Gary Neville backs Chelsea as the team to beat ahead of the new Premier League season

Gary Neville believes that Premier League champions Chelsea have to be seen as the team to beat ahead of the new season.

However, the Sky Sports pundit and former Manchester United defender insisted that with still just over a month until the season starts and plenty of transfer business yet to take place, it is difficult to confidently make any definitive predictions.
“We’re in July when teams haven’t completed their business yet; that’s something I think you’ve got to be very careful about at this stage,” he told Sky Sports News HQ.

Gary Neville sees Chelsea as early favourites to retain their Premier League title

“But as I stand here today now, I think it would be very difficult to look to past Chelsea.
“However, who knows what is going to happen in the next month in terms of signings and how those signings will then come in and adapt.”
Chelsea begin their season at home to Garry Monk’s Swansea, a game that you can see live on Saturday Night Football. The following day Arsenal host West Ham and Liverpool travel to Stoke on Super Sunday before West Brom and Manchester City clash at The Hawthorns on Monday Night Football.
Neville is confident that there will be plenty of new faces on show as Premier League clubs look to get their transfer business done in time for the start of the season.
“Things can always happen and you could look at a team in a month’s time and think ‘they’re going to take some stopping with the people they’ve signed’, we haven’t seen the transfer market flush itself out yet,” he added.
“But certainly now, without the business having been done, you aren’t as informed as you’d like to be, but Chelsea would be the team to beat and I think everyone would say that.”