The World Cup is done. Spain were champions, Argentina were villains, England disappointing, and the image of USA 2026 already feels a bit like a fever dream beginning to fade away as consciousness returns.
The Premier League’s presence is as reassuring as a fever breaking.
It is solid ground, its chronology and its rhythms soothing by comparison to a baking-hot, middle-of-the-night festival that splashed and gurned through the summer.
If the World Cup had held your attention, then welcome back to the rat race. A lot has happened while you were away.
It will be reassuring to discover that the Premier League is the same as it ever was: an endless churn of new stories and new ideas, a division of perpetual renewal.
Except this year the theme of regeneration is more pronounced than ever, which, comfortingly, is what we say every year.
The tectonic plates shifted dramatically in May when Arsenal finally won the Premier League title, ending the banter years and the tedious melodrama around Mikel Arteta and his team.
Arsenal have arrived - and we can all move on, which is just as well with so many other clubs vying for attention this summer, not least Manchester City, adapting after losing Pep Guardiola, the most influential figure in the Premier League since Sir Alex Ferguson.
Five of the ‘Big Six’ are at the beginning of new projects which has made their summer transfer windows especially important, and the headline of the last month is that the only club with consistency, Arsenal, don’t have much to fear.
The Elliot Anderson and Morgan Rogers transfers won’t have passed anybody by although it is surprising that Man City and Chelsea, with Enzo Maresca and Xabi Alonso leading respective revolutions, have done very little aside from their one big signing.
More significant is the activity at Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United.
Spurs have gone mad, splurging almost £250 million on three Premier League players who most people would have value at about half that amount.
Jan Paul van Hecke was an important part of Roberto de Zerbi’s Brighton and that deal makes some sense, although Luka Vuskovic moving the other way for roughly the same fee rings alarm bells.
When it comes to talent-spotting and bargain-hunting, we all know which club to trust.
Sandro Tonali and Matheus Fernandes create a new-look Spurs midfield but legitimate complaints can be made about the mentality and consistency of both players, particularly twice-relegated Fernandes. It is too easy to picture those two wafting around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, drowning in another self-made crisis.
United have been more sensible so far, in net spend at least, although Andrey Santos just isn’t an elite midfielder and Youri Tielemans, a 29-year-old playing regularly since he was 16, is a player who will excel in an excellent setup but get lost if times are tough.
There’s more good news for Arsenal.
Enzo Fernandez seems likely to join Marc Cucurella in leaving Chelsea and Bernardo Silva has departed Man City, while Liverpool have been low key so far, bringing in Jeremy Jacquet and Victor Munoz to replace Ibrahima Konate and Mohamed Salah. The losses are at least as big as the additions.
There are four more weeks until the opening weekend of the new season and six until the summer window closes, so it isn’t entirely fair to judge these clubs yet.
But right now, the hum of activity in the background of the World Cup has done nothing to unsettle Arsenal’s position.
The real action has been a little bit further down the table.
Aston Villa have signed Johan Manzambi and Joao Gomes, two excellent midfielders, and are close to loaning Alejandro Garnacho, a classic Unai Emery ‘project’ that could see his potential finally realised.
But losing Lucas Digne, Rogers, and Tielemans means it’s a full-scale rebuild for Villa, whose Europa league win in May gives the impression of an era ending.
There is an opportunity opening, then, for someone else to sneak into the top five this year, bringing us onto the most intriguing club of the window so far, Newcastle United, whose financial restrictions were lifted by the scarcely-believable £180 million received for Anthony Gordon and Tonali.
Combine that to the unspent £125 million for Alexander Isak and Eddie Howe should have an enormous budget to add to Bazoumana Toure, Sean Steur, and Ewen Jaouen.
Newcastle, like most, have a lot more work to do.
The number of new managers in the division suggests the next six weeks will be busy, perhaps even record-breaking again.
There is something deeply reassuring about that, something about taking in those weird transfers you missed - why did Harry Wilson go to Leeds? How did Fenerbahce get Nathan Ake? – that brings a feeling of familiarity, a sigh of relief.
The Premier League is back and it’s the same as ever. Everything is changing and we’re just getting started.
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