Just 76 days on from when Manchester City pipped Liverpool to the title on a nervous final afternoon, Crystal Palace and Arsenal will get the new Premier League campaign underway on Friday night.With the global football calendar upended in order to accomodate a winter World Cup, it's been a relatively short break for the Premier League clubs since the curtain came down on last season but nonetheless there has been plenty of change.So how do the 20 clubs shape up for the 124th season of the old Division One?
Here's the first half of those aspirants.It might not have felt like it towards the end but last season was progress of sorts for Arsenal.
Lumped into the Big Six by dint of status and history, consecutive eighth place finishes had dented that level of self-regard.But after recovering from a horrendous start which had left manager Mikel Arteta under severe pressure, a campaign free from European football for the first time in 26 years yielded a more sustained effort in the league and for a time it looked like a surprise return to the Champions League was on the cards.But a poor end to the season, compounded by a punishing north London derby defeat, saw bitter rivals Tottenham beat them to a place in the top four as they had to content themselves with, what at the start of the season, would have been a decent fifth place finish.Major changes: With Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette departing the club within six months of each other, a new focal point was needed and Mikel Arteta knew who he wanted to fill the void up front.Having previously been on the Manchester City coaching staff prior to taking the Arsenal job, Arteta had worked with Gabriel Jesusclosely and from the evidence of pre-season, his