The Premier League gets underway this weekend and while a lot of attention will be on how the reigning champions Man City, and their main title challengers all perform and get off to the best starts, one of the more interesting battles will be that of the three newly promoted teams.

Nottingham Forest are back in the top flight after so long, and this will be for many of their fans the first campaign in the top league that they will see from their club. Forest travel to St James Park for their opening game on Saturday, and this will be a huge game as Newcastle will also want to show the fans that they mean business this season.

Forest broke their transfer record to make Taiwo Awoniyi their first arrival of the summer for £17.5m from Union Berlin. The Nigeria international played at Liverpool but made his way to Germany, where he scored 15 goals last season to help Union to fifth in the table and earning European football. Now he has a chance to prove himself in the Premier League and we’ll see how well he adjusts.

Fulham are also back again after a yo-yo few years that has seen them come up and go back down several times. Their opening game is against Liverpool, and it would be a shock to everyone if Fulham got off to a winning start in this one. Fulham have made six signings this summer but have said goodbye to more than 10 of the players that helped them win the Championship last season, and Marco Silva admits they are not yet ready to be competitive and need to add more signings.

After a two-year hiatus, Bournemouth are back in the Premier League on the back of an impressive season that saw Scott Parker’s men finish two points behind champions Fulham. No team in the Championship conceded fewer goals than Bournemouth, so it will be interesting to see how their defence holds up. 

The Cherries welcome Aston Villa in their first game so we’ll see two former England teammates in Scott Parker and Steven Gerrard face-off on the touchlines.

Earning promotion is always exciting but now it’s time to focus and get down to the business of proving you belong in the Premier League. #mmlove