The State of Football: August 2017 - ANNOUNCE!

The new season is back!

It feels like only a few weeks ago that we were laughing at Arsenal Fan TV and making jokes about Sp*rs "Putting on the pressure".

A part of me is happy to see the football back. Anyone who has read my previous posts will know that I'm not a massive advocate of the Best League in the World (or "Most Competitive" when England flop at a tournament or ANOTHER "inferior" French team knocks one of ours out of Europe). This time last year I wrote about how unenthused I was at the prospect to watching more Burnley v West Brom, with Martin Tyler telling me how great it was.

All this being said, even I get a little excited every August and find myself watching Premier League games in the first few weeks of the season that I wouldn't even check for score updates come February!

A part of me is just happy that the nonsense of the summer break is almost behind us. What has happened to the game? I don't even care about Neymar going to PSG for almost £200m. Don't get me wrong that's a bit silly but the fee was more about the release clause in his contract than the craziness of football.

In fact, as much as I think paying £20m+ for the average Premier League footballer is a bit ridiculous, that doesn't actually concern me much. I have bigger gripes with the modern game and the absurdities we are subjected to in the summer. It all starts with the kit leaks in late April/early May. Last I checked nobody won the league because of their shiny new purple Underarmour 3rd kit! I really couldn't give a toss about dimly lit pictures of tops that 90% of the time turn out to be either fake or just a kids training top.

And then there's the actual kit launch! OK you've got a new kit. Like I said before, it has little or no bearing on your success on the pitch (obviously there's the theory Re teams that wear red), so I have very little interest in elaborate marketing campaigns or abstract "Reveal" videos being posted on Instagram!

Really?

As if it couldn't get any worse, we then have the player unveiling and the manufactured drama that is Transfer Deadline Day. I'll get on to the videos, but I just need to air something first. If you are an organisation who turns over millions of pounds a year and you have a fixed window of 2 months (1 in the winter) where you can make appointments that will potentially grow the business exponentially, why would you leave it all down to the last 24 hours of that window and have some idiot in a yellow tie running around after you slowing the whole process down? Surely if the asset you were acquiring was so valuable to you (99% of the time costing you millions of pounds) you'd give yourself as much time as possible to get the deal done? This isn't qualifying in F1 where you let the track get hot and got out and do a flying lap as late as possible (I don't think that happens anymore due to the rule changes, but I don't follow F1 since it got silly and started having night races and Grand Prix with double points, I mean what next? A red shell?  A la Mario Kart?)!*

Then when the team does sign the player, we're then treated to ANOTHER elaborately abstract unveiling video via the club's official Twitter account. And until this happens you have 15 year old boys up and down the country angrily tweeting "ANNOUNCE [SUPERSTAR PLAYER X]!" at the club?!?
As if Roman Abramovic is going to get a call from his Director of Football or whoever it is that arranges transfers saying, "Sir! Calum in West Hampstead has tweeted us again! He really wants Benzema!"
Abramovic: "Get me on the phone to Florentino Perez! I'm not losing another follower...!!"
What happened to the days of literally not knowing anything until Andrea Silenzi turns up on the back pages of the newspaper, in a home shirt (with shoes and trousers on), holding a stretched out scarf above his head in front of an empty main stand?

It was for all of the above reasons that I was glad to take in my first full game last Sunday in the form of Marseille against Dijon, and then watched the majority of Arsenal v Leicester last night.

I'm sure I've said it before here, and will probably do so again, but... Football! What have they done to you?

On the subject of launch videos, this is the best you'll ever see. I was in the Co-op yesterday and they (aptly on the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Premier League) were playing Alive And Kicking. 

*Many deals are arranged outside of the window to be concluded as soon as it opens, so there really is no excuse for leaving it until that bloody day that Sky have invented!