1. Can Erling Haaland make history?
There could hardly have even been a debate about who was the best player in the first half of the 2022-23 Premier League campaign.
Signed for a reported fee of €60 million from Dortmund in the off-season, Erling Haaland has stood head and shoulders above the rest, figuratively and often literally too given his immense stature.
Already, the transfer deal is looking like a bargain for reigning champions Manchester City — Haaland has 18 goals and three assists from 13 matches. Few strikers could hope to even end the Premier League season with such a high tally
The nearest challenger on the scoring charts is Tottenham’s Harry Kane with 12 goals and one assist from 15 matches.
So if Haaland can stay fit and maybe even if not, he already looks like a virtual certainty for the Golden Boot.
And the 22-year-old has an edge over many of his rivals too in the sense that he had a month-long mid-season break, given that Norway failed to qualify for the World Cup.
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe in particular have been showered with praise owing to their combined 15 goals in Qatar.
A competitor as intense as Haaland will no doubt be eager to remind people that he is, at the very least, on a par with the acclaimed duo who have overshadowed his similarly impressive season in recent weeks.
Yet there will also presumably be a more concrete goal in the Norwegian’s sights.
As it stands, he is more than halfway towards matching the record of most goals scored in a single season (34), which is shared by Alan Shearer and Andy Cole, with both feats achieved during a 42-game campaign.
Haaland needs 17 goals from 24 remaining fixtures to surpass the current record tally, and few would bet against the prodigious star succeeding.
2. Will Irish stars survive the relegation battle?
Based on the first half of the season, you could argue that virtually half the teams in the league are potential relegation candidates.
Only nine points separate Wolves in 20th and Fulham in ninth. Outside of the obvious seven biggest teams, Brighton are the only ones who have significantly overperformed, as they currently sit seventh.
And even for the Seagulls, the omens don’t appear especially promising since Roberto De Zerbi was installed as Graham Potter’s replacement. The former Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk coach has overseen just two wins from eight games in the Premier League, plus an embarrassing EFL Cup exit at the hands of Charlton earlier in the week.
Yet of the teams closer to the relegation zone, it is the sides that both made paid big money for Irish players in the off-season that would appear among the most vulnerable.
The general perception of Nathan Collins, signed by Wolves from Burnley in the £20.5 million, an all-time record transfer fee for an Irish player, is that he has done okay and impressed at times during 12 Premier League appearances.
There have been a few difficult moments, notably the straight red card for a high challenge on Jack Grealish back in September, but at 21 and signed to a five-year-deal, Collins is only likely to improve as he gets more top-level game time from this point onwards.
Really, the big problems at the club are elsewhere. They have conceded 24 goals, which is fewer than seven other top-flight teams.
In attack, however, there are serious concerns. Eight goals scored comfortably constitutes the worst tally of any team in the Premier League.
The slightly desperate-seeming recruitment of 34-year-old Diego Costa on a free transfer has not yet paid dividends, with the Brazilian-born player managing zero goals and one red card in seven appearances.
Raul Jiminez has not really convinced either, with the Mexican’s only two goals coming in the League Cup amid limited first-team action, while midfielder Rúben Neves — recently linked with a move away to Man United among others — has been responsible for precisely 50% of their league goals.
The outlook is similarly worrying for Southampton, for whom Gavin Bazunu has had a difficult start.
Like Collins, the goalkeeper is still very young at 20 and so there is bound to be some inconsistency in his game.
Yet he has looked a little low on confidence at times. He scored an own goal this week in the EFL Cup against Lincoln City, though both the Irish international and the team in general improved thereafter, ultimately securing a 2-1 win thanks to a Che Adams brace.
But the Premier League may not be so forgiving. With 27 goals conceded, only fellow relegation zone dwellers Nottingham Forest have a worse record (30).
Like Wolves, their squad has looked a little thin, especially in attack — Adams is their top scorer in the league with four goals and no one else in the team has managed more than two.
So a long, hard season looks likely unless they can make a number of astute January purchases.
Yet they are far from the only ones who will feel uncomfortable — there have been times this season when each of Forest, Leeds, West Ham, Everton, Bournemouth, Leicester, and Aston Villa have given performances that suggest they could seriously struggle.
3. Are Arsenal capable of maintaining early-season momentum?
The first half of the season could hardly have gone much better from an Arsenal perspective.
Despite most critics tipping an Erling Haaland-inspired Manchester City to run away with the Premier League title, the Gunners currently sit five points ahead of Pep Guardiola’s men, having won 12 and lost just one of their 14 fixtures thus far.
Yet there are still question marks over whether the leaders’ squad depth is quite as resolute as some of their rivals.
Already, one of their stars of the first half of the campaign, Gabriel Jesus, has been ruled out for the foreseeable future, prompting Mikel Arteta to consider a January move for an alternative option up top.
A couple of their other key young players like Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka could potentially face a post-World Cup slump, while there was also the strange situation with Ben White leaving the England camp for unexplained reasons.
Every other team would, of course, still love to be in Arsenal’s position right now, but whether they have the experience and resilience to maintain their encouraging run remains to be seen.
Having seen their top-four hopes die at the culmination of last season, there will certainly be plenty of skeptics in need of convincing.
