Man City starts English Premier League title defense

The Premier League begins with champion Manchester City playing away at Burnley, which won the second-tier Championship last season.

Burnley is coached by Vincent Kompany, who is one of City’s greatest players and has a statue outside the club’s stadium in Manhcester.

City is coming off a treble-winning season when it collected the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League trophies.

City could hand a debut to Croatia center back Josko Gvardiol, who joined from Leipzig last week.

For Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City players, the comedown has started from the club’s greatest-ever season.

“We climbed the highest mountain with what we have done,” Guardiola said Thursday, in reference to City winning the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League for a rare treble. “The last two days, we came down the mountain.”

The new season starts in earnest on Friday when City opens the Premier League with an away match against Burnley, and it means a 10-month slog begins again.

Guardiola knows that too well and he pretty much acknowledges life will never be as good for City again.

“I don’t think it will be possible to do again what we have done last season,” he said. “It’s once in a lifetime. So I said to the players, ‘Forget about it.’”

“There will be a lot of difficulties,” Guardiola added, “to climb as high as possible the mountain and we will see that our football, our behavior, our mentality, will dictate how the season will be. What we have done remains in our hearts, our minds. How nice it was. But it’s over ... it’s almost impossible to repeat.”

City has more games on its schedule — the UEFA Super Cup against Sevilla takes place on Wednesday and there is the Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia in December — and there is a general feeling that City might need to strengthen its squad, especially in attack, to handle it.

Midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has gone to Barcelona and been replaced by Mateo Kovacic.

Defender Josko Gvardiol has come in, most likely to replace Aymeric Laporte, who appears surplus to requirements.

City has sold winger Riyad Mahrez to the Saudi Arabian league and he hasn’t been replaced. Cole Palmer, a 21-year-old academy product, has been viewed as a potential replacement but Guardiola couldn’t guarantee Palmer would still be at City by the end of the transfer window amid interest from West Ham.

Another winger seems necessary if City is to be as dangerous as last season, especially with potential title rivals Arsenal and Manchester United having strengthened during the offseason.

The biggest threat to City, though, is likely to come from within.