The new season starts tomorrow (well the new Premier League season, Aston Villa have already managed to embarrass themselves twice already). I should be excited (I think) as a football fan, and more importantly a fan of a side plying its trade in the Best league the world™.
But I don’t get it. As mentioned in a post a few weeks ago, I
was one of a minority who didn’t switch the TV off on the evening of the 10th
July and say, “Thank god that’s over! It was awful! I can’t wait to get back to
watching games like West Brom v Middlesbrough…”
Obviously I’m exaggerating for effect, but even the prospect
of watching the same big sides playing each other on a Super Sunday with Martin Tyler saying “And it’s LIVE”, who the hell
does he think he is?!?; Mourinho moaning; Arsenal choking but doing just enough
to STILL finish above Spurs; West Ham infuriating me with the most baffling
displays, even last year (see Swansea at home); West Brom and Sunderland
invariably going on runs during which many amateur Sunday sides would fancy
their chances against them, yet staying up. It’s just a bit “Meh” for me.
Don’t get me wrong. I love football. And I’m intrigued by
the appointments of Mourinho, Guardiola and Conte. By Klopp’s first full season
in charge of Liverpool. I want to see whether I was right about Zlatan and if
Pogba will step up now he’s playing in a league which isn’t a one and a half
horse race. The masochistic part of me wants to see if Man United tear
Bournemouth apart this week, with their shiny new side (sorry Bournemouth, I do
actually really like you).
But I just can’t get THAT excited. I can see it for what it
is, a really well marketed, expensive product, which still lacks some substance
when compared to its rivals. It’s like an iPhone! That’s it! The Premier League
is football’s equivalent of the iPhone. Yes it’s a good phone, it’s one of the
best in the market. But if you weren’t being told that it was the best product
out there every time you turned the TV on; If you sampled one of the genuine
alternatives to it, and gave that alternative a good trial; You’d probably
realise that it offers nothing that its rivals can’t already provide.
And you’d start to pick out its very obvious flaws, be them
the complete lack of control of your own media that the operating system gives
you by default (come on Apple, we don’t all need hand holding!); the tens of
overpriced foreign imports that come in each season and make absolutely no
impact because they’re just not that good; the complete tie in to the IOS
operating system and lack of backwards/sideways compatibly with hardware (why
change the chargers, actually why are they different from every other
manufacturer’s); or the damage that the influx of mediocre foreign imports and
the craving for instant, money driven, success is doing to our, already not so
good, national team.
Not to mention the complete and utter disregard for match
going fans. The very people that helped make this product as marketable as it
is today; and silly things like not having a YouTube app (I know why, but you’re
supposed to be this really intuitive easy to use product) or having to use that
crap limited Safari browser.
Anyway, I massively digress. Long and short of it all, I don't buy into the hype of either. You won't find me queuing up outside the apple store overnight or losing sleep over the prospect of Leicester beginning the defence of their title tomorrow against Hull. And come early May I'll probably even be a little bit relieved when it's all over again.
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