You don't have to be miserable
Ipswich Town v Leicester City was good, clean fun. And despite all the top-tier handwringing, Newcastle 2-3 Everton was some premium Premier League fare.
My apologies for the lack of posting these last two weeks. First I got married, then I was on the road last weekend for a stag do.1 That’s what the locals would call it, anyway, because we went to London, then East Anglia. This discerning groom-to-be chose a Championship match for our Saturday activity, and we all piled onto the train to zip out to Ipswich for a meeting of the Town and Leicester City.
It was a simple game, and beautifully so. The hometown Tractor Boys are gunning for promotion, firmly in the playoff places but angling for automatic. Leicester are struggling against relegation from the second tier, quite a fall for the Premier League champions of a decade ago. But it was the Foxes who opened the scoring through Patson Daka on 39 minutes. That brought a roar of frustration out of Portman Road, but the songs were loud and the atmosphere bubbling throughout. Then Sindre Walle Egeli equalized for the home side in the 76th minute and everybody went home reasonably happy.
For me, though, it wasn’t about the result or even the quality of the game. It was just nice to go to the football with some folks, have a chat about our lives or what the hell’s happened to Leicester or just some silly bullshit besides, and not spend any time at all on some big debate about The State of the Game. Is the Premier League in stylistic decline? Nobody cares in Ipswich right now, where they’re just trying to get back to that top table. And nobody in our group wasted their day out arguing about whether Football Is Finished.
We often hear about “the modern game,” but I would zero-in on “today’s football culture” when I say it kind of sucks. Way more than long throw-ins, I would say. Because it’s been digitized, social-media’d, much of the chat around football these days has been sucked into sad-sap Chicken Little emotional extremism.2 Everybody’s a philosopher now, and too many are writing the same very basic, very boring treatise. And that’s when they’re not just engaged in nihilistic trolling.
But you can choose not to be miserable. Go to a Championship match. Go to a non-league match, as local as you can get. Turn off Sky Sports or whatever YouTuber is screaming that this is The Worst Season Ever. Yes, we can collectively mourn the Riquelmes and the Bergkamps of the world, football’s creative class who seem to have faded from the game. But you don’t have to spend your time listening to anyone, even legends of the league, moan.
Because on the weekend I was busy getting married, the Saturday slate featured a brilliant Premier League match.3 Iliman Ndiaye played wider for Everton at St. James’ Park on the day and showcased some thrilling touch and trickery along the sideline deep into the second half. He zipped the ball back and forth, bamboozling Newcastle’s Jacob Murphy and flicking a heel-pass by him. This was free-flow football from the French-born Senegalese, bottom-of-the-boot cage-football stuff. It was a reminder that there are still players around whose goal on the pitch is to do something entirely new.
And this match between Newcastle and Everton was simply a classic. Nothing boring, nothing staid. Back-and-forth goalscoring. Lively, attacking play throughout.
Nine minutes in, Ndiaye powered some smart combination play just inside the Newcastle half and drifted inside to latch onto a return pass 25 yards out. He smashed it into the crowd. Joelinton then got himself some space in Everton’s box and curled his side-foot finish high and wide, but it was early indication that Newcastle would also pose a threat. Then Everton went down the other end, won a corner, and a short ball into the six yard box at the near post was put in expertly off the far one by Jarrad Branthwaite with a flick of his head. Who said a corner goal ain’t beautiful?
St. James’ Park went quiet, but Newcastle came roaring back into the match thanks to some midfield dynamo play from Sandro Tonali, who was fantastic all day. He battles and pulls the strings, a true #8, and he laced a curling ball through the lines to Jacob Ramsey to smash in an equalizer near 32 minutes.
But then Everton came again. James Tarkowski smacked a pass through the lines at rib height and Dwight McNeil took it in beautifully. He popped it over Lewis Hall with his first touch and played it into Beto with his fourth. He got it back and put in a speculative, curling effort that Nick Pope fumbled in the Newcastle goal, presenting it to a gatecrashing Beto to punch home in a moment of scavenger opportunism.
Newcastle came forward again and again either side of half time, looking for parity. The hosts dominated the ball and finally found the equalizer when Joelinton crept in behind the defense and clipped a strike-able ball to the top of the 18 for Jacob Murphy to volley home via deflection. The Norwich City product has made a fine career for himself in the Premier League and roared his satisfaction at the crowd, who sent a roar back.
This was St. James’ Park. This was a thumping Newcastle equalizer with eight minutes left in the 90. Surely the Magpies would go on to seize all three points.
And then Everton, with nearly the next kick of the ball, snatched back a lead. They’d been under the cosh for much of the second half, but an opportunistic break forward saw Ndiaye play in Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who crossed with hope into the six-yard box. Thierno Barry and Lewis Hall went crashing into the scene, grappling and stretching for the ball, but it was Barry who won the battle—by sliding bum-first to put it home.
Some of the goals were beauties, some were just fun, and the whole thing was a nerve-jangling theme park ride. You don’t even need to go down the leagues to find the fun stuff. There are mesmerizing #10s on your TV each weekend, playing in the cursèd Premier League where fun goes to die. Just try to enjoy it, OK? Have a look at Sunderland vs Brighton this weekend, or Chelsea vs Newscastle, or Crystal Palace vs Leeds United, or Man United vs Aston Villa. Even Liverpool vs Tottenham might be fun.
Maybe I’m just in my honeymoon phase, but is it all really that bad?
My wife was thrilled!
NBC Sports on the morning after the wedding day? My wife was thrilled!
This touches on something real. The Premier League is richer, faster, and more polished than ever, yet a lot of supporters seem more anxious than joyful.
Part of it feels like the environment around the game has changed the emotional stakes. Constant analysis, social media scrutiny, and the pressure to react instantly turn every match into a verdict rather than an experience. Instead of sitting with the feeling of a game, fans are pushed into judging it, defending it, or arguing about it within minutes.
The football itself may be technically better than ever, but the space to simply enjoy it has definitely shrunk. That tension probably explains a lot of the “misery” people sense around the modern Premier League.