Honestly, August kind of sucks.
You do not need all the details but there are just too many dates that dredge up painful memories for The Last Word to make this a month worth celebrating.
On the other hand, August is the best month of the year!
It is the time when fans of 20 different football clubs have dreams.
They are dreams of success, or of stability, or of merely avoiding relegation.
They are dreams featuring an Egyptian king and a Nordic god, dreams of Anfield and of Villa Park, dreams of Arne and Pep and soon-to-be-sacked Ruben.
The English Premier League is the best thing in sport.
. . . time of . . .
Here, in no particular order other than Liverpool must go first, are seven players to keep an eye on this season.
1. Florian Wirtz (Liverpool)
Cost an absolute bomb but plenty feel it was worth it for the reigning champions to secure a player who could become the best in the league. The silky German attacking midfielder is blessed with sublime skills and sees gaps where nobody else can.
2. Viktor Gyokeres (Arsenal)
Swedish striker arrives with one job: fill a role that has been a major issue in recent seasons. The Gunners are otherwise loaded, but they need more goals at crucial times if they are to lose the tag of chokers.
3. Rodri (Manchester City)
The second-best player in the league (after Mo Salah) when fit. But can he stay on the field?
4. Cole Palmer (Chelsea)
England’s golden boy.
5. Chris Wood (Nottingham Forest)
New Zealand’s greatest player is a legit Premier League star. And we should never take that for granted.
6. Youri Tielemans (Aston Villa)
Magnificent talent who led the league with 319 line-breaking passes last season.
7. Jan Paul van Hecke (Brighton)
Just because we need someone from the best-run club in the middle of the table. The Dutch defender is class, and hopefully stays with the Seagulls.
. . . the year
And here is a vague attempt at predicting where all 20 clubs will finish.
1. Arsenal — If not this season, when? Gyokeres goals should turn some of past season’s 14 draws into wins.
2. Liverpool — Still loaded, still got Salah. But sneaky suspicion is it will take time to bed in a lot of new players.
3. Manchester City — Maybe higher if Rodri plays most of the season.
4. Chelsea — Buoyant after winning World Club Cup, and the manager is actually good.
5. Aston Villa — The best of the rest.
6. Manchester United — I know: it’s way more fun when they are 15th.
7. Newcastle — Could be lower if star striker Alexander Isak moves to Liverpool.
8. Brighton — The buy low, they sell high, they stay competitive.
9. Nottingham Forest — Hopefully plenty more goals for our lad.
10. Tottenham — I know: it’s way more fun when they are 17th.
11. Crystal Palace — Can’t stop winning at Wembley.
12. Fulham — Classic mid-table team.
13. West Ham — Watch them start brightly then fall away rapidly.
14. Bournemouth — Could be four places higher, could be four places lower.
15. Leeds — Picking they will become the first promoted team in three years to survive.
16. Brentford — Could struggle following the departure of manager Thomas Frank.
17. Everton — Would be funnier if they were relegated, having just built a flash new stadium.
18. Wolves — They sell so many players it will eventually catch up on them.
19. Sunderland — Popular club but gap to Premier League is too wide.
20. Burnley — No chance of staying up.
Everyone’s an expert
The scourge of referee abuse in rugby is a major topic again.
One thing I would like to add is that it’s not always the outright abuse — the swearing, the accusations of bias, the general moronic behaviour — that makes your heart sink.
Sometimes, it is the more polite but almost as insidious "awww ref" running commentary on the sidelines.
I struck a classic case at the weekend.
To be fair to the coaches of the team involved, they probably did not realise the bloke standing near them was the ODT sports editor.
But their chatter was CONSTANT. Every decision — well, only the ones that went against their team, naturally — was met with frustrated outbursts or exaggerated hands-in-the-air gesticulation.
They must have been world-renowned experts on the obscure laws of rugby, too, as they insisted on advising the young volunteer referee on every single thing he was doing.
It was tiring. And it was unnecessary. And we see and hear this nonsense far too often.
Ch-ch-changes
You can always rely on the America’s Cup to raise a few eyebrows.
There were certainly some discussion points after the release of the "future-focused protocol" this week.
Cost caps and tinkering with the racing format appear to make sense. And it is interesting that there is a move to share the governance across the various syndicates.
But dictating there must be one female crew member on board feels more like virtue-signalling tokenism than anything else. And having a spot on the boats held open for VIPs, sponsors or "influencers" (god save me) is meaningless.
