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With plenty of teams lining up with new star players and next summer featuring a World Cup in Brazil this season promises to be another cracker across Europe. And to add to this, Evan Bartlett will be bringing you a weekly column with a summary of the big four leagues on the continent (England, Spain, Italy and Germany) with the best value selections on the Betfair Exchange.

Premier League - England

Much of the talk in England this summer has been around the return of the Special One at Chelsea, David Moyes succeeding Sir Alex at Manchester United and Manuel Pellegrini’s new look Manchester City. With the big three all sporting new managers it should be an interesting title race.

But undeniably, dominating the headlines this summer has been the tussle between Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid with the Spanish club’s attempts to sign the London club’s star man Gareth Bale.

Behind this saga however Tottenham’s manager Andre Villas Boas has operated wisely, strengthening his side with an array of impressive signings.

Roberto Soldado, Nacer Chadli, and Paulinho add to an already strong squad and even if Spurs are to lose Bale they should push all the way for that coveted fourth place in the table.

And that’s the reason this week they are my choice to beat new boys Crystal Palace at 1.86. Despite the game being held away at Selhurst Park I expect this strong line-up to prove too much for Ian Holloway’s men who will have to perform miracles to maintain their Premier League status come this time next year.

La Liga - Spain

Apart from Bale and Madrid, the big talk in Spain has been about the arrival of Neymar at Barcelona. His integration with a star-studded squad and his relationship with the talismanic Lionel Messi will be under the spotlight as the season progresses.

Tata Martino’s Barca start the season as favourites for the title (1.82) closely followed by Real Madrid (2.26) with their new manager Carlo Ancelotti at the helm. But the next best are likely to fall some way short of these two giants of the Spanish game.

Of those, Atletico Madrid look the best bet to replicate last season’s third place and look a tasty 2.68 to win their first game away to Sevilla who have lost the star duo of Alvaro Negredo and Jesus Navas to Manchester City.

Although Atleti have lost their own star player in Radamel Falcao they do possess a strong squad with the likes of Diego Costa and the exciting Oliver Torres. If new signing David Villa can rekindle some form of old then there should be plenty of goals for them this season.

But away fixtures to the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan are always difficult so instead I’m plumping for more than 2.5 goals in this game at a generous 2.02.

Serie A – Italy

It looks as though the decline of Italian domestic football is set to continue despite the ongoing standard set by the national team who performed well at the Confederations Cup again this summer.

The exodus from the Serie A was epitomised by Edinson Cavani’s bumper move to PSG from Napoli and continues a growing trend of the Parisian club poaching the best talent around in Italy.

However it’s not all doom and gloom for the league that was once the pinnacle in Europe – the signings of Carlos Tevez and Fernando Llorente at Juventus suggest that Scudetto is still an honour that the world’s best aspire to.

And it is Juventus who dominate the title winners market at an eye-wateringly low 1.83 this season as they look to make it three in a row. That price however doesn’t seem all that surprising given the competition they have.

Napoli (8.2) should maintain a top three finish with Rafa Benitez at the helm and despite the loss of Cavani the signings of Gonzalo Higuain, Dries Mertens and Pepe Reina do look to have re-strengthened them somewhat.

Other than Napoli it will be left to the two Milan clubs to chase with AC Milan (6.2) expected to perform slightly better than a transitional Inter (14).

There are no games this weekend so our first matchday selections so we will have to wait until next week.

Bundesliga – Germany

Residing in fourth on this list of Europe’s top 4 leagues is probably an outdated summation for the Bundesliga which got underway last weekend.

Both of last year’s Champions League finalists preside at the top of the outright winners market again this season and many would argue that the Bundesliga has now grown to be the best in Europe.

The arrival of Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich has done nothing to quell this feeling and many see a period of domination arriving for the Bavarians to match that of Barcelona over the last half-decade.

Last season was dominated by Bayern and Dortmund and judging by their impressive victories on the opening weekend there’s no reason to believe this won’t be the case again.

You’ll find that most match odds on these two teams to win will be very short this season and for the most part won’t offer any attractive value to the punter.

Instead, this week I quite like the look of the over/under 2.5 goals market – last weekend saw an astonishing 37 goals in 10 matches and we’ll be in for a great weekend again if that can be matched.

Mainz won their opening encounter 3-2 against Stuttgart with goalkeeper Heinz Muller in particularly sensational form. Unfortunately for him he is lining up behind a leaky looking defence and we can expect plenty of goals in their game against SC Freiburg this weekend who will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing 3-1 defeat away to Sami Hyypia’s Bayer Leverkusen.

Odds of 2.1 on over 2.5 goals look very attractive for this encounter at Freiburg’s Mage Solar Stadion.

Summary
Back Tottenham Hotspur to beat Crystal Palace at 1.84 (1 pt).
Back more than 2.5 goals between Sevilla and Atletico Madrid at 2.02 (1 pt)
Back more than 2.5 goals between SC Freiburg and Mainz at 2.1 (1pt)

NB: Odds correct as of 15th August

Evan Bartlett is a freelance journalist specialising in football and cricket. His football tips returned an astounding profit of +58.08% last season – after 13 points staked gave a return of 20.55. His best picks were Nigeria to win AFCON 2013 at 10.5 and Shakhtar to qualify from Champions League Group E at 2.9.

You can follow Evan on Twitter @ev_bartlett