What exactly is going on? Did Roy Hodgson returning to Crystal Palace begin a chain of events whereby all football will slowly but surely go back in time? Premier League: the Benjamin Button years. Frank Lampard is heading back to Chelsea, Leicester are considering Martin O’Neill. What next? Gerry Francis at Spurs? Roy Evans to push Liverpool back up the table? Will Harry Redknapp and Frank Lampard Sr be in the away dugout at Craven Cottage on Saturday for West Ham’s trip to Fulham?
Is it just easier to hire a manager whose laptop is already connected to the wifi or at least knows where the toilets are? Here’s hoping O’Neill doesn’t tip up at Filbert Street for his first game.
So much is made of DNA, of “understanding the football club”. And such is the irrationality of fans that we love to cling to this unidentifiable nostalgia and history – for most of us there is little else. Broadly speaking, football clubs are the same. A ground, a training ground, a gym, some cones. A kit, an away kit, a really bright third kit, a really, really old kit man who’s seen it all.
There are lots of players who kiss the badge, but have almost no affinity with whichever club they happen to be at. Then there’s us, fans condemned to supporting them because of where our parents ended up or some other twists of fate over the past century or so.
But who have convinced ourselves that it isn’t like that, that our club is somehow different to the others, and maybe someone who was really good at kicking the ball in our shirt 10, 20 or 30 years ago will automatically understand how to inspire some different, younger players to be really good at kicking a slightly newer ball in a slightly newer shirt, even if they’ve already had a go at doing exactly that quite recently and categorically disproved the theory.
But who knows any more? Get in your DeLorean back to August and see how people react when you tell them Liverpool are eighth, Manchester United are really missing Casemiro, Sean Longstaff is leading Newcastle’s Champions League charge, and everyone will finally discover Brighton’s Bruno has a surname.
What was that Nathan Jones bit? Scott Parker was sacked by Club Brugge – excuse me? Unai Emery’s Villa are pushing for Europe. What? Remember that completely silent Match of the Day?
Football very rarely makes sense, so trying to make sense of it can feel a fruitless exercise. It is hard to know whether this is the best season for The Greatest League In The World™ or some kind of Premier League nadir. Are Nicola Berti and Andrea Silenzi laughing at us during their late-night radio show on Parlare Di Sport?There isn’t a side with nothing to play for. No one is on the beach. This is what we want, not just a second screen for the final day – but title race on the big TV, relegation on the laptop, Champions League spots on the tablet and Europa places on your phone. Jeff Stelling exploding, Merse yelling off camera, sun-drenched fans mournfully doomscrolling or celebrating wildly when a goal is scored 200 miles away.
The title race is almost perfect. The inexperienced, previously fragile, hopefuls in the lead, being chased by the Erling Haaland-augmented juggernaut. That game at the Etihad in a few weeks will be fascinating.
Mikel Arteta is making a lot of us look silly. It was extraordinary a team of that size appointed a manager who had been in charge of one game of football. Is it the DNA or is he just an excellent coach? He’s built a scintillating team who attack with purpose and pace and joy.
Meanwhile, Haaland is always the story at City, even when he’s in an oversized (normal sized for him) hoodie in an executive box. It seems wild Pep Guardiola could end up trophyless this season, but that doesn’t mean failure, such a binary approach to the game makes it simple to analyse, but is clearly ridiculous. They could get more than 90 points and be pipped by Bayern Munich or Real Madrid in the Champions League.
Below that Eddie Howe is getting players to play above themselves. Whoever’s in charge of Spurs is getting players to play below themselves and yet somehow they’re still in contention. Between them, Manchester United are good and then bad and then good again. And Brighton could do it. Roberto De Zerbi has discovered the Irish Alan Shearer and turned Solly March into David Silva.
Then there’s the bottom. It feels as if Crystal Palace have been 12th for decades. But they are three points off the relegation zone. Maybe this weekend is the one where the man holding the relegation concertina on the Central Line starts to pull it apart. Southampton host Manchester City, maybe they will be adrift by Saturday night.
For those with a conscience, the enjoyment of all the craziness is tempered by trying to navigate a path through human rights-abusing nations running things, by a player we can’t mention being on bail amid more than one rape allegation, by gambling being pushed at every corner, by the crypto-isation of the game, by coked-up tragedy chanting – it is all there.
Yet we are drawn in like our 10-year-old selves, staring at the league table on your preferred app after a victory in the way you looked at Shoot League Ladders in the 90s, adding three points for every game in hand as if it’s a guaranteed victory. Studying your fixtures and deciding they are all winnable despite all available evidence suggesting the contrary.
There is a quarter of all of this to go – which is quite a large chunk – so it could all peter out. My co-host on TalkSport, Charlie Baker, says you can end any football conversation by just saying “We’ll see”. It turns out in a season like this, that’s probably the only sensible thing you can say.
