Football’s not what it was... but it’s still great!

I’M not sure I agree with the way a high street supermarket has hijacked a classic Christmas song for its summer TV ad campaign.

However, I would certainly go along with using it in the build- up to the start of the football season – which, for me, really IS the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s just a shame that the Premier League insist on distancing themselves from their Football League brethren like a snobby relative at a wedding attempting to disassociate themselves from an embarrassing family member.

Like the other great seasonopening tradition of a full programme of games on late summer Bank Holiday Monday, all 92 teams kicking off in unison is now a distant memory.

The fact that we’re barely out of July and starting the season is mad enough.

Not least because it means, for most of us, by the time that bank holiday arrives all our hopes for the season being a success will probably be put in their place.

Having this staggered start to accommodate the top clubs’ foreign tournaments and the first round of live matches does take the gloss off it a bit.

That’s the price we pay ( alongside our Sky subscription, of course) for having our football almost permanently live on our TV. WHEN clubs like Motherwell and St Johnstone have to travel to Russia and Belarus for Europa League ties they end up out of pocket rather than earning the few extra quid they might have hoped for when they qualified.

It’s just like Eurovision winners who have the hassle and expense of hosting the event as a “reward” for winning it.

And when you start making comparisons between the Europa League and Eurovision, you know it’s a shambles. WHO ARE YA? Man City’s Fernandinho

AS usual, the summer has been dominated by pointless transfer speculation. It’s a bit like blokes down the pub discussing what they’d do if Angelina Jolie agreed to move in with them. There were also wild spending sprees, with Man City laying out £...