There are plenty of Carling Cup ties to get stuck into on Wednesday night with several Premier League teams in action. There will doubtless be many fringe players on view, and it will be a chance for the lesser lights to carry out a giant-killing act (totesport – Carling Cup).

They say it never rains but pours and for Arsene Wenger a deluge of questions await should a worrying start to the new season be compounded by an early exit from the Champions League on Wednesday.

There won’t be many more managers in the Premier League who will have endured a more difficult weekend than Arsenal (20/1 Champions League outright) boss Arsene Wenger.

The Tyne-Wear derby kicks off six Premier League fixtures on Saturday with the clash of the North East clubs beginning at 12:00, closely followed by Liverpool’s trip to the Emirates Stadium to take on Arsenal.

Following on from last Sunday’s thrilling Community Shield in the traditional curtain-raiser, the 2011-12 Premier League finally kicks-off on Saturday with six exciting fixtures to start the new season.

It was a jam packed weekend of sport as the same old names and the same old faces dominated the headlines.
Sunday saw the curtain raiser to the Premier League season and Manchester United got the better of their ‘noisy neighbours’ Manchester City with a 3-2 victory in a thrilling Community Shield clash at Wembley.

With pre-season well underway and the transfer market continuing to build towards an exciting crescendo it’s time to begin looking at the best bets for the Premier League season.

Sunderland have been the busiest club in the transfer market so far this summer while Premier League champions Manchester United have not been shy to splash the cash either, but it is Liverpool’s dealing which are arguably providing the biggest talking points.

Liverpool kick off their summer pre-season games with a friendly against Chinese side Guangdong on Wednesday amid heightened expectation that the Reds are on the up under Kenny Dalglish – but just how well can they expect to do next season?

The transfer market is slowly starting to pick up pace with a number of the Premier League’s top players linked with moves this summer.