Wenger's buys show his wiles

For all the money spent on players there is a certain predictability about the fact that there are still only three clubs that can win the Premiership race which kicks off this afternoon across England.

At the end of last season, and long before it, the gap was there for all to see and nothing has happened over the summer to change things.

Of the three big clubs, only Manchester United haven't bought in to strengthen their squad for what promises to be a very demanding season and I think that before the deadline for the Champions League passes, we will see Alex Ferguson move to bring in at least one or two really good players.

Even without them, United are capable of challenging on all fronts this season, but if they are serious about defending the Premiership and European titles, then they could do with having a few more options to play around with.

Chelsea have certainly broadened theirs. Chris Sutton is their most critical purchase for they have needed a striker who can score 20 times or more in a season for some time now. Sutton is a decent enough buy, although he does seem to have been overpriced at £10 million. In recent seasons he has been troubled by injuries, but even at his best, during Blackburn's title-winning campaign of 1994-95, he only scored 15 league goals. He will need to do a good deal better than that if he is to be of real value to his new employers.

Sutton has suffered from being at a club that lost its way for some time now. At Chelsea he will be surrounded by better quality players and, in that environment, I think we will see him improve. If he does then Chelsea will definitely be in with a shout although, of the top three, they are definitely the ones who look least well-equipped for mounting a sustainable challenge on both domestic and European stages.

Arsenal, on the other hand, look to have a far better balanced squad than they did last season, with Arsene Wenger having dramatically broadened their options going forward and strengthened them at the back.

Thiery Henry is a wonderful signing. He is as fast as anybody in the Premiership and is terrifically versatile. With Davor Suker, Silvinho and Oleg Luzhny all coming in, too, I think Arsenal are probably have around 16 or 17 really top-class players to choose from. That, for me, has probably given them the edge in the race.

There's little obvious threat to the supremacy of the big three, although I do feel that Liverpool will close the gap considerably after the way they spent money over the summer. Gerard Houllier has had a lot of money to spend, but he appears to have spread it around well with Dietmar Hamann, Vladimir Smicer and Sander Westerveld looking to be the pick of the players brought in.

The loss of Steve McManaman will be felt, but to be honest I don't think his style of play particularly suited Liverpool any more. His tendency to stop and hold play up when the team were trying to break forward quickly sometimes defused promising situations for the team.

Less of a loss is Paul Ince, who never really did what was expected of him since he returned to England from Italy. On the pitch he has been a disappointment and off of it he seems to have had a negative effect on team spirit. There seems to be a general air of "good riddance" about his departure amongst the club's supporters and I can't say I'd particularly disagree with that.

Improved as they are, I'd still have lingering doubts about Liverpool's defensive capabilities. Over the coming months I'm sure there will be a considerable improvement with the team performing more like you would expect a Liverpool team to perform, but it may take another summer, some more money, and a couple of new defenders before Houllier is genuinely capable of leading an assault on the title. Leeds will be far less of an unknown quantity this year and because of that, and the loss of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, they will struggle to finish as high as they did last year.

David O'Leary will obviously be anxious to replace Hasselbaink as quickly as possible, but buying a 25-goal-a-season striker is a tricky business and, even if he pulls it off, he will do well to get one who slots straight into the side and produces his best from day one.

Aston Villa's John Gregory has a couple of problems, most notably freeing up the money he is currently paying to Stan Collymore and persuading Paul Merson to clear his mind and concentrate on football.

There is very little to choose from amongst the mid-table sides. The likes of Middlesbrough (why did they buy Ince when Andy Townsend, along with Robbie Mustoe, was probably their best player last season?), West Ham, Derby and Leicester all look pretty mediocre.

At the bottom, it looks like being yet another season when the clubs that have come up will struggle to avoid simply going back down again and for two out of three of them I really don't see how they are going to avoid making an immediate return to the lower division.

Graham Taylor has shown once again what an outstanding club manager he is by bringing Watford this far on a shoestring, but if you look at how far behind Sunderland they were last season (28 points) and how much they've spent over the summer, it's just impossible to see them surviving.

In fact, it appears as though the directors of the club have already conceded defeat. They've looked at the situation, decided that they could get maybe another seven, eight, maybe even 10 points by spending a few million on players, but that even wouldn't be enough, so they've opted to take the money and run.

Bradford look similarly ill-equipped for the top flight and the real question would appear to be who will go down with those two. Sunderland should have enough going for them to stay up and, Everton, though their squad is a bit like one of those film sets that looks all right head on but is not up to much when you get behind the facade, have a strong enough first 11 to see them through as long as they don't have too much to cope with by way of injuries. That, I'm afraid, leaves Southampton for me. They've struggled long and hard to avoid it, but this could finally be their year.

In an interview with Emmet Malone