Plenty of quality viewing if you can see through the smoke of battle

The Premier League is back with us on a major channel in Hong Kong, starting tomorrow with the live match from Upton Park, Liverpool v West Ham. The fact that it is now on ESPN, rather than Cable Sports, should be immaterial to most fans. That simple change of channel hides a summer of scare stories that reflect badly on all concerned, but more of that later.

For now we have a lot of matches to look forward as the league gets off to its usual busy start. Manchester United fans are well served with their home match against Jean Tigana's intriguing Fulham. And on Wednesday night United are at Blackburn. Two games against newly promoted sides looks like a gentle entry to the new campaign for the champions. They looked in pretty good shape last week in the Charity Shield loss to Liverpool (seen live on TVB Pearl).

Chelsea take on Newcastle on Sunday and the match of the week should be Tuesday night's game from Highbury when Arsenal host Leeds. Both sides are fancied to be among the pack snapping at Manchester United's heels and neither will want to be dropping points at this early stage of the season.

This is a first chance for Gooners to see Arsene Wenger's array of new players, including centre half Sol Campbell from arch-rivals Tottenham, Dutch midfielder Giovanni van Bronckhorst from Rangers, Forward Francis Jeffers from Everton and Japanese midfielder Junichi Inamoto from Gamba Osaka.

The package that brought ESPN back to I-Cable also includes STAR Sports. This version of STAR Sports will differ from the one available on satellite. The main difference is that the STAR Sports carried on I-Cable will include live Premier League matches. This channel will differ slightly from the STAR Sports carried by satellite in that the CABLE version will have occasional live Premier League matches, too. This week for instance STAR Sports (CABLE) will have Middlesbrough v Arsenal and Everton v Tottenham both live.

STAR Sports satellite are getting in on the action but in a peculiar way - they are showing matches from recent past seasons.