Ligue 1 gets underway on Friday night with PSG looking to get their title defence off to a winning start away at SC Bastia.
Since their promotion in 2012, Bastia have been a mainstay (albeit average) of Ligue 1, it will be interesting to see whether this is the season that the Blues finally kick on and start looking upwards.
However, their transfers would perhaps suggest not as they have not spent a single penny on a player this summer, despite receiving nearly €5m for two players.
If PSG do not win what is an increasingly non-competitive Ligue 1 this year then it would probably be the biggest upset in French football history. However, the priority for the Parisians is of course the Champions League. They have brought in Unai Emery, who had a phenomenal Europa League record at Sevilla, as their new manager to see if he can land them the spoils on the biggest stage.
Emery has splashed the oil-wealth at PSG on his former Sevilla player Grzegorz Krychowiak along with Jese from Real Madrid, among others. Although talismanic striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has now been consigned to the history books after his move to Manchester United, whilst young left-back Lucas Digne could not resist a move to Barcelona, these transfers are certainly a step in the right direction for the Parisians.
PSG are the obvious favourites and I would back them to make a good start to their title defence by beating Bastia to nil which you can get at 2.15 with Marathon.
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