Premier League 2023-24: Life After Pep and Arsenal's Title Defense

Manchester City without Pep. Arsenal with a target on their backs. Chelsea trying to drag themselves out of mid-table.

The new Premier League season is coming, and the questions are already circling.

Joe Hart has lived inside that pressure cooker. Two titles with Manchester City, the high of feeling untouchable, the crash when reality bites. On BBC Radio 5 Live's Monday Night Club, he didn’t dodge the big issues: life after Guardiola, Arsenal’s first title defence in two decades, and whether Chelsea can turn a free midweek into a weapon.

Life after Pep: Maresca walks into the storm

Pep Guardiola has gone, leaving behind a decade of trophies and a standard that borders on impossible. Into that vacuum walks Enzo Maresca, a coach with ideas, a huge job and, as Hart sees it, a very particular kind of pressure.

"I think the club isn't heaping massive expectation on this season," Hart said. City, in his view, know what they’re walking into. "I think they still believe that they've got the team and they've got the quality to challenge."

The squad is already shifting under Maresca’s feet. City briefly smashed the transfer record for an English player to bring in Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for £116m. At the same time, Rodri – the World Cup Golden Ball winner and heartbeat of Guardiola’s midfield – looks likely to leave for Barcelona. Talks are ongoing for 18-year-old Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille for £85.6m, and the club still want Chelsea’s Argentina international Enzo Fernandez.

All of that before a ball has really been kicked, and with a jolt of reality at the weekend: a 3-0 Community Shield defeat to Arsenal in Cardiff. The aura of invincibility has cracked, at least for now.

Hart doesn’t think City will panic.

"I still feel they'll want to be pushing on all fronts," he said. "But the same sort of pressure, as an organisation, I don't think will be on this season… I don't think they're going to be put under that pressure internally."

The noise will come from outside. It always does.

"Externally, there's always going to be the noise. Maresca will come immediately under fire in terms of how people want to jump all over Man City if they do struggle," Hart added. "Internally, I think they're intelligent enough as a business to understand that what's going on right now is going to be difficult."

Maresca inherits a machine, but also the expectation that it keeps winning like one. City know this season might be bumpy. The rest of the league will hope it is.

Arsenal step into the champion’s glare

For four straight seasons, from 2020-21 to 2023-24, the Premier League belonged to Manchester City. Arsenal finally broke that run. Now comes the hard part.

Hart knows the feeling. He won the title with City in 2011-12 and 2013-14. Both times, they failed to defend it.

"I was walking on water at that time," he admitted. "I actually thought I was 'that guy'."

Then football did what football always does.

"And football finds a way, really quickly, of showing you that you're not. And when things started to unravel, which they will in any season, [they] seemed to really unravel because all of a sudden [you're under] that kind of champion scrutiny."

That is where Arsenal are heading now. Every dropped point will feel heavier. Every wobble will be magnified.

"And it's really important how Arsenal are going to handle that," Hart said. He is a firm admirer of Mikel Arteta. "Mikel Arteta has done a brilliant job, and he makes really big decisions and bold decisions. And it's about how you handle that first hurt. It's ironic that getting to the top is the easy thing, it really is."

City made staying there look routine. Hart’s warning suggests it was anything but. Arsenal are about to find out what it really costs to wear the crown.

Chelsea and the power of empty midweeks

Across London, Chelsea are in a very different place. No title to defend. No European nights. Just the memory of a miserable league campaign and the churn in the dugout.

Liam Rosenior, brought in after Enzo Maresca’s brief spell at Stamford Bridge, lasted barely more than three months. Chelsea limped to 10th, missing out on European football for only the third time this century.

That absence can sting. It can also liberate.

In 2016-17, Antonio Conte took a Chelsea side with no European distractions and stormed to the title. Hart remembers the stories from inside that dressing room.

"I do remember Gary Cahill talking about Conte coming in to a Premier League team like Chelsea who [weren't] in Europe," Hart said. "He said they were so well drilled, he was so intense in what they needed. They almost had NFL playbooks and it allowed them the time to build into the season."

Xabi Alonso now gets that same advantage. No midweek flights. No Thursday nights. Just time. Time on the training pitch to imprint his style, drill his patterns, and turn a talented but drifting squad into something coherent.

"So that's a massive advantage for someone like Xabi Alonso, who's obviously got his way of playing and he'll have his time on the grass with his players," Hart said. "Their ceiling is, of course, to be in amongst it. I think it is. And they've got a really great opportunity."

City learning to live without Pep. Arsenal learning to live as champions. Chelsea learning to live without Europe.

The season hasn’t started yet, but the margins are already being drawn.