The return of “The Special One” to the Premier League has finally be confirmed and with that deal thrusts Manchester United from Top Four hopefuls to genuine Premier League contenders.

Jose Mourinho is a talented coach and love him or hate him, he is a manager who wins trophies. He has signed a 3 year deal with the red side of Manchester and will go head to head with his best friend Pep Guardiola. The media must be licking their lips with excitement and to be fair, it is a mouth-watering prospect.

One thing you can be certain of with Jose Mourinho is that he goes to manage a team to win, and to make that happen he needs assurances that the odds are firmly stacked in his favour – meaning that it is almost guaranteed that he will be given a massive transfer budget to create a title-winning squad. Which is a daunting prospect for the rest of the league.

You can say whatever you like about Mourinho and whether he starts to lose the dressing room in his 3rd season, but the fact remains once he arrives at your club, he wins trophies. In the first two seasons at a new team are usually the most successful in a Mourinho-era as it were.

Considering he usually moves to a completely different league from where he managed previously, this will be his 4th consecutive campaign in the Premier League so he knows the league inside out. He knows what it takes to win the title and you can be sure Manchester United will be giving him everything he needs to achieve it.

Mourinho is a serial winner and when you put his tactical knowledge and Manchester United’s resources together you have a recipe for success. And compare him to the other title rivals, he still has the strongest horse in the race.

Pep Guardiola has a re-building job at Manchester City and will be in a league where he doesn’t have the strongest team for once. Jürgen Klopp will be starting his first full season with Liverpool but without Champions League football might not be able to attract the big names they need to challenge at the top. Tottenham looked impressive last season but can they replicate the same form next season? And Arsenal are nowhere near looking like they have the players and personnel that have the mental strength to fight for a while season.

Many are predicting the toughest Premier League season for a long time and there’s no doubt that there will be about 6/7 teams who think they can reach the Top Four / win the title, but for me Manchester United are the team to beat while the others are fighting for second place.

Next season is shaping up nicely for the neutral – Pep Guardiola is joining Manchester City, Jose Mourinho has been confirmed as Manchester United manager, Chelsea will appoint Antonio Conte in due course and Liverpool will have Jürgen Klopp starting his first full season. Tottenham will be encouraged by their impressive season with their young guns and on top of that, the chasing pack of Everton, West Ham United and Southampton also have cause for optimism.

Unfortunately for Arsenal though, this is bad news.

Other teams are strengthening, improving their management staff and recruiting top class players, whereas Arsenal are as usually staying still. After another Top Four finish in the bag for the 17th season in a row, we look no closer to winning the league than we have in the last 10 years.

Last season was the best chance we had to win the Premier League and we bottled it. We bottle it time and time again and it doesn’t matter which players we bring in – the mentality of the team and the staff is all wrong. Essentially, failure is acceptable and there are no strong personalities or leaders in the team. Where are the Tony Adams’ and Patrick Vieira’s?

The problem is all of our players (with a couple of exceptions) are too nice. There’s no fight, passion or even nastiness in the team. Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Gilberto, Sol Campbell, Jens Lehmann, Lauren, Ashley Cole, Kolo Toure, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Ray Parlour, Martin Keown et al were all fighters and more importantly winners. They played pyrotechnic football which was thrilling to watch yet they understood that the main thing was to win. They term “winning ugly” is thrown around far too much but to me winning a battle of a match is beautiful to see. Grinding out a 1-0 win is nothing to be ashamed about – unless you’re Arsene Wenger of course.

With the Premier League getting stronger next season Arsenal have missed their chance and failing to win the title last season could be one of the most costly things to happen in the Arsene Wenger reign. A title win would have been something to build on but now Manchester United and Chelsea who both finished outside the Top Four will not just be Top Four candidates but genuine title contenders. Manchester United will splash the cash (you can be sure it was written in Mourinho’s contract that money must be spent) and Chelsea will throw money at changing their fortunes. Tottenham will be stronger than last season and you have Pep Guardiola as the boss of a team who aren’t short of money and more importantly not shy of spending big.

If you asked me now how the top half of the table would look at the end of next season, my early prediction based on events so far would be:

1. Manchester United
2. Manchester City
3. Chelsea
4. Tottenham Hotspur
5. Liverpool
6. Arsenal
7. Leicester City
8. Everton
9. West Ham United
10. Southampton

Look at those 10 teams – the top half of the table has teams which are extremely strong and essentially, Arsenal will be fighting an uphill battle next season.

Winning the title next season is probably about 10 times harder than it would have been last season, and potentially things could go very, very wrong next year.

