The August panic begins in July
Pre-season football is essentially a fever dream where results matter to absolutely no one except the people who have already lost their minds on social media. As Sky Sports reports, Crystal Palace dropped a result while Newcastle and Everton both stumbled into draws, and you would think the world was ending based on the sheer volume of screaming in the mentions.
We are barely into the warm-up games and the armchair managers are acting like the 38-game slog is already decided by an experimental lineup. Every misplayed pass is being treated like a career-ending stain rather than a guy trying to remember how to run without getting winded.
The believers versus the absolute doomers
The optimists are currently clinging to individual flashes of brilliance, ignoring the scoreboard entirely. One fan posted that seeing a young academy product get fifteen minutes of play was worth more than a win, which sounds like someone trying to justify a parking ticket after a loss.
Then you have the pessimists, who are convinced that these draws are a death knell. There is a specific faction of Twitter users claiming that Newcastle failing to break down their opponent implies a tactical void that will lead to a relegation fight. It is the same tired script, just with different kits.
The contrarians are having a field day, mostly telling everyone else to touch grass. Their argument is simple: these games are just high-intensity training sessions where managers are looking at fitness levels and trying to keep legs fresh for the real kick-off later next month.
These friendlies are basically glorified kickabouts for the players to sweat out the holiday beer and for the fans to start unnecessary fights.
I honestly find the contrarian view the only one that holds water here. Managers aren't showing their hands in a match that doesn't count for a single point in the league table. If you're drawing conclusions about a team's season based on a match where half the squad is swapped at halftime, you aren't watching football, you're watching a game of bingo.
Why do we act like this every summer?
People feel this way because the hunger for competitive football is essentially a void that needs filling. We spend months talking about transfers and rumors, so when the ball finally rolls, the adrenaline spike is completely uncalibrated.
The criticism regarding Palace is arguably the only fair ground right now. Losing when you are meant to be auditioning new shapes for the upcoming campaign is frustrating, but let's be real, preseason is for finding the holes in the boat before you actually put it in the water.
If you see your club looking sluggish, itโs usually because theyโve been doing double sessions in 30-degree heat for two weeks. It doesn't mean the manager has lost the dressing room or the strikers have forgotten how to find the back of the net.
The real issue isn't the skill on display, but the unrealistic expectations we project onto these glorified kickabouts. I saw one thread debating whether Everton's draw meant they should trigger a emergency transfer clause, which is pure insanity for a game played on July 25.
We need to lower the blood pressure until the opening whistle of the actual season. Watching these games is like analyzing the quality of the warm-up music, yet we treat it like the Champions League final. Itโs hilarious, itโs chaotic, and itโs a perfect reminder that football fans are fundamentally incapable of chilling out.
Maybe we should just enjoy the fact that we can watch a match again instead of spending three hours reading about someone's agent demanding a five-year contract. That said, I fully expect the same people crying about these results to be back next week, losing their minds over a goal conceded by a third-choice goalkeeper.
It is the circle of life in the Premier League. We demand excellence, we get preseason rust, we complain, and then we do it all over again once the points actually start counting toward the 100-point target everyone chases.
