The Premier League returns this weekend and so too do pundit predictions, with Paul Merson the first to have his say on West Ham vs Aston Villa

Paul Merson warns Saturday’s Premier League opener against West Ham United could be a ‘difficult’ start to a tricky season ahead for Aston Villa.

All of the summer transfer business and every single pre-season friendly to have taken place have all been building up to Villa’s return to top-flight action. Unai Emery and his squad travel down to London on Saturday where they are tasked with defeating Julen Lopetegui’s West Ham.

The Hammers have undergone some serious changes over the past months, first bringing in the former Wolves manager in place of David Moyes then allowing him to make an impression on the squad with eight signings worth £123.7m in total. To some extent so have Villa, not making a managerial change themselves though the need to compete on multiple high-profile fronts has forced a great amount of business since the window began.

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Champions League football won’t begin to cause an impact until next month, though with the likes of Amadou Onana and Ian Maatsen gelling into their new roles Merson discussed the challenges the team will face this weekend with Sportskeeda. The former Arsenal and England midfielder’s full-time prediction was a 1-1 draw.

“West Ham have bought well this summer and will be hard to defeat,” he explained. “[Crysencio] Summerville was ripping it up in the Championship last season, but he is now playing against better full-backs – we’ll have to wait and see.”

Assessing Villa in depth, Merson continued: “If you’re City, Arsenal or Liverpool and you take four out of six points off Aston Villa, that’s a bonus. Those are points that you have gained on your competitors. They’re a difficult team to beat but they’re in the Champions League.”

“This will be a long season for them and they’re not used to it,” he added as warning. “Some of the players have not played in Europe at all. Aston Villa have a very good manager, however, and that will make a difference.”

He concluded: “This will be a difficult game for both teams. West Ham have bought well but their players will have to gel well together. A draw will be a good result for both sides this weekend.”

Damian Vidagany slams situation that is ‘killing’ Aston Villa as he calls for total reset

Aston Villa’s director of football operations Damian Vidagany has slammed the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), insisting it makes the club’s challenge of breaking up the ‘top six’ establishment even harder.

After qualifying for Champions League football last season, Villa were forced to raise funds before the end of June. Douglas Luiz joined Juventus for £42m after the sales of academy graduates Tim Iroegbunam and Omari Kellyman.

“The clubs need rules to stick to, but PSR is making it very complex,” Vidagany said on talkSPORT. “The system is forcing the club’s to sell their academy players. This is the way to make more profit and stick to the rules. This is killing some of the spirit of football to sell academy players and I am not only talking about us and Omari Kellyman, but the case of Conor Gallagher with Chelsea too. It is not natural in football.

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“It is breaking the cycle of football and it is also affecting the salary of players and how we the clubs want to build the squads with sense of belonging too. It is forcing the clubs to do deals which aren’t natural in the market. In the market, to get the best deals you need time.

“PSR is not helping the clubs to control inflation of football. It is a contradiction. We as a club, we have an ambition to be among the best. I don’t like the concept of the top six. It is an establishment we are trying to break. We are lucky to have one of the best managers in the world to help break this wall in front of us.”

Vidagany added: “The difficult decisions with the PSR is that the fans must know, from UEFA there is SCR (squad cost ratio). It is completely different to PSR. It’s like trying to do two puzzles with the light off.

“For example, we sold Douglas Luiz, an important player, because they had to stick to PSR. We got a lot of profit as he was here for many years. But to reduce the cost of the squad, Diaby helps reduce the SCR. We must have 80 per cent of our costs compared to revenue. When you compete in Europe you have to stick with UEFA rules too which are completely different.

“We need to combine the decisions for both and it’s extremely difficult. Sometimes, the decisions are forced because we have to stick to both as we could have a point deduction in the league. You need to have many considerations. It’s not like Football Manager!