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Analyst, TSN Radio 690 Montreal

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It’s hard to imagine 100 days have passed since 5,000-1 rank outsiders Leicester City were crowned Premier League champions. In the wee hours of Saturday morning on the west coast and breakfast time in the nation’s capital, Claudio Ranieri and his band of merry men will get the most unlikely of title defences underway.

After a summer of speculation and rabid rumours of multiple player exits, only midfield linchpin N'Golo Kanté upped sticks and left for one of the so-called bigger clubs - Chelsea paying a hefty ransom to tempt him away from the King Power Stadium. 

The champions, like all other Premier League clubs, embarked on an extensive overseas tour during the preseason. The Manchester clubs took in Chinese soccer sights and sounds, while Tottenham ventured further afield to Australia’s fabled Melbourne Cricket Club. Nearly half the clubs in the league — including even travel-shy Arsenal — hopped across the Atlantic. All in all, according to the BBC, the 20 Premier League clubs raked up a mind-boggling 172,413 miles travelling the globe during their pre-season travels.

Balancing the modern business of football wants, needs and desires with the on-the pitch demands is becoming as vital to Premier League clubs as successfully identifying their transfer targets. A summer transfer market which, when all is said and done when it closes Aug. 31, will once more set a new record.

Summer 2015’s record-setting pace, saw an astonishing £875m ($1.5 billion) invested in the talent pool from the 20 clubs. The most noise this summer so far has come from the two Manchester clubs, who combined have already invested in excess of £300m ($525 billion).

Manchester United has been criticized for their world record-setting transfer of Paul Pogba from Juventus. The astronomical figure is a huge price to pay for the failure to identify Pogba’s immense talent when he was at the club four years ago. Pogba is rightfully the firm favourite to finally break up Messi and Ronaldo’s almost decade-long hold on the Ballon d’Or. 

To help put Pogba’s world record €110m [$150m] transfer into a clearer perspective, Manchester United paid Juventus more money to get their player back in the Old Trafford fold than Farhad Moshiri paid to become the new majority shareholder at Everton back in February. Moshiri’s 49.9 per cent stake in the blue half of Merseyside reportedly cost him only £87.5m ($140 million).

As the debate over Pogba’s value will rage on seemingly every time he touches the ball this season - the stock market, which tends to know better than any analyst — armchair or otherwise — has substantially voted in favour of football’s biggest ever deal.

Manchester United’s shares, which are traded on the New York Stock Exchange have gone up close to 5 per cent since news of the deal first leaked out this time last week. Backing increased demand for Manchester United stocks is the fact Pogba’s fee represents almost exactly the same percentage of annual turnover at Old Trafford as Rooney’s £27m ($47 million) transfer from Everton did in summer 2004. Transfer values may well have spiked over this time frame, correlated to this undoubtedly has been the business of Manchester United LLC.

Not only is the red half of Manchester English football’s most successful clubs, no one comes close to the Red Devils when it comes to stockpiling money. In recent years they truly have taken the concept of, ‘if it doesn’t move, stick a sponsor logo on it’ to new and unimaginable levels.

Their very shrewd off-season business has rightfully catapulted them from their Europa League status to overwhelming favourites to win yet another title. Jose Mourinho, who just like sports science and the very best data analysis on the planet, will not find the back of the net this season. Only a fool though would neglect the additional points the maverick is worth to his club, each and every season.

Those who believe Mourinho’s ungracious fall from Chelsea grace will have humbled the serial winner just need to hear his shots across the bow from earlier this week aimed squarely at his bitter rival Arsene Wenger. Just for fun, the uncanny Special One removed any lingering doubt with the Old Trafford faithful that his heart still lay in SW6 by also taking a swipe at Jürgen Klopp. No coincidence Klopp is Mourinho’s opposite number at United’s most bitter football foe.

Antonio Conte, the man tasked with cleaning up Mourinho’s Chelsea mess, took very little time to display his full authority over footballing matters since he was officially unveiled just one short month ago on July 14. Conte vetoed the club’s planned Aug. 7 date in Moscow with CSKA which had been scheduled ahead of the Italian’s arrival. To fully endear himself with the most underperforming squad across planet futbol, Conte has banned the likes of pizza, fizzy drinks and ketchup from the player’s canteen at Chelsea’s training facility.

Conte was obviously not watching last season when, in the midst of their football fable, Ranieri made a public promise to reward his players with pizza if they could keep their opponents off the scoresheet.

Only in the Premier League could their managers argue the merits for, and against, a slice of pizza.

While Wenger inherently refuses to pay the transfer fees demanded by clubs and treats his budget as if it was actually his own money, a number of his fellow managers have smashed their own records this summer in the pursuit of the players they believe to be the difference makers.

Ronald Koeman allowing John Stones to leave Goodison for the Etihad for the second highest fee ever in world football for a defender at £47.5m ($83 million) might well turn out to be the best bit of business all off season. More so when you consider Koeman immediately invested only one quarter of those funds in acquiring Welsh captain Ashley Williams from Swansea as Stone’s immediate replacement. Williams rose to prominence and fame during the quite fantastic Welsh run to the semi-final at Euro 2016.

Stoke’s purchase of Joe Allen for a lowly £13m ($22 million) is another supreme bargain in this modern era of grossly inflated transfer fees. Allen, a player described by Klopp as Liverpool’s Andrea Pirlo, has quite likely the most off-the-wall hobby of all Premier League players. In his part time the 26-year-old Welshman runs a farm for retired chickens. Laying an egg this season with Liverpool is not an option for Klopp. Quite unbelievably his club are still to lift a title during the Premier League era which began back in 1992-93.

If last season taught us anything’s possible, then there is not a club out there on the eve of the season kickoff who is not thinking this could well be their season. As competitive as the Premier League is, you can be guaranteed of yet more un-scriptable storylines all season long than even J.K. Rowling could dare to imagine for Harry Potter. Sit back, buckle yourself in and enjoy your club’s ride.