HERE. WE. GOA brand new season of the Premier League is already upon us. Yay? It seems like it’s been barely a month since the Geopolitics World Cup final for goodness sake … though that’s because it is barely a month since the GWC final. Are we not allowed summers any more? Well, yes, thanks to good old fossil fuel, come sit by the fire, it’s lovely and warm. But let’s not stray too far off piste, you get the general point. And so tonight the reigning champions Arsenal raise the curtain by welcoming newly promoted Coventry City to the Emirates for what everyone assumes will be a jolly good thrashing, on account of the Gunners going into the season as the cognoscenti’s choice, pretty much every expert’s pick to retain their title, just as Liverpool were tipped across the board to do so this time last year, and Manchester City were overwhelming favourites the year before that. Again, you get the gist.Arsenal are unlikely to be taking anything for granted, though. For a start, there’s Mikel Arteta, whose dial doesn’t shift any lower than 11. Then there’s their slightly patchy opening-day record in the Premier League, which stretches all the way back to their very first match in the FA’s fancy new competition, a cosmically inept 4-2 home defeat by Mike Walker’s Norwich City, who scored all of their goals in a late 14-minute blast, setting off a chain of events that led to the Canaries beating Bayern Munich and Everton nearly getting relegated. Arsenal’s second attempt to fly out of the blocks, 12 months later, wasn’t much better, and almost seems too on the nose: another shock defeat at Highbury, this time 3-0 against … Coventry City, for whom the comfortably upholstered Micky Quinn scored an insouciant hat-trick. Throw in three more opening-day home defeats, against Aston Villa (2013), West Ham (2015) and Liverpool (2016), and nobody associated with the Gunners a day older than Max Dowman will be counting their chickens.There’s also the small matter of the Big Crackdown on sharp practice at set pieces. New guidelines aimed at eradicating various nonsenses – holding, making no attempt to play or challenge for the ball, looking at people in a funny way, etc. (and we paraphrase that last one, but not by much) – could loosen one of the most effective strings of the Arsenal bow. So will the new edict condemn the envelope-and-opposition-pushing Gunners to another slow start, and potentially jigger their hopes of retaining the title for the first time since 1935? We’re going to find out soon enough. Though to be honest, it’s unlikely to make too much of a difference over the long haul, if Arsenal’s all-new expansive style, showcased in the Charity Cup last week, is anything to go by. Or indeed if the referees, after a couple of weeks of enacting the diktat, quickly tire of implementing it, and slip back into their old laissez-faire habits. Which you know they’ll do. They always do. Yay!LIVE ON BIG WEBSITEJoin Scott Murray at 8pm (BST) for live updates on Arsenal 0-0 Coventry City in the Premier Leaague opener.QUOTE OF THE DAY“I’m surprised they were disappointed, though, because there was never a time anybody said to me that I had to make European football. I thought everybody just wanted to make sure we moved into our new stadium safely without a difficult season – and we certainly did that” – David Moyes, there, suggesting that Everton’s owners might want to set him some workplace goals before bemoaning not having qualified for Tin Pot or Bigger Vase.FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS