Atletico Madrid failed to win any major honour last season, but manager Diego Simeone says that his team are now well equipped to be challenging for a title at the end of this campaign.

The Spanish league will be beginning shortly and Atletico have made some important changes to the squad during the summer. Gone are names like Mario Mandzukic and in have come the likes of Jackson Martinez. This means that Fernando Torres is unlikely to be a first choice striker at the club in the coming campaign. The future of Torres at the Vicente Calderon looks to be under doubt.

The Spanish striker is on loan until the end of the season and only his good performances will persuade Atletico to convert this deal into a permanent move. Even though he is regarded as one of the club legends, Simeone will not want to waste significant portion of his wage budget on a player not regarded as a first choice. Last season, Atletico finished in the third spot which was very much expected. However, they had won the title – in unexpected circumstances – just the season before. Simeone is confident of reclaiming the lost league title from the clutches of Barcelona.

"We know [Luciano] Vietto, [Angel] Correa, [Yannick] Carrasco and Oliver [Torres] can greatly improve the team.We still have to improve a lot, especially from a tactical perspective, but the players will never lose their talent. This talent is necessary for winning games," said the manager. Atletico start the new campaign with a home game against Las Palmas. It will be interesting to see how the team would respond to the numerous changes made by Simeone. The league campaign for Atletico starts on August 22. This will be immediately followed by games against Sevilla and Barcelona in the subsequent weeks.