals to his repertoire of silky dinks through opposition defences should make him the Reds’ player of the season once again.
Mesut Özil (Arsenal)
Anyone who has painted the German as a flop at Arsenal clearly hasn’t seen the understanding the 26-year-old built up with Alexis Sanchez in the second half of last season.
Özil is a Rolls Royce of a player, gliding over the pitch in the same way that Fernando Torres used to do before Chelsea and injuries broke him. He’s still only 26, too, and will benefit from a full pre-season in the Gunners’ set-up.
He doesn’t score enough goals and has gone missing in games where the Gunners have struggled to assert their dominance, but he’s a far better player now than he was a year ago and will be key towards another (ultimately unsuccessful) Arsenal title charge.
John Stones (Everton – for the moment, anyway)
When he eventually moves to Chelsea for just shy of £30m, he’ll have been worth every penny.
Stones is a once-in-a-decade English central defender. Strong, mobile, uncompromising and composed, he seems at the age of just 21 to have the best qualities of both John Terry and Rio Ferdinand combined.
Yohan Cabaye (Crystal Palace)
A beautiful man, and a player who is as silky as f*ck on the pitch. If France is his birthplace, his spiritual home seems to be the Premier League and an ill-fated spell at Paris Saint Germain can now be forgotten as he returns to comforting bosom of good manners’ Alan Pardew.
Cabaye is still just 29 and would have made a nice Arsenal signing, but he’ll be classing up the Palace midfield and we’re better off for his return.
Bojan Krkic (Stoke City)
Finally showing signs of the form that made him (yawn) the next Lionel Messi at Barcelona, one of the great shames of last year’s Premier League campaign was the injury suffered by the jewel in Stoke’s crown.
The tired cliché is that players of Bojan’s ilk would be up there with the Messis of this world if they could just add a few goals to their game, but with the 24-year-old Spaniard
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City)
Is he the most divisive player in the Premier League? Half of us on the JOE desk believe him to be the most gifted English player since Wayne Rooney, and a world-beater in waiting. The other half sees him as a clueless youngster who has just thrown away his career by choosing money over the chance to be made a legend.
The answer is in the middle there somewhere.
He’s certainly an upgrade on the ineffective Jesus Navas and it’s tantalising to see what he’ll learn from David Silva and Sergio Aguero. With Jordon Ibe taking over his mantle of Bright Young Hope at Anfield he won’t be too badly missed there, despite the name-calling and phone-in show melodrama.
Sadio Mané (Southampton)
The goals of Graziano Pelle over the first half of last season somewhat dwarfed the contribution of Mané, but the Senegalese striker began to show his predatory skills towards the end of the season and scored the fastest Premier League hat-trick of all time against Aston Villa.
He’s still only 23 and, given his familiarity with the league after a full season, he will be the danger man for everyone’s second favourite Premier League side.
