The Premier League is fast becoming a bit of a farce, isn’t it? I mean here we are just having learned about ‘Project Restart’ a couple of weeks ago, with the Premier League given the green light to apparently start integrating players into small groups so they can train as a collective, and then we start to find out that they can’t tackle or make any contact with each other.

The BBC also said that the Premier League were going to get surprise inspection team together so that they can check as to whether clubs are adhering to the policy, to ensure that there aren’t teams who are breaking rules to gain some kind of competitive advantage.

That’s where we’re at now people. The players can’t tackle or go near each other because that would be tantamount to cheating. So not only have we sucked the life out of the intensity and passion of the matches by taking the fans away (anyone who watched any German football over the weekend will surely agree with me on that one), we’re now going to be setting players the challenge of winning football matches without actually going near an opponent.

When this nonsense all starts up again we’re going to get the most farcical version of football we’ve ever seen. It’ll be like watching crappy exhibition matches where no player wants to get injured because they are about to head off on holidays and want to be able to do bombs in their swimming pool without having to wince because they busted their ankle.

It’s actually laughable and it’s now become clear just how seriously football takes itself when you have all of these caveats in just so teams can complete a redundant season that is now meaningless in every possible way. I guess if Liverpool were to win their first title in god knows how long, it might as well be one where we can all snigger at the giant asterisk put next to the whole season.

But bantering off Liverpool aside, I am genuinely finding all of this quite crass. We’ve got loads of tests happening all of the time, we’ve got teams desperate to complete a season because they need the money, we’ve got what feels like a collective of fans sat at home having watched German football at the weekend wondering whether it is all worth it.

And to top that all off we’ll have to wait as the clubs try to develop some kind of mini pre season for the Premier League to start on 20th June. laughable nonsense. They might as well just chuck in some extra rules like four footballs on the pitch, or force the goalkeepers to spend at least five minutes each half lying on their back, because tis isn’t football any more. Not the football I fell in love with anyway.

And nobody can tell me that it’s for the morale of people everywhere that football needs to start up again. Yes it’ll give us something to talk about for a while, but see how long that lasts when we realise what it is we’re watching unfold in front of our very own eyes. Some soulless bunch of friendly games that in reality if you wanted to watch you’d do just as well to go down to your local park and watch lads or lasses having a kick about. It’s the same thing practically.

There are two up sides for us Gooners though; the first is that we picked a glorious time to have the sh*ttest season in my lifetime. As long as Mikel Arteta can get those players motivated and playing well together next season, the only way is up and if we fudge the attempt at getting in to the Europa League, then we’ll have a pretty free schedule to be able to see if we can have a proper go at climbing the league table next season. The second positive for us is for our new coach. Again, he got a horrible virus and was ill and that was grim, but before all of this happened we talked about how Arteta essentially had a free hit this season. Well, it’s become even more of a free hit now because if people are feeling remotely like I’m feeling for the remainder of the season, they’re feeling that this is all going to be exceedingly ‘meh’ until 2020/21 kicks off. So there you go Mikel, have yourself an extended four or five months pre season and use some of these silly league games to work out what you want from certain players for next season. Bonza.

There’s some stuff in the press in  Germany about Bellerin wanting out in the summer, but at the moment it feels like there’s so much up in the air it doesn’t really make sense for anyone to do anything until we know when the season is going to finish. I know Arteta has spoken about plans they have in place and that’s right, but I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that we’re even bothering with a season, let alone having to think about what shape our squad will be in when the next one eventually comes around.

And on that note I think i’ll leave it for another day. Be well, be safe, be good and I’ll catch y’all tomorrow.