The time has finally come — the beginning of a new English Premier League season. The upcoming Friday, August 9 will start the new season and won’t stop until a champion is crowned in May 2020.

2019–2020 Premier League will surely be interesting. Arsenal will have to finish in the top four to get back on track, Manchester United has to start really well to get rid of accumulated negativity and Liverpool will fight a righteous fight for their first league title of the Premier League era.

To prepare yourself for the next 10 months of the best and competitive soccer on Earth, here’s a preview of what to expect, including the top dates of the season and how to watch all the action online safely.

Important Dates

August 9: Norwich City at Liverpool. First watch of the new season, Liverpool should win easily.

August 31: North London Derby, Tottenham vs. Arsenal (at Arsenal). Arsenal is looking to fight its way back into the top four. Tottenham will do anything to stop it and claim supremacy in North London.

November 9: Manchester City vs Liverpool (at Liverpool). Battle between giants for Premier League supremacy.

December 7: Manchester Derby. Manchester City vs. Manchester United (at City). Manchester Derby is one of the most anticipated matches of the season.

March 7: Manchester Derby. Manchester City vs. Manchester United (at United). Manchester Derby is one of the most anticipated matches of the season.

April 4: Manchester City vs Liverpool (at City). Battle between giants for Premier League supremacy.

April 25: North London Derby, Tottenham vs. Arsenal (at Tottenham). Arsenal is looking to fight its way back into the top four. Tottenham will do anything to stop it and claim supremacy in North London.

December 26: Boxing day. All 20 teams will be in action the day after Christmas. One of the Premier League’s great traditions.

May 17: Final Match day. Depending on how the season shakes out, the title, top four and relegation battles could all be decided on the final fixtures of the 2019–2020 season.

What to Expect

The Premier League title race will likely come down to two teams: Manchester City, the reigning Premier League champion, and Liverpool the reigning UEFA Champions League champion. Last season, City and Liverpool put on a title race for the ages, totaling 98 and 97 points, respectively, the second and third highest tallies in Premier League history.

Neither team has lost much to transfers this summer and none of their rivals has improved enough to mount a credible challenge to them. In all likelihood, City and Liverpool will duke it out or Premier League supremacy again this season.

The race for the remaining top four spots and a place in next season’s UEFA Champions League will be considerably tighter and should feature the other four of England’s Big Six clubs: Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham.

How To Watch

In the United States, the Premier League is carried in English by NBC. Most of the top matches of the season will be shown on either NBC or NBC Sports. Some games may also appear on NBC-owned channels such as USA and CNBC. In Spanish, it can be found on Telemundo and Universo.

But what about people that are outside of US? Or the people that do not want to spend their money on subscriptions to Hulu, Fubo, YouTubeTV? Once the English Premier League will begin, there will be plenty of websites hosting Live streams of football matches which may seem harmless for the naked eye, especially for people that aren’t tech-savvy, but these sites are in the gray area of the internet, the area which contains millions of sites that offer streaming services most of which are free or with some minor requirements, like registering, providing your email, or installing some browser extensions of even programs.

Just remember: there’s no such thing as free streaming without some hidden drawbacks and in case if you’re planning to visit such site it’s better to be prepared. As Andrew Lewis once said, “If you are not paying for it, you’re not a customer, you’re the product being sold.”

Necessary tools for online protection

VPN

A VPN is like a secure tunnel for a web traffic. You connect to one of the servers and your web traffic which consists of requests you send to websites you wish to visit to responses from websites you receive back becomes encrypted by Military-grade encryption. Meaning that you will browse safely on any public Wi-Fi network while drinking coffee at Starbucks or waiting for a plane at the airport.

Trusted VPN providers have lots of servers to offer and your internet speed shouldn’t decrease as much. You should lose approximately 20% internet speed from the original, meaning you can torrent safely, stream online content without experiencing lag issues and play online games as well.

Some VPN providers have additional perks — inbuilt ad blockers that detect adware, Internet kill switches that ensure you won’t spill your personal information when disconnected from VPN, etc.

Here are some providers that are noteworthy of attention:

NordVPN ($3.49/month for 3 year subscription)

This VPN provider has a built-in adblocker that protects you from adware, perfectly works with streaming services such as Netflix.

NordVPN has more than 5000 servers in 60+ countries meaning that you can connect to almost any place in the world. Your traffic isn’t logged your traffic and operates from Panama, meaning that your data is not collected and sold afterwards. It’s even recommended by such huge tech websites like VPNMentor, PCMag and Restore Privacy, all whom rate it highly.

ExpressVPN ($8.32/month for 1 year)

One of the Fastest VPNs in the world.

Remarkably reliable and consistent, whether you’re connecting to a local server, or one on the other side of the world.

Private Internet Access ($3.33/month for 1 year)

Private Internet Access is a VPN that pays close attention to anonymity and affordability, and in both areas it is a compelling offering. However, key areas for improvement include support for an even broader range of platforms, such as the popular Apple TV, and introducing more servers located in a more geographically diverse number of countries.

Antivirus software

Be careful when choosing antivirus software.

Most important things that an Antivirus should offer are virus detection without false flaggings, protection of your usernames and passwords and ability to keep you safe from hackers.

Sometimes antivirus software may interfere with VPN, since VPN modifies your connection — make sure your antivirus has an exception list, where you can add your VPN provider.