Premier League 2023-24: Major Questions for City, Arsenal, and Chelsea

The Premier League returns with three huge unknowns hanging over it.

What does Manchester City look like without Pep Guardiola?
Can Xabi Alonso turn Chelsea from chaos into contenders?
And how will Arsenal cope now that everyone is coming for the champions?

Joe Hart, who lived the pressure at the top with City and now dissects it on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club, has a clear view on where the strain will really fall this season.

Life after Pep: Maresca walks into the storm

Guardiola is gone. A decade of control, trophies and inevitability at Etihad Stadium has ended, and Enzo Maresca has been handed the most daunting job in English football.

City have already felt a jolt. A 3-0 Community Shield defeat to Arsenal in Cardiff was a reminder that the aura can crack.

Off the pitch, the squad is shifting too. City briefly broke the transfer record for an English player to land Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for £116m, a bold, expensive statement on a 21-year-old midfielder. At the same time, Rodri – the World Cup Golden Ball winner and the heartbeat of Guardiola’s side – looks likely to depart for Barcelona. Talks are ongoing for 18-year-old Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille in an £85.6m move, and City still want Chelsea’s Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez.

It is change layered on change. Yet Hart insists the real heat on Maresca will not come from inside the building.

"I think the club isn't heaping massive expectation on this season," he said. "I think they still believe that they've got the team and they've got the quality to challenge.

"I still feel they'll want to be pushing on all fronts. But the same sort of pressure, as an organisation, I don't think will be on this season… I don't think they're going to be put under that pressure internally."

The noise, he says, will come from outside.

"Maresca will come immediately under fire in terms of how people want to jump all over Man City if they do struggle. Internally, I think they're intelligent enough as a business to understand that what's going on right now is going to be difficult."

City won four straight titles from 2020-21 to 2023-24. They have fallen just short in the two seasons since. The standard they set under Guardiola was brutal. Matching it, with the squad in flux and a new coach on the touchline, is a different kind of challenge.

Arsenal step into the champions’ glare

Arsenal now carry the weight City once did. They hunted, then toppled, Guardiola’s side. Staying there is a different sport.

"I was walking on water at that time. I actually thought I was 'that guy'," he admitted. "And football finds a way, really quickly, of showing you that you're not."

The problem isn’t just bad results. It’s what happens when they start to stack up.

"When things started to unravel, which they will in any season, [they] seemed to really unravel because all of a sudden [you're under] that kind of champion scrutiny."

Every dropped point feels bigger. Every mistake is replayed, every decision questioned. That is the world Arsenal now live in.

"And it's really important how Arsenal are going to handle that," Hart said. "But Mikel Arteta has done a brilliant job, and he makes really big decisions and bold decisions. And it's about how you handle that first hurt. It's ironic that getting to the top is the easy thing, it really is."

The title has changed hands. The microscope has not. Arsenal are about to discover what it really means to be the team everyone wants to beat.

Chelsea and Xabi Alonso: no Europe, big chance

Across London, Chelsea are starting again. Again.

Last season was miserable. Liam Rosenior, who replaced Maresca in the Stamford Bridge dugout, lasted a little over three months. The club limped to 10th in the Premier League, and for only the third time this century, there will be no European football in west London.

That absence once proved a gift. In 2016-17, Antonio Conte used a free midweek schedule to drill Chelsea relentlessly. The result: a ruthless, well-oiled title-winning machine.

Hart remembers the stories from inside that dressing room.

"I do remember Gary Cahill talking about Conte coming in to a Premier League team like Chelsea who [weren't] in Europe," he said. "He said they were so well drilled, he was so intense in what they needed. They almost had NFL playbooks and it allowed them the time to build into the season."

Xabi Alonso now inherits that same advantage: time on the training pitch, no long-haul midweeks, no Thursday-Sunday grind.

"So that's a massive advantage for someone like Xabi Alonso, who's obviously got his way of playing and he'll have his time on the grass with his players," Hart added. "Their ceiling is, of course, to be in amongst it. I think it is. And they've got a really great opportunity."

No Europe, a fresh manager, a squad that has underperformed but is packed with talent. Chelsea have been a punchline for two seasons. This campaign hands them a clear runway.

City without Pep. Arsenal under champion scrutiny. Chelsea with space to breathe and a new mind in charge.

The questions are huge. The answers will define the season.