Mourinho: it will be far closer this time

Manager with unmatchable resources believes Chelsea fans may have to wait until final whistle

Academics and business experts are queueing up to tell us that Roman Abramovich's ill-gotten roubles have ruined the sport, rocketing Chelsea into a league of their own. It is a persuasive argument, though there are special factors about the English game which mean that a new season always brings questions of its own.

Even Mourinho struggled in his first year with the fixture programme involved in chasing four trophies, pride refusing to allow him to throw any of them. The loss of a key player or two at the same time - notably Damien Duff and Arjen Robben - meant Chelsea's squad was short at a critical moment of the season: the moment when Luis Garcia (or the linesman, according to the ever-quotable Jose) controversially scored early on in the second leg of the Champions' League semi-final. Anyone following the sights and sounds at Anfield that night, let alone in Istanbul three weeks later, ought to be difficult to convince that football has become too predictable.

Mourinho, the consummate professional, has naturally done what he could to limit the unknown factors. Shaun Wright-Phillips offers exciting cover as an extra wide player and represents the promised acquisition of English talent; Asier del Horno from Bilbao is the "pure" left-back he wanted, though another Englishman, Wayne Bridge, will suffer. Yet there still is a question about whether either Didier Drogba in his second season or the returning Hernan Crespo will score the number of goals required of a principal striker. Michael Essien may yet talk his way out of Lyon to Stamford Bridge, but if he does not, Mourinho claims to be relaxed about the resources he has.

Either way, he appears genuinely to believe that winning a second successive title will be harder than the first, claiming he would be happy to wait until the final weekend this time: "It will be close. I think they all believe they can beat us. I don't believe that big teams like Arsenal and Man United don't believe they can beat us. They have big players. At the end, we will have the answer as to who is the best, but at the beginning, everyone believes."

Not that Chelsea should fall into the trap that has sometimes snared previous Premiership winners, of concentrating too hard the following season on becoming champions of Europe. Mourinho has been there and kissed the cup; but he knows, like the exasperated Arsène Wenger, that the new format of the Champions' League makes it more of a knockout competition again, a tournament that can somehow be won by a team finishing 37 points behind in their domestic championship. So the League is the priority. Could they match Arsenal's unbeaten season? "It's possible, but it's also possible we lose more than one match. My players are capable of going to every game to win."

They ought to be capable of beating Wenger's emerging side in the Community Shield game at the Millennium Stadium today, possibly taking a valuable psychological advantage into the early Premiership match between the teams at Stamford Bridge a fortnight today.

There were no prizes of any size for suggesting Arsenal and Manchester United as the two closest challengers to Chelsea last season, and the odds are short against either side as the best of the rest this time. The hope is that each will live up to their respective manager's insistence on playing in positive style. Wenger has frankly admitted that Patrick Vieira is, in the narrowest sense, irreplaceable, which is why Juventus were prepared to pay £13.7m for a 29-year-old. So he believes it is time for his young midfielders to find their feet out in the middle, and that the team and the players concerned will benefit later if not sooner. Keeping Dennis Bergkamp on for another year proved felicitous in the circumstances, the disappointment to set alongside Vieira's departure being a failure to secure the barnstorming Brazilian Julio Baptista as support or cover for Thierry Henry. The FA Cup final proved conclusively that Arsenal cannot afford to be without their main attacker.

United's unlucky failure that day meant that they, rather than Arsenal, ended the season without a trophy, as well as with all manner of questions being asked about the future direction of the club following the Glazer family's swoop on shares. A poor start and they will be asked about the manager too, especially if he persists with his peculiar use of Wayne Rooney so deep behind Ruud van Nistelrooy. The signing of South Korea's Park Ji-Sung may have solved the question of Ryan Giggs's long-term replacement, and in Edwin van der Saar, Sir Alex Ferguson has his soundest goalkeeper since Peter Schmeichel. That leaves the problem of Vieira's United equivalent, Roy Keane, 34 this Wednesday and moving down the wrong side of the hill. The Glazers' promise to supply significant transfer funds may be tested come Christmas, especially if Jermaine Jenas is still moping on Tyneside.

Liverpool were the most popular pick for fourth place last time out, so what was predictable about Everton claiming a Champions' League qualifying position, which they must now hold on to against the formidable challenge of Villareal on Tuesday? Anyone suggesting a year ago that a Merseyside team other than Rafael Benitez's might enjoy a great season would have been pointed through the Birkenhead tunnel to Tranmere.

The difficulty for those clubs like Everton and Bolton who achieve success above their (debt-ridden) financial status is finding the wages and incentives to lure players of sufficient quality to repeat it. Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Tottenham keep coming up with the money - extraordinary amounts of it in the case of someone like Spurs' 32-year-old midfielder Edgar Davids - which gives them an edge over other potential European contenders like Aston Villa.

Talk of relegation candidates has to centre on clubs coming up, though Ports-mouth, West Bromwich Albion, Fulham and Manchester City must be mentioned too. Of the promoted trio, Wigan, a non-League side 27 years ago, have the consolation that nothing is expected of them; Sunderland may have aimed a little low in their recruitment and West Ham have been prepared to push the boat surprisingly far out but found insufficient players of quality ready to step on board. Passion might just carry them through.

Upton Park, the Stadium of Light and the JJB Stadium will not lack atmosphere or numbers. Much has been made of Premiership attendances falling last season, which was largely because three clubs with a joint capacity of 78,000 replaced three which held 101,000. The three coming up this summer can muster 110,000 seats between them, and will fill most.

So if there is a time for optimism, let it be now. Premiership football is not the best of all possible worlds, far from it, but there remains a huge appetite all round the world for its every twist, turn and stepover, personified by the Hong Kong television station that is still showing last season's matches, in full, 24 hours a day for seven days a week.

Chelsea are highly likely to be the dominant team this season, though to what extent we cannot know. As their manager says: "To control destiny in football is not possible." When the ball rolls off the centre spot for the first time in Cardiff this afternoon, or at Goodison Park on Saturday lunchtime, that is a thought to cherish.