Here are five burning questions around the Premier League after the first weekend of action for the 2024/25 season.
Can Bukayo Saka be the Player of the Season?
Bukayo Saka lost out to title rival Phil Foden for the 2023/24 Premier League Player of the Season award, which didn’t sit too well with Liverpool fans (Mohamed Salah) or Arsenal fans.
It feels like Saka is underappreciated outside of North London, possibly the victim of his own consistency and unselfish, all-around play as a superstar winger who is just as willing to create, hug the touchline, or even defend as he is to cut inside on his trusty left foot and score.
Saka showed that all-around quality in a comfortable 2-0 win for Arsenal against Wolves, and although the performance was nothing less than what Mikel Arteta and the fans would expect, it was still an impressive one from Saka individually.
The English right winger scored and assisted in his 79 minutes of action, accounting for both Arsenal goals while registering three shots on target and five key passes as a consistent thorn in the side of a Max Kilman-less (but Yerson Mosquera-more) Wolves defense.
Saka has scored no fewer than 14 goals or 9 assists in the last two Premier League seasons, and he will be gunning for 20/15 in a career breakout year if he can stay healthy and receive support from potentially one more star in the attack.
If Arsenal finally vanquish Manchester City to win the Premier League and Saka adds a little more killer edge in front of goal, that should be enough for the 22-year-old veteran (he really carries himself like someone of Salah’s experience level) to secure the elusive individual honor.
Did Aston Villa find three new stars?
Aston Villa signed Amadou Onana with the intent of advancing into the Champions League knockouts and pushing higher up the table in the Premier League, knowing full well they were signing a proven Premier League star in midfield.
Onana, on paper, could very well be the new MVP of the club alongside 2023/24 POTS candidate Ollie Watkins, and he certainly showed that quality in Aston Villa’s huge 2-1 opening win against West Ham.
The Belgian international scored, completed 97 percent of his passes, and bossed the midfield defensively with five combined tackles and interceptions, but he wasn’t the only star in the middle of the park for the Lions.
Another Belgian CM, Youri Tielemans, had himself a day with a pass completion percentage over 90 in another midfield bossing display. Tielemans, a former top young player for Leicester City, was one of the big disappointments in the 2023/24 season despite Villa’s success as a team.
At least this weekend, Tielemans looked every bit like the world-beating midfielder that he was prophesied to become a few years ago, creating three chances with an assist and recording four combined tackles and interceptions.
As if those two big-time performances in the middle of the park weren’t enough, Aston Villa received a decisive boost off the bench from Jhon Duran, the very man rumored to be moving to West Ham this summer.
Duran is stuck behind Watkins on the bench, but the 20-year-old Colombian is a highly talented marksman who showed that quality against the Hammers with a goal and some quality hold-up play aside from that strike.
If Duran and Tielemans can build on this performance with Onana continuing to play at this level he is clearly capable of, Aston Villa may have three new stars to bolster their darkhorse Premier League title candidacy and their first Champions League run.
Are Brighton headed back to Europe?
Brighton looked like the most promising side in world football after a thrilling 2022/23 season that brought the world some of its biggest breakout talents in Kauro Mitoma, Alexis Mac Allister, and Moises Caicedo.
However, Brighton had to sell Mac Allister and Caicedo to Premier League giants Liverpool and Chelsea, respectively, but what really doomed them from repeating European qualification for the 2024/25 season was a litany of injuries after an underwhelming summer lacking replacements to help Roberto De Zerbi weather the storm.
Now, De Zerbi is gone to Marseille, but instead of proving his fears right and killing the promising project, Brighton have revived it and have a talented manager to replace him in 31-year-old ex-St. Pauli coach Fabian Hurzeler.
Better yet, Brighton have brought in the kinds of quality young talents they should have given RDZ in 2023, such as former Feyenoord stars Matts Wieffer and Yankuba Minteh, as well as the Bundesliga’s best-kept secret in Mainz playmaker Brajan Gruda.
Brighton got off to a winning start on Matchday 1, owning Everton 3-0 to show that life could indeed be very good for the Seagulls in 2024/25, even without De Zerbi and club legend Pascal Gross (now at Borussia Dortmund).
Yes, it’s Everton, and Everton are an absolute train wreck with relegation on the horizon, but this was still a highly impressive performances against any team in the Premier League.
Minteh and Wieffer looked as good as advertised for Brighton, while Mitoma was back to his sterling best in health and veteran striker Danny Welbeck had himself a day with a goal and an assist.
There will be substantially bigger tests for the Seagulls defense in the 2024/25 season, but the early returns are looking good for Hurzeler, who already knows exactly what to do with high-upside young stars Minteh and Wieffer.
Who wants Raheem Sterling?
Although Raheem Sterling started 22 games as a regular for Chelsea last season, his absence in Sunday’s 2-0 defeat to Manchester City should come as no surprise to anyone who saw how his importance to the “go young” club wanted as the 2023/24 campaign proceeded.
Sterling seems like a relic of the Premier League’s past, sticking out more and more on a Chelsea side that added three additional young guns this past summer in Wolves star Pedro Neto, Brazilian phenom Estevao Willian, and Portuguese attacker Renato Veiga.
The latest healthy scratch means that Sterling is ever closer to the exit door, but in order for the former Liverpool and Manchester City star to leave Stamford Bridge, someone with a reasonable wage budget and chances at European football would have to be interesting Sterling – and see the value in the 29-year-old helping their attack meaningfully.
That’s the funny thing about Sterling. As tempting as it is for people to write a narrative about him being a has-been in English football, he wasn’t all that bad last season with 8 goals and 4 assists.
Sterling has been a mainstay in the Premier League for more than a decade since scoring 9 goals in the 2013/14 season for Liverpool, so you’d be forgiven for thinking he is significantly older than 29.
The tough thing is that it’s not easy to think of a list of teams in the Premier League contending for European football who could use a goal-scoring winger with left/right-sided versatility.
A reunion with Manchester City would seem reasonable until you realize they are going for younger, more explosive dribbling types on the wings like Savio and Jeremy Doku. Sterling could be a different skill-set for Pep Guardiola to have at his disposal, but how about a reunion with…Mikel Arteta and Arsenal? Sterling could be a backup to either Gabriel Martinelli or Bukayo Saka, and his goal-scoring touch could come in handy.
How long of a leash will Marcus Rashford get?
It’s just one game to start the season, but Marcus Rashford picked up where he left off from the 2023/24 campaign…and not in a good way. Manchester United were able to survive their first test of the INEOS era with an unconvincing 1-0 win over Fulham, but Rashford was poor.
He failed to create any chances for himself, offering no real goal threat to the Fulham defense. It’s a scene that played out multiple times over the course of the 2023/24 season and led to transfer rumors bubbling more strongly this past summer.
INEOS are going to stand by Rashford, but it’s fair to wonder how many chances he will get during the season from Erik ten Hag, who was honestly lucky to receive a clean slate from INEOS after ostensibly saving his job with an FA Cup Final triumph over Manchester City
The main thing ten Hag has now compared to last year is the flexibility to move to a two striker system with former Serie A stars Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee after acquiring the Dutchman from Bologna this summer.
If Rashford puts together, say, a string of 5-10 bad performances and the team is hovering outside the top four, that could be the impetus for ten Hag to experiment with a drastic change. And if the new system works, Rashford could find himself outside the bubble – for good. It sounds crazy, but, really, it’s not; change happens fast in football, and it could be Rashford’s time in 2024/25.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. His work has been featured in ESPN, Bleacher Report, Yahoo! Sports, NBC Sports, and other major outlets. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.