A new football season, a fresh start – and some hope
Ben Burrows welcomes the return of the Premier League
A scuffed shot and a defensive miscue, a hack towards goal and ultimately the ball swept home from inside three yards.
The first goal of the new Premier League season, scored by Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette – inside eight minutes – at Craven Cottage on Saturday afternoon, won’t be mistaken for a classic any time soon.
However, it kicked off a brand new campaign.
It is a new season – starting so soon after the last one ended – that is filled with hope. Hope of better fortunes than last season both on the field and off it. Hope that supporters being allowed back into stadiums to watch games, even in reduced numbers, is not too far over the horizon.
Hope really does spring eternal this time of year. With every team level on points and starting afresh with memories of last season, good or bad, firmly in the rear-view mirror the slate is wiped clean, regardless of what came before it. That is true of every league.
But much attention obviously falls on England’s top league. A few short months ago Leeds United were a Championship team and Liverpool were runaway Premier League champions, but Marcelo Bielsa too his side to Anfield on Saturday evening and saw them give Jurgen Klopp’s Reds everything they could handle in the standout game of the weekend.
That hope has not been deflated, with the Leeds fanbase now firmly believing their first season back in the top flight for 16 years really will be as fun as they have long dreamt it would be.
For journalists too this portion of the season is always great fun.
After the longest season and the shortest off-season, the return of football brings with it welcome relief of new narratives and nuances to explore.
New teams and new managers spark new storylines to discuss and dissect. New transfer acquisitions resplendent in new kits give tired teams a new complexion and the promise of a new way of playing. Old controversies will surely be renewed too, stoking new talking points worthy of investigation and analysis.
It’s a time to start again on the pitch for teams up and down the country – and off it, time for journalists to get back to work writing about it.
Yours,
Ben Burrows
Sports editor