Joe Hart on Premier League Challenges: City, Arsenal, Chelsea

Pep Guardiola has gone. The Community Shield is already in someone else’s hands. And a Premier League season loaded with uncertainty is about to start.

Joe Hart has lived inside this pressure cooker before. Two titles with Manchester City, the highs, the unraveling, the scrutiny. Now, as a BBC Sport pundit, he’s looking at a very different landscape: City without Pep, Arsenal as defending champions, Chelsea trying to drag themselves back to relevance.

Life after Pep: Maresca walks into the storm

At Etihad Stadium, the Guardiola era has finally closed after a decade of relentless winning. Into the void steps Enzo Maresca, a coach with ideas, ambition and, as Hart points out, an avalanche of outside noise waiting for the first slip.

"I think the club isn't heaping massive expectation on this season," Hart said on BBC Radio 5 Live's Monday Night Club. "I think they still believe that they've got the team and they've got the quality to challenge."

City’s summer has been anything but quiet. They briefly broke the transfer record for an English player to land Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for £116m, a huge outlay on a midfielder still proving himself at the very top level. At the same time, the spine that defined their dominance is shifting.

Rodri, Spain’s World Cup Golden Ball winner and the metronome of Guardiola’s midfield, looks likely to depart for Barcelona. Talks are under way to bring in Morocco’s 18-year-old Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille for £85.6m, a move that screams long-term planning rather than instant replacement. City also remain keen on Chelsea’s Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez.

All this is unfolding after a flat 3-0 defeat to Arsenal in the Community Shield in Cardiff, a reminder that the transition will not be gentle.

Hart, though, is convinced the real weight on Maresca’s shoulders won’t come from inside the building.

"I still feel they'll want to be pushing on all fronts," he said. "But the same sort of pressure, as an organisation, I don't think will be on this season… I don't think they're going to be put under that pressure internally.

"Externally, there's always going to be the noise. Maresca will come immediately under fire in terms of how people want to jump all over Man City if they do struggle.

"Internally, I think they're intelligent enough as a business to understand that what's going on right now is going to be difficult."

City dominated from 2020-21 to 2023-24 with four straight titles. They’ve fallen just short in the two seasons since. Maresca inherits a squad used to winning, but not used to explaining failure. That’s a very different dressing room dynamic.

Arsenal step into the champion’s spotlight

Someone else now carries the target on their back. Arsenal.

After finally climbing to the summit, Mikel Arteta’s side must now face what Hart calls "that kind of champion scrutiny" – the relentless examination of every bad week, every draw, every wobble.

Hart knows that feeling all too well. His City sides won the Premier League in 2011-12 and 2013-14. They didn’t defend either title.

"I was walking on water at that time. I actually thought I was 'that guy'," he admitted. "And football finds a way, really quickly, of showing you that you're not."

The problem isn’t just that things go wrong. It’s how quickly they spiral when you’re on top.

"And when things started to unravel, which they will in any season, [they] seemed to really unravel because all of a sudden [you're under] that kind of champion scrutiny.

"And it's really important how Arsenal are going to handle that, but Mikel Arteta has done a brilliant job, and he makes really big decisions and bold decisions. And it's about how you handle that first hurt. It's ironic that getting to the top is the easy thing, it really is."

Arsenal have chased City for years. Now they must learn how to be the team everyone else wants to drag down. Every away ground will feel a little more hostile. Every dip in form will feel a little more dramatic. This is the part of the journey Guardiola’s City mastered. Arteta’s Arsenal are about to discover how unforgiving it can be.

Chelsea, Xabi Alonso and the gift of empty midweeks

Across London, Chelsea are coming from the opposite direction. No title to defend. No European football. No excuses left.

Last season’s 10th-place finish was bleak even by their recent chaotic standards. Liam Rosenior, who replaced Maresca in the Stamford Bridge hotseat, lasted a little over three months. The club has been stuck in a loop of short-term fixes and long-term confusion.

This time, there is a different kind of opportunity. No European football for just the third time this century. The last time it happened, in 2016-17, Antonio Conte used the blank midweeks to drill his squad relentlessly. Chelsea stormed to the title.

Hart hasn’t forgotten how that felt from the inside.

"I do remember Gary Cahill talking about Conte coming in to a Premier League team like Chelsea who [weren't] in Europe," he said. "He said they were so well drilled, he was so intense in what they needed. They almost had NFL playbooks and it allowed them the time to build into the season."

Now it’s Xabi Alonso who has that luxury. Time on the grass. Time to repeat patterns. Time to imprint his style without the constant churn of Thursday-Sunday football.

"So that's a massive advantage for someone like Xabi Alonso, who's obviously got his way of playing and he'll have his time on the grass with his players," Hart said. "Their ceiling is, of course, to be in amongst it. I think it is. And they've got a really great opportunity."

No Europe. A clean slate. A manager with a clear identity. For Chelsea, this season can’t just be about respectability. Not with that squad, that budget, that stadium.

City trying to reinvent themselves without Pep. Arsenal learning how to live as champions. Chelsea chasing relevance with a full week to prepare.

The questions are brutal. The answers will define the Premier League’s next era.