8 new things in Premier League this season – big offside and team news changes

The 2024/25 season is right around the corner. There has been a lot of change for Liverpool in the off-season, and the top flight has undergone some transformations too.

A new era is upon us as Arne Slot looks to build on the foundations that his predecessor left behind, and that includes a return to the Champions League.

There is plenty for the Reds to navigate and for Slot to get to grips with, but let’s take a look at what has changed in the Premier League for 2024/25.

 

The 3 newly-promoted sides

The new season sees Leicester and Southampton return to the top flight after just one season in the Championship.

They are joined by Ipswich Town, who finished second in the table to earn promotion to the Premier League for the first time in 22 years. They were last in the division in 2001/02.

The Reds, of course, face Ipswich on the opening day and will meet the other two promoted sides by Boxing Day.

 

Semi-automated offside

Premier League clubs unanimously approved the use of semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) for the 2024/25 season – it has been a long time coming!

The Technology uses limb-tracking Technology to determine if a player is offside or not and will speed up a process known to take an unnecessary amount of time.

The Premier League will use the same cameras and software that UEFA uses in the Champions League and assistant referees will be informed of the technology’s decision via their earpiece.

It is anticipated that it will not be operational until “after one of the autumn international breaks.”

 

Team news will drop earlier

If you have been in the habit of checking your news feeds an hour before a match to see team news as soon as it is released, you’re going to have to change your traditions!

From this season, Premier League teams will confirm their starting lineups 75 minutes before the first whistle. The change comes as the league looks to fall in line with UEFA competition.

So for a 3pm kickoff, we’ll know who is starting for Liverpool by 1.45pm.

 

Another new ball

Inspired by the past. Ready for the future.

Introducing the 2024/25 Premier League @Nike Flight ball, available from @nikefootball now.

— Premier League (@premierleague) July 22, 2024

Its shape hasn’t changed, but the new ball is purple, yellow and white – and you’ll be seeing plenty of it this season.

For the fifth year in succession, the Nike Flight Premier League ball has been built with AerowSculpt technology, designed to allow ‘air to travel seamlessly around the ball delivering truer flight’.

This is the 25th season with Nike as the official ball supplier for the Premier League.

 

Fresh faces in the hotseat

Our own Arne Slot is on this list, taking charge for the first time in England’s top tier – Jurgen Klopp‘s departure now means Pep Guardiola is the longest-serving manager in the Premier League.

The Dutchman is not alone in his new venture, with Fabian Hurzeler (Brighton), Enzo Maresca (Chelsea), Kieran McKenna (Ipswich) and Russell Martin (Southampton) all in the hot seat for a first time in the Premier League.

You can’t help but wonder how long Maresca will last at Chelsea.

Other changes include Julen Lopetegui taking over at West Ham and Steve Cooper at Leicester.

 

VAR improvements…we hope

Premier League clubs voted in favour of continuing to utilise VAR in the summer, but it was agreed that improvements needed to be made (that may be an understatement!).

Six key areas are the focus for improvement:

• 1. Maintaining a high threshold for VAR intervention for greater consistency and less interruption

• 2. Reducing delays to the game, primarily through introduction of semi-automated offside and the high threshold for VAR intervention

• 3. Improving fan experience through reduction in delays, in-stadium announcements from referees after post-VAR change of decision

• 4. Working with PGMOL on the implementation of more robust VAR training to improve consistency, emphasis on speed of process while preserving accuracy

• 5. Increasing transparency and communication around VAR

• 6. Delivery of a fan and stakeholder VAR communication campaign, will seek to further clarify VAR’s role to participants and supporters

 

New officials

The Premier League have promoted two officials to their team for the new campaign, with referee Sam Barrott and assistant referee Craig Taylor graduating from the development group.

Yorkshire-born Barrott has previously overseen 15 top-flight fixtures – none involved Liverpool – while Staffordshire’s Taylor only made his Premier League debut in January.

Let’s hope Slot has better luck with the officials than Klopp ever did!

 

No winter break

It has been in and out of the schedule for years, but there will not be a winter or mid-season break this season.

The Premier League removed it from the calendar to allow a mid-August start date, which they justified as giving a longer summer break to the players, who all should have received three weeks off.

In 2023/24, the top flight split one round of games to ensure half the league were on a break and the other half were playing before flipping it – which appeared to work well, but obviously not!