4. Which three of the ‘big seven’ will miss out on Champions League spots?
Given their enviable resources and impressive recent performances, it seems fair to say Newcastle are likely to be a regular Champions League contender in the coming seasons.
The Magpies currently sit third in the table, only seven points off Arsenal at the summit.
They have been inspired by the likes of Miguel Almiron (eight goals, one assist) and Callum Wilson (six goals, two assists) as Eddie Howe threatens to turn the club into a formidable force quicker than expected.
That said, there is plenty of work to do even beyond the challenge of ousting the Gunners and City ahead of them.
Antonio Conte’s Tottenham sit one point adrift. The Italian’s future is again uncertain, with recent talk of more demands to be backed with considerable funds in January.
Should he get his way, then Spurs — who were not particularly impressive during the first half of the season but had an uncanny ability to pick up three points amid several unconvincing displays — could well go from strength to strength.
As always, however, much will likely depend on the form of star man Harry Kane, following the agonising end to his World Cup in Qatar.
Meanwhile, Manchester United, following their well-documented disastrous start, have shown real signs of improvement of late under Erik ten Hag.
They currently sit fifth but will go level on points with Spurs if they win their game in hand, losing just once in seven matches in the aftermath of the resounding and humiliating 6-3 defeat to neighbours City at the beginning of October.
The Red Devils no longer have the burden of an unhappy Cristiano Ronaldo to deal with, though they could do with a striker as prolific as the Portuguese star in his prime — Marcus Rashford is currently their top Premier League scorer with just four goals.
That then leaves the two serial underachievers who look in the gravest danger of missing out on the top four.
Liverpool in sixth and Chelsea in eighth trail Arsenal by 15 and 16 points respectively.
If you were to assess the situation pessimistically, you might conclude that the Blues are a team at the beginning of a cycle with new boss Graham Potter, while the Reds are at the end of one under Jurgen Klopp.
Chelsea appear in particularly dire straits, failing to win any of their last five league fixtures, whereas Liverpool were just beginning to gain some momentum before the season came to a prolonged halt following back-to-back victories over Tottenham and Southampton.
Despite the increased question marks as to whether he is justifying his £47.5 million price tag in the summer, Raheem Sterling is still Chelsea’s joint-top scorer with three goals, while for Liverpool, the absence of Sadio Mane, who joined Bayern Munich in the off-season, has been keenly felt, even if the trio of Mo Salah, Darwin Nunez and Roberto Firmino have managed a respectable combined tally of 18 goals.
Both teams possess talented enough squads to get themselves out of trouble, but as it stands, their title hopes are all but over and even Champions League qualification looks like an uphill task at present.
5. How big an impact will the World Cup have on players?
Make no mistake, the World Cup will have a significant influence on how the remainder of the season pans out.
In an interview with Sky Sports this week, mental performance consultant Mark Bowden took Bukayo Saka as a random example.
He was one game away from reaching a World Cup semi-final with England. Now, all of a sudden, with barely any rest, he is suddenly 20-plus games away from winning the Premier League title.
“The problem Bukayo, and every other player will have this weekend, is that as professional as they might be, the draw of winning three points in a long season is just not the same,” Bowen explained.
“What will naturally happen in the brain and body is a reduction in dopamine and testosterone, which will equal a player having less drive and their determination, focus and performance levels will go down.
“The physical strength, intensity, confidence in their game — they’ll be thinking, ‘I’m trying, it’s just not working’. They will experience a reduction in performance-enhancing chemicals through no fault of their own and no knowledge of their own.”
Even past World Cup winners have spoken of needing months to recover from the unfamiliar euphoria of triumphing on the global stage and getting back to their normal selves.
And that is without getting into the obvious physical effects — the extraordinary toll on the body is likely to result in more injuries than average during this uniquely taxing season.
It is, of course, impossible to definitively predict which teams will be most susceptible to these unfortunate trends.
Nonetheless, there were a number of English teams very well-represented in Qatar.
Football365 have put together a handy ranking of all the top-flight sides based on how many minutes their footballers played.
Man City are top (4625 minutes) ahead of Tottenham (3690 minutes), Man United (3685 minutes) and Chelsea (3334 minutes), while Southampton are bottom, having seen just one of their players, Ghana’s Mohammed Salisu, line out for 270 minutes.
There are caveats to consider, of course, such as the fact that some of City’s most-used players — for example, Julian Alvarez (467 minutes) and Nathan Ake (479 minutes) — are not guaranteed starters for the club.
What it ultimately means is a fascinating few months ahead — it regrettably may not be great for the players’ overall health and well-being, but will certainly make for a less-predictable campaign than usual.
Upcoming Premier League fixtures (3pm kick-off unless stated otherwise)
Monday
Brentford v Tottenham (12.30)
Crystal Palace v Fulham
Everton v Wolves
Leicester City v Newcastle
Southampton v Brighton
Aston Villa v Liverpool (17.30)
Arsenal v West Ham (20.00)
Tuesday
Chelsea v Bournemouth (17.30)
Man United v Nottingham Forest (20.00)
Wednesday
Leeds United v Man City (20.00)