CREDIT: "DIEGO COSTA" BY NATHAN RUPERT ON FLICKR (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Chelsea's Diego Costa has promise for the upcoming year to be one of the top goal scorers, if he can recover from his injury.

The dawn of a new Premier League season can be summed up in one word: promise; the promise of exciting competition and the promise of superstars at the top of their game.

Specifically for supporters of England’s top 20 teams, the promise that one club will find success over the next 38 games. For most, that promise will fade away over the coming months, as the clubs settle into mid-table, far away from both danger and success, but for a few there will be something to fight for until the end.

Every year at this time I like to take a look back at the offseason and make a few predictions toward how I think the campaign will progress, which signings will be successful and who will be lifting the trophy in May.

Last season saw the three bottom clubs, Queens Park Rangers, Burnley and Hull City, make the drop down into the Championship to be replaced with Watford F.C., Norwich City and Premier league debutants Bournemouth A.F.C., which just six years ago was fighting for its status as a Professional Football League club.

As always, the three promoted clubs will find it hard to settle into the same league as some of the world’s most famous clubs.

For the first time, I cannot see where any of the newly promoted sides are going to survive and am tipping all three clubs to drop straight back down into the championship – something that has not happened in over 18 years.

Statistically, 58 per cent of newly promoted sides will stay up, but there has not been a statement of intent from any of them.

The squads still look ordinary and the three managers do not have a single game of Premier League experience between them.

At the other end, I fully expect Chelsea to defend its title. The London club won the Premier League at a canter last year, and while the usual big money signing had not arrived at the time of print, the squad was not in need of a drastic overhaul.

The largest problem that Chelsea is going to face this year is its own striker Diego Costa. Costa was last year’s top scorer who missed the end of the season and has yet to recover from his injury.

Joining Chelsea in the coveted top four positions will be Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool, with Manchester City to slip up and finish outside the Champion’s League Positions for the first time since being purchased by the royal family of UAE.

Arsenal, after the addition of Petr Cech in goal, look to have solved the most glaring deficiency in the squad and are being tipped to make a run at the title this season, after a disappointing decade. Eyes will be on veteran manager Arsene Wenger to maintain a level of consistency that his team has been unable to reach for entire seasons at a time.

Manchester United, after successfully bouncing back from the horror show that was its 2013 to 2014 campaign, have made some incredibly astute signings and again look like the club that dominated football for 20 years.

New attacker Memphis Depay will be a player to watch, as he looks to have Juan Mata as the primary support of captain, Wayne Rooney.

The club could run into issues at the back however, as David de Gea looks increasingly likely to make a move to Spain and manager Louis Van-Gaal will be without one of the best keepers in the world.

Liverpool is looking to bounce back from the disappointment of last season, as it followed up its second-place finish in 2013 to 2014 with a series of toothless displays, casting them out of the top four placement it had only just clawed their way back into.

A complete overhaul of Brendan Rodgers’ support staff and some key attacking signings, such as Christian Benteke and Roberto Firminho, look to have set the club up nicely at the front, but some key losses to the team may loom large over the squad.

Anyone who paid attention this summer caught a glimpse of the circus that was Raheem Sterling’s fallout with Liverpool and while the 20-year-old star’s departure is a loss, it pales in comparison to Steven Gerrard moving to Los Angeles. The club legend was captain for 12 years and even as he aged he was still able to control the game as he wished.

The armband and the central midfield spot have passed on to Jordan Henderson.

There is something about Manchester City this year that just does not sit right. It has all the money in the world, a squad that looks more at home in a fantasy team than reality and past success, but I do not think Manuel Pelligrini can keep the team consistent.

The addition of Sterling and Aston Villa’s Fabian Delph are good signings, but seem like they were added to fill the home-grown quotient as much as their ability and in the case of Sterling, they just spent more than they did on Sergio Aguero for a 20-year-old with an attitude problem.

Where City’s biggest issues may come up are with the aging core of the team, Yaya Toure and Vincent Kompany are still among the most powerful players in the league, but have been looking more error prone lately.

My prediction for top scorer is Diego Costa of Chelsea. The Spaniard netted 20 goals before injury prevented him from playing, but if he can come back fit and scoring, I fully expect to see him flirting with the coveted 30-goal mark come May.