Hopefully that experiment is scrapped, proper football is back, seven in 21 and Manchester City

What an absolute waste of nearly a month of the football season and I’m sorry to start this post this way, but it was nearly a month and for what exactly? That’s a serious question because I don’t see the value in the tournament. And grumpy mode is on.

I can also understand why so many players picked up injuries during this time, just to get the extra time off. Cold Palmer just deciding it was a waste of his time is the future we have to get used to because the FA are diluting what playing for England should be about.

Right, that’s done we can move on but I just hope someone makes the decision to not do that again. It was an experiment that went wrong.

Sorry, can’t move on because did you know it’s now seven matches in 21 days for us. This isn’t me complaining that they’re playing too much, I don’t really buy into that narrative, this is me now not having much time myself over the rest of the month.

It’s just too many matches to be played over three weeks. About right for a month (December has seven as things stand), but now having to squeeze this many matches into three weeks, makes things just awkward for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll make it work and I’m not really complaining but it’s not the nicest October and I have three trips away, eight flights and nine hotel nights that I have to make it all work with.

Sorry. I have become a grumpy old man. But it’s not how it used to be, but I will move on now, to something different, but equally as annoying, Manchester City.

I saw something from Mint and I hadn’t really thought about it, but have Manchester City stopped cheating? The investigation only goes so far, but what happened the season after the investigation ends. Are they still adding money to support the costs of players? Are they still making extra payments to other people from other entities?

And when exactly are we going to find out the punishment? How long does it take to share with us because Manchester City are already appealing it, but if it’s just a slap on the wrist, they’d probably just let it go. So they probably know what’s at stake, why don’t we?

Grumpy mode is off

So, all that written, I’ve got a smile on my face again because it’s Brentford on Saturday at Villa Park. And the manager has had a lot of time with the players that didn’t go away with their countries and you know this time would have been used the right way.

It makes Saturday interesting, because some that have come back might not be ready to head straight into a Premier League match without some break and the players that didn’t go away are going to be raring to have a go.

And Brentford will be tough and I know it’s early in the season and if we win we’ll only be two points behind them, but they are in fourth place at the moment. The picture is a bit blurry at the moment, but the Brentford model works for a reason.

Match post and some facts from the BBC coming up on Saturday morning. I just wanted a post out because proper football is back and we needed a new post.