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Elephants in the room

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How absolutely amazing is it to have football back, and fans back! What a breathless first weekend of footy it was. Simply great. I'm sat here in front of BT Sport to watch the type of match that later in the season will just be a routine shalacking of minion by a Sky 6 team, but which at this stage is still unpredictable and joyous.

Last week, of course, we had the impassioned Brentford performance vs Arsenal. Their fans literally ole-ing after 32 minutes in one of the finest piss takes I've seen by a newly promoted team. By comparison, Man Utd fans took until the 89th minute to start their ole-ing, in a hugely impressive win.

Players that shone for me over the weekend were:

Emile Smith-Rowe for Arsenal. Despite them losing, he was their everything. He reminded me of one of the elephants in the room that I'll come onto.

Bruno Fernandes. Christ he's a bit good isn't he?

Another honourable mention should go to Scott McTominay who has honed an action-man aesthetic perfectly. Incredible.

Shall we move onto the elephants? I think I avoided it last week, but I need to get it out of my system. Grealish. He's gone. He went. And with it went my faith that ever a player will stay with his team and grow it to challenge the elite. Fuck that. Everyone is off for the insta-trophy / cash / fame. I was bitterly disappointed, mainly because he is brilliant and will doubtless be a great success. On balance I think Villa will be more balanced as a result, though not necessarily any better. The only real glimmer of hope is that 19 other teams have been coping without him thus far, so it's absolutely not impossible. And so it was that I watched Spurs Vs Man City through my hands. The result of course was hilarious - but say to see Man City's spending power exerting itself to the Spurs team selection, with the other elephant (Kane) left out. 

I fully expect that transfer to work its way through, and leave another fanbase without their hero, and down on belief in ever actually being able to get to a point of challenging for things without first experiencing massive setbacks.

I'm going to absorb as much of this beautiful football as I can, and hopefully see a compelling title race unfold. Enjoy the weekend.

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