Automatic promotion contenders
Seven teams will start with a different manager from the one who finished the last campaign and no appointment is more intriguing than the four-times Premier League winner Vincent Kompany pitching up at Burnley. There are concerns about the club’s financial structure after relegation but if Kompany’s defensive expertise rubs off on CJ Egan-Riley, Taylor Harwood-Bellis and the goalkeeper Arijanet Muric, all of whom arrive from Manchester City, and Luke McNally, who has joined from Oxford, this incarnation will surely go close. As at Anderlecht, whom Kompany led to successive third-placed finishes, his sidekick will be Craig Bellamy. Teething problems are inevitable but they have an experienced core, which will be supplemented by the exuberance of Scott Twine, the League One player of the season.
