Welcome to bio-secure football, the new normal
frowned upon and can lead to a yellow card.
All a bit bizarre, but the truth is it was not as ghastly a TV spectacle as I thought it was going to be.
At the start of this crisis, my preference was to null-and-void the season, try and start afresh in the not too distant future.
Once it was clear that was not going to happen, I railed against this bio-secure football.
And it is still wrong on so many levels.
First and foremost, it puts the players and their families in an invidious position.
Right now, going back to the workplace carries a risk and going back to a workplace in which physical contact takes place must surely carry a bigger risk.
Secondly, from a moral point of view, it is a terrible look.
By the time the Premier League returns, who knows what the coronavirus death count – currently in excess of 31,000 – will look like. Premier League football is returning out of financial necessity and that is a bottom line that is unpalatable, to say the least. But it IS returning. The most recent remarks from the Secretary of State for Sport, Oliver Dowden (below), pretty much confirmed that. No, the Premier League had not been given any green light from the Government, said Dowden, but he did then go on to say that “if we can get a plan that works, then I’d like us to be able to go ahead with it”. Now it is over to the Premier League’s latest meeting and coming up with a “plan that works”, one that can satisfy the safety needs of Government and police. The ‘neutral venues’ clause might slightly disadvantage some and, if the five-substitute rule is adopted, it will favour the bigger clubs. Things will be starkly different from what has gone before.
But, apart from his age, there was little different about the delight of veteran Lee Dong-gook when he met an 83rd-minute corner with the winning header.
And there was something familiar about the disdain shown by Bluewings midfielder Terry Antonis when he was shown a straight red card for a dangerous challenge on Son Jun-ho.
Echoing what Dominic Raab told me at last Tuesday’s No.10 briefing, Dowden went on to say: “I really hope we can get this up and running – it will be good for the nation.” That might be stretching it. What would be good for the nation is a reduction in the death tolls, more testing, more PPE equipment and a vaccine on the horizon.
But at least it would be a distraction a lot of people could do with right now.