EPL: Gentlemen, start your engines

With a head sorer and eyes redder than a mighty grizzly who’s just realised he’s run out of Berocca on Christmas morning after a particularly heavy session, the Lone Frontman returns for another season of nonsensical, equivocal, petulant, football-centric drivel.

For your information, the self-induced three month hibernation was well spent – the past two months locked away in a darkened room, studying the works of Proust by candlelight and avoiding the yearly dose of faux-patriotic summertime nonsense afforded to sports no-one gives two hoots about for the other 50 weeks of the year.

There was also a brief stint in the ring, fighting it out, mano a mano, bare chested and bloodied. Armed with only our wits and a large, nail-studded club…but that’s a story for another day.

The Premiership returns this weekend and with it, the Lone Frontman’s singular reason for lugging it’s grumpy, no-good carcass out of it’s nest every morning.

With all of last season’s top three changing their manager, this season promises to be the most openly challenged title in some time, with Arsenal, Tottenham and even Liverpool, looking to cash in on the uncertainty that change creates.

Man City, of course, have looked to navigate this uncertainty in the only way they know how – spending lots of Sheik Mansour’s hard-earned cash, with Fernandinho, Stevan Jovetic, Alvaro Negredo and Jesus Navas being added to an already star-studded squad that just never got going last season.

On the other side of Manchester, David Moyes’ opening weeks in charge of a post-Ferguson United have seen a fairly auspicious start, with the Scot yet to secure a major transfer and Wayne Rooney skulking around, stomping his feet and pointing a single, chubby digit at the Chelsea shirt in JJBs while crying out in that whiney call, “but I want that one…I want it…I want it so bad…why can’t I have it?”, before dropping cross-legged to the floor and having to be dragged kicking and screaming all the way home.

Giving those who adore you a massive kick in the teeth has been a popular theme during this transfer window, with Uruguay’s most loveable, hate-mongering goal-monkey offering thanks for the way the Anfield faithful stood by him last season by telling anyone who was willing to listen long enough just how much he’d love to be playing absolutely anywhere else.

Arsenal’s new found spending muscle and rumoured £100 m transfer kitty has been flexed in the only way Arsene Wenger really knows how – snapping up the French, near-unknown freebee Yaya Sanogo, while across North London, AVB’s Spurs have not only managed to prevent Gareth Bale’s head being turned by the amorous glances and leg-flashing advances of Real Madrid, but also managed to persuade a striker that White Hart Lane is the place to be.

There’s also the return of the ‘special one’ to grab the attention and with Mourinho back at the helm, Chelsea must fancy their chances in taking last year’s young and exciting squad all the way to the title. Whatever the outcome though, if nothing else, Mourinho’s presence should be enough to counter the banality of Mark Lawrenson on Match of the Day this year.

Of the rest, we’re looking forward to seeing how Benteke goes second time around and how new recruits such as Wilfried Bony and Marco van Ginkel slot into the hustle and bustle of English football.

All in all we can’t wait for proper football to be back. The Confederations Cup and Tahiti aside, it’s been a long and lonely summer and this season promises to be one of those classic, defining editions of the Premier League, with more twists and turns than Flamingo Land’s Corkscrew.

There’s really not much more to say.