The season is in full swing now and it’s great that it's back, however, I just want to reiterate a point that we’ve been chatting about quite a bit.
We all love the Premier League the pure passion and grit, the history and tradition, the rivalries and the banter.
But what we are in the middle of right now is the "final solution" in cleaning it all up and creating a league no different to the type of boring k@k we watch on the continent. Well, I don’t watch it myself.
I’m talking about the "pure" football played at the top end of top leagues in Spain, France and Italy, teams made up of world-class individuals playing in time and space, executing artistic patterns and scoring picture-perfect goals.
What a load of bollox.
The latest cleansing tools include only defending team in walls, no defenders receiving the ball from the keeper in the box and don't forget the dreaded VAR.
I’m finding myself increasingly embroiled in arguments with football nerds, who ultimately walk away thinking they’ve put me in my place, but they just don’t get it.
Yes, the rule book says, “if the ball hits an attacking players hand in the box and changes direction, it’s a freekick to the defending team”.
But in reality, Saturday’s disallowed goal at the Eastlands (for me) was farcical and should have stood.
It was ball to hand from less than two feet away? “But it’s the rules Nick”.
Yes, it is, but the “rules” are gonna change the face of our game forever negatively.
As for a finger or knee or nose putting a player offside?
What was wrong with the "clear daylight" rule?
All in all, the spontaneity, spirit and guts of the game is being squeezed out all in the name of business.
Can’t you see that? Business needs clean, football is often controversial, business needs profit, controversy is bad for business.
ABUSED: Tammy Abraham. Photo: Will Oliver/EPA.
So all the knobheads who say to me “yeah, but when Chelsea get a positive VAR decision that wins a game you’ll sing a different tune”.
Absolutely not. I’m principled, I’m anti-VAR and that’s that.
When Chelsea's Tammy Abrahams missed the fifth penalty that gave Liverpool the Super Cup, the keeper had both feet off the line, why didn’t VAR pick that up?
Sergio Aguero retook and scored a penalty the week before for the same violation.
So we don’t even have consistency?
Off the field and the same thing is happening.
I have mates from Cape Town go to watch a game in England and I’m embarrassed.
What did they experience? Ok, they say it was amazing, but did they feel what I felt standing opposite the Kop aged nine early shitting my pants with the overwhelming emotion of it all?
Some other mates were in Istanbul last week and posted pics and messages saying how amazing it was.
Wow, it had to be the worst atmosphere on record, as 80 percent of the crowd weren’t from Liverpool or London.
It was like a frikkin library.
I generally don’t go the Bridge when I’m in London, prefer away games where at least most of the "fans" actually support Chelsea a bit deeper than wearing tons of merchandise and snapping pics.
I tend to back off those debates as well, can’t win against someone saying: “Because I live across the world and manage to get a ticket to watch the team I have always supported live, does that not make me a ‘proper’ fan”.
Yes, you may be a proper fan and please live out your dream and enjoy it, but my point isn’t that.
NO ATMOSPHERE: Istanbul. Photo: Supplied.
I hate the fact that I can’t take my kids into the magical environment I was so privileged to be part of because moneymen have taken it away, priced working class people out of their game and replacing it with a version that’s less exciting to watch and experience.
When I go to Athlone or Cape Town Stadium to watch football, I don’t adorn myself head to toe in Ajax or Cape Town City merchandise, looking like a club mascot, I’m a football fan. Why do people do that when they go to England?
I know I’ll take sh*t for saying all this, but I stick to my guns.
Saying all that, I find myself in one way back to the 70s and 80s.
After losing to United and Liverpool and drawing with Leicester in our opening three fixtures, I felt good about the way we played and the commitment of our players.
They gave it all, wearing the shirt. Great results will come, but snivelling little dicks who want to bang on about their “history” can take their superficial support somewhere else. And just for the record, there isn’t a single fan at the Bridge who’d utter a racist word in relation to Abrahams missing a penalty.
The kid is only 100 percent backed. That was plain to see on Sunday.
That type of behaviour is generated online by idiots who (again) parade as supporters, but have no real connection to what’s really going on. Otherwise, having a great week so far!