First of all, a huge congratulations to Leicester City on winning the Premier League. Sincerely from the bottom of my heart, I am over the moon for the club – they have been the best team in the country this season and completely deserve the Premier League title.

They have played excellent football and have been a team that works incredibly hard for each other. And while their achievement is quite simply phenomenal (they deserve all the superlatives they will receive over the coming days and weeks) it can’t help leave a sour taste for Arsenal fans.

Leicester City are everything Arsenal aren’t.

First of all they are a club with supportive owners, owners who clearly have a massive affection for Leicester.

They had a clear plan for Leicester when they first arrived at the club in 2010. They were bottom of the Championship when they purchased the club and famously had the “5 year plan” to win the Premier League in that time. It is subject of many jokes that they actually failed as they “only” won the Premier League one year outside of that plan but the key point remains – Leicester City’s owners have the clubs best interests at heart and understand the importance of the fans. You would have all heard about the beer and donut offering to their fans a few weeks ago to celebrate the vice-chairmans birthday – they just understand the supporters.

What’s the best thing we’ve received from Arsenal Football Club? A cap on the already extortionate ticket prices.

Secondly, Leicester have players who fight for the manager and the club. Arsenal don’t have that – instead we have over paid players who clearly don’t care if we win or lose. No-one could argue that Leicester have a better squad than us yet they are a million miles ahead of us in the Premier League table. What Leicester do have however is a harmonious dressing room full of players who respect the manager and give him 110% every single time they step over that white line.

Another thing Leicester have that we don’t is a manager who is tactically aware. Arsene Wenger is famous for “only concentrating on his own team” and quite frankly he has not moved on with the times. The same mistakes happen season after season and after 12 years of not winning the league it’s all just getting a bit tiresome now.

Claudio Ranieri is a good manager – you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would put him in the upper echelons of the greatest managers – yet he knows how to win football matches. Arsene Wenger is stubborn and doesn’t correct his mistakes. Things you can guarantee with Arsenal are things such as always bottling it against Chelsea, under performing at Old Trafford, making the same defensive errors to concede stupid goals, never signing a top striker – the list goes on and on!

So while Leicester City (quite rightly so) celebrate into the night, you just can’t help thinking why Arsenal are stuck in this ridiculous rut.

It’s time for change, because at the moment most Arsenal fans just don’t care about the club anymore.

Yesterday Arsenal got back to winning ways and on the scoresheet in the 2-0 win at Everton were Danny Welbeck and Alex Iwobi.

After impressing at the Camp Nou, the Arsenal youngster was given his full Premier League debut by Arsene Wenger and he was immense. I’m not talking about his pace, determination and even his goal, but I’m talking about his footballing intelligence.

At 19, he’s much younger than Theo Walcott (27) and a couple of years younger than Raheem Sterling (21). Both Theo Walcott and Raheem Sterling are full England internationals, and are both included in Roy Hodgson’s latest squad to face Germany and The Netherlands in a few weeks.

But even at the tender age of 19, his performances against Barcelona and Everton show that his quality and maturity are no fluke – and he is the real deal.

Theo Walcott and Raheem Sterling are over hyped players who rely on their electric pace. Theo Walcott is a decent finisher to boot, but isn’t a team player, can’t link up well with others and in terms of his passing is poor for a professional footballer. Considering he came to Arsenal at 17 years of age he hasn’t actually progressed as he should have. Look at Gareth Bale – a massive wanker when at Spurs but you can’t doubt he’s fulfilled his potential. Theo on the other had has stagnated – why in the last 10 years has he not learnt a trick, and how to use skill to beat a defender? He is only effective if he’s played in behind the oppositions defence – otherwise he’s useless – hence his lack of appearances this season.

Sterling is not much better. He shows a bit more intelligence than Theo but £49 million? That is obscene and while he offers pace in abundance, he still lacks the maturity on the ball and it’s no co-incidence that Manchester City’s failings in the Premier League have come when Sterling has joined the club.

Alex Iwobi however is a different story. The boy has pace, bravery but most importantly of all footballing intelligence and maturity – he understands the game. His touch and vision are also very good for 19 years of age and he is clearly a player who can progress and develop in a team which has an ethos for beautiful football.

The touches and movement he showed (along with Sanchez, Özil and Welbeck yesterday) were top drawer and showed an excellent understanding of the game.

In recent months Arsenal fans haven’t had too much to sing about, but the emergence of Alex Iwobi is extremely promising and Arsenal supporters should be getting excited.

If he doesn’t play every game from now until the end of the season, I would be very disappointed.