Brentford close the opening Saturday at 17:30 against the club that took their manager. Thomas Frank left Brentford for Tottenham last summer, and the season that followed ran in opposite directions: Brentford finished ninth on 53 points under Keith Andrews, a rookie promoted from set-piece coach, and just missed a European place, while Tottenham finished 17th for the second year running on 41 points. Frank was sacked in February. Roberto De Zerbi, appointed with seven games to go, kept them up.
Tottenham's answer this summer has been money. Sandro Tonali came from Newcastle United and Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United for a combined £185m, Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton, and Marcos Senesi, Andrew Robertson and Martin Dubravka on free transfers. On Friday morning an £85m deal was agreed with Manchester City for Savinho, which takes the summer's outlay past £300m, and talks over Omar Marmoush are continuing. The captain, Cristian Romero, has gone to Atlético Madrid.
De Zerbi's problem for this one is availability rather than quality. Micky van de Ven did not play a minute of pre-season and is a serious doubt, and Pedro Porro, Mohammed Kudus and Destiny Udogie did not feature either. Senesi and Van Hecke, an entirely new centre-back pairing, kept a clean sheet in the pre-season win over Hoffenheim. Tottenham went through pre-season unbeaten.
Andrews has spent too, without changing what Brentford are. Mamadou Sangare arrived from Lens as a club record, Jaidon Anthony from Burnley and Callum Wilson on a free transfer from West Ham. Jordan Henderson left for Chelsea and Frank Onyeka for Coventry City. Igor Thiago scored 22 Premier League goals last season, a total only Erling Haaland's 27 beat.