Football Season Guide

Atletico Madrid's summer has been one of the most unique in their history. Not only are they moving away from their historic Vicente Calderon stadium to the new Wanda Metropolitano, which could signify a slight loss of their usual home advantage as they take time to adjust to their new surroundings, but the capital city club were also slapped with a transfer ban and have not been able to sign any new players. They have been able to secure the arrival of Vitolo for January and hope to be able to bring back Diego Costa during that winter transfer window too but for the moment there will be no fresh faces in Diego Simeone's squad except for Luciano Vietto who has returned from a year on loan with Sevilla. The biggest positive, then, from this summer is the fact that Atletico have been able to keep a hold of their main men. None of the players to have left – with the exception of the retired Tiago Mendes – would have expected to start anyway, while they were able to keep the likes of Antoine Griezmann, Saul Niguez, Koke and Jan Oblak at the club in addition to coaching mastermind Diego Simeone. With the Argentinian still calling the shots from the touchline, albeit a new touchline in a new stadium. Atletico can still expect to be up near the top of the La Liga table at the end of the season. With their trusty 4-4-2 formation going nowhere, they'll hope to enjoy more success by building from their usually stingy back-four and their deep sitting midfield. Meanwhile, Griezmann and one of Kevin Gameiro or Fernando Torres will be left to seek the goals up front. The only issue Atletico might face this year is depth as they haven’t been able to add to what was an already limited squad. While strikers Gameiro and Torres and right-backs Juanfran and Sime Vrsaljko are interchangeable, there are few other positions where Simeone can rotate without expecting a drop-off in performance.