It seems like only yesterday that Arsene Wenger stood inside Old Trafford after Arsenal had claimed the Premiership title on their way to the Double, taunting his main adversary and tempting fate. 'We have seen a shift of power,' proclaimed the Arsenal manager. 'We wanted to win it here, and we want to win it again next year. We have the potential to dominate
over the next few years as Manchester United have done.'

Memories are short, and the league is long. This time last year, David Beckham said United felt ready to go through Sir Alex Ferguson's last season unbeaten; they lost more matches, and more trophies, than they are accustomed to, and Ferguson had soon un-retired himself and signed on for a further three years. Apart from the rustle of Man United cash - £30m of it to lure Rio Ferdinand and mend the hole in their defence - there is a coaching reshuffle at Old Trafford that shows Ferguson’s competitive response to failure and to the presumption Wenger made about a shift in power.

Right at the top of the Premiership there will be three Reds — Arsenal, Manchester and Liverpool — craving that prize, and the Champions League trophy too. And while other leading European leagues have little to spend, the Premiership is the one major competition whose television contract holds firm, so Wenger’s recent observation that spending in football has “hit the wall” is also challenged.

Wenger spent a quite modest amount, just over £2m, to buy a centre-half to replace Tony Adams, who, it appears, has genuinely gone into retirement. Wenger’s choice, Pascal Cygan, is another of the French legionnaires colonising Highbury, and even the manager says Cygan must toughen up for the Premiership.

But as Manchester United found during the uncertain months of Ferguson’s intended retirement last autumn, so Arsenal find themselves handicapped from within this time.

The injuries to Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg deprive them of much impetus down the flanks, and the possibility that Giovanni van Bronckhorst may not be up to speed for the new start will compound the losses in midfield. Wenger has opted for an interesting switch. He discarded the experiment with Junichi Inamoto, despite Wenger himself moonlighting as a Japanese TV analyst during Inamoto’s ebullience at the World Cup. Instead he recycled the money from the sale of goalkeeper Richard Wright to Everton to go Brazilian for £4.5m.

His purchase, Gilberto Silva, looks a more authoritative player than Inamoto, and grew from game to game during Brazil’s victorious World Cup. If he can adapt to the pace and relentlessness of an English winter, Silva would strengthen the dynamism of an Arsenal midfield which is still controlled — despite all the speculation — by Patrick Vieira.

Liverpool’s desire to be first among equals is at a crucial stage. Last season, in spite or perhaps because of the emotional turmoil created by Gerard Houllier’s life-threatening heart problem, the Merseysiders achieved their aim of finishing ahead of Manchester United. For once, that was not enough; Arsenal, magnificent during an entire campaign unbeaten away from home, deservedly “shifted the power”. Houllier, restored to health and undiminished in his obsession to restore Liverpool, has bought a handful of new players — El Hadji Diouf, Bruno Cheyrou, Alou Diarra, Patrice Luzi and Salif Diao, who arrives from Sedan in December. Each signing is talented, but they are all unknown quantities in the Premiership.

We know enough about Houllier to trust that they will be technically sound individuals. Possibly only he knows how and with what resilience they will enhance what was already the second-best team in the league.

However, the word from Old Trafford that Rio Ferdinand was the only new blood for this season is highly misleading. Carlos Queiroz, born in Mozambique but a coach of renown in Portugal, has arrived at the Carrington training ground. Queiroz, elegantly suited and unquestionably knowledgeable, represents a departure in Alex Ferguson’s life-long practice. Each coach or assistant Ferguson has chosen up to now came either from Scotland or out of the Manchester United backroom.

Now, at 60, Ferguson opens his door and opens his mind further to new thinking. Coupled with the hiring of a Brazilian to train United’s apprentices, it shows how deeply Ferguson has re-thought his strategy, how restless he remains to try something fresh. It may be Sir Alex hopes Queiroz can stimulate the full flow of Juan Veron’s skills, and to that end it would be fascinating to be at the training ground if and when Queiroz says one thing, and Roy Keane, as is his wont, says the opposite.

Not even Ferguson would argue that Veron has blended into a midfield run by Keane and, for all the success of Ruud van Nistelrooy, it cannot be said the “failure” of finishing only third last season was just down to the defence.

The cost of elevating a club to Man United’s prominence is writ large in a Premiership that now has three divisions — the real contenders for the title, the bulk of mid-table clubs with one eye on avoiding the drop, and the other few teams chasing a Uefa Cup spot. The Champions League pursuit broke the bank of Leeds United plc and has had traumatic effects on Chelsea. Both are paying now for the excesses of trying to buy a place alongside Europe’s elite, and both will need to start in a gallop to convince the bankers that this could be their season.

Newcastle United, who surprised even themselves by finishing fourth last season and thus entering the riches of the Champions League, have further backed Sir Bobby Robson’s judgement by spending £8.5m on Hugo Viana from Sporting Lisbon and £5m on the young Ipswich Titan, Titus Bramble — making the Geordie club’s transfer outlay £35m over 12 months.

“I’ve always had a policy of treating my club’s money as if it were my own,” Sir Bobby said this summer. Some policy, some notion of personal wealth. Much depends on eking another combative season out of Alan Shearer and another galvanic one from Craig Bellamy. But Newcastle would still settle — here and now — for fourth again.

Below that, the competition to stay in the Premiership itself demands huge, or incredibly judicious investment. Middlesbrough’s board members, led by the club’s wealthiest fan, Steve Gibson, surely hope they have done with fights against relegation, now that they have backed manager Steve McClaren with more than £20m for new players — Geremi, on loan for a season, Juninho back for his third spell on Teesside, Massimo Maccarone from Empoli and George Boateng prized away from Aston Villa.

With two of the northeast big three spending, fears grow that Sunderland — so parsimonious under Peter Reid, who is both coach and an appreciable shareholder — are largely trusting a squad that went into freefall and narrowly avoided relegation last May.

Faith, and ambition alone, will not breach the quality gap that grows ever wider within the Premiership. Fulham, now with two overseas masterminds, the coach Jean Tigana and the director of football Franco Baresi, have spent millions just to stay in the top flight, and now lose home advantage while Craven Cottage is redeveloped.

In the midlands, Aston Villa are joined by Birmingham City, spending mightily to augment a promoted side, and West Bromwich Albion, who came up full of running and honest endeavour, and must trust in the same to stay up. Manager Gary Megson has finally been rewarded with a new contract, but the players are on the point of mutiny after the bonus deal offered them in the spring was rescinded before a ball was kicked. Unless amity returns, West Brom will struggle from the start.

Bolton Wanderers, for whom staying up last May was a triumph, must rework the miracle without the element of surprise. And, with Everton being rebuilt under David Moyes, with Southampton, Charlton Athletic and West Ham United well versed in the survival art, three “big” clubs must hit the ground running to avoid danger.

They are Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa and Manchester City. Who knows with Kevin Keegan? He has done with City as he did with Newcastle, ignited a phenomenally well-supported club and breathed his own infectious gambling philosophy into a club. Keegan’s City have risen and will not, he boldly declares, settle for mediocrity. His purchase, on the board’s behalf, of Nicolas Anelka for £13m is true to everything that is Keegan: Go for attack, go for someone others dare not touch, the manager backing himself to enthuse a latent striker into giving more of himself than Anelka has done since his Arsenal youth — three moves and many millions of pounds ago.