It's time to really start judging Maresca and new-look Man City after $600M refresh

Any concerns over Manchester City's capacity to challenge Arsenal for the Premier League title early in the post-Pep Guardiola era might have disappeared.

That's what back-to-back wins and spending $400 million on new players in two weeks can do for a team.

City is back in a good place, it seems, at the end of a transfer window where the club had a bigger expenditure than anyone else in Europe. Deadline-day signings of Enzo Fernandez and Iliman Ndiaye took its overall summer outlay to more than $600 million.

Over the past week, City has also bought Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi and Brazilian winger Allan — for a combined cost of $160 million — essentially as backups.

It leaves City manager Enzo Maresca suddenly with a strong, deep squad and therefore plenty of selection dilemmas for the home match against Coventry on Saturday.

Maresca started the season playing Marc Guehi — a center back — in center midfield, such were his shortage of options there after City sold or released a slew of midfielders such as Rodri, Bernardo Silva and Tijjani Reijnders and hadn't replaced them.

Now he has to pick two of Elliot Anderson, Fernandez or Bouaddi to play behind in-form playmaker Rayan Cherki. And on the wing, Ndiaye and Allan will provide competition for senior players Phil Foden, Antoine Semenyo and Jeremy Doku.

You fear for Coventry, a promoted team which has already traveled to Arsenal and was fortunate to lose only 3-0.

City has opened the season with a 2-1 win over Bournemouth and a 4-1 win at Crystal Palace. The first couple of weeks might have been the best time to play City with its incomplete squad, new manager settling in and players not fully fit after the World Cup. Let's not forget the Community Shield, where City's performance was tepid in a 3-0 loss to Arsenal.

This weekend onward is the time to really start judging Maresca and this refurbished City team.

Key matchups

The standout fixture sees defending champion Arsenal host Chelsea on Sunday in a match between two of the four teams on a maximum six points. Arsenal has looked typically stingy at the back — it has yet to concede a goal — while Chelsea is the joint top scorer with seven goals, so something has to give.

Aside from City, promoted Hull is the other team with two wins from two and next hosts Aston Villa, which has zero points.

After back-to-back draws, Liverpool will look for its first win of the season at promoted Ipswich on Friday.

Players to watch

This is the first chance to see some of the top signings in the transfer window in action.

Among them is Bradley Barcola, who could make his debut — possibly off the bench — for Liverpool after his $166 million move from Paris Saint-Germain. He hadn't made an appearance for PSG this season with uncertainty over his future.

Jack Grealish is back on loan at Everton and might be thrown straight in against Manchester United with Ndiaye no longer around.

Off the field

Watch out for possible protesting by Everton fans unhappy at the American-owned club's activity in the summer transfer market that saw not only its best attacker, Ndiaye, leave but also its backup striker Beto depart without being replaced.

With deadline-day bids for Folarin Balogun and Joshua Zirkzee failing, Everton has been left with just one senior striker — Thierno Barry.

Everton's fan advisory board issued a statement to reflect the “serious concerns” expressed by supporters regarding the club's handling of the transfer window and argue the squad is in a weaker state than it was at the start.

“The gap between ambition and execution is now impossible to ignore, and it has damaged confidence in the planning, leadership and alignment of football operations,” the fan group said. “Supporters deserve clarity, accountability and evidence that lessons have been learned before further trust can be rebuilt.”

The Texas-based Friedkin Group is starting its second full season as Everton's owner.