I watched Chorley v Derby yesterday and I thought it was a brilliant game and I've been thinking for a while that I've begun to find a lot of PL games pretty boring and unappealing- more so than ever before- and I tried to put my finger on why that is.

I think saturation is part of it, I keep having to remind myself that it's not normal for every single game to be televised and to only want to watch a select few is largely in line with normal behaviour, so I'm probably not finding it as unappealing as I think.

Most football games are average and forgettable. Some are terrible and some are amazing but most are by the numbers, that has always been true and always will be. But I wondered what it was I liked so much more about Chorley v Derby and why it looked so different.

Firstly, while I try not to let it bother me, I do just prefer football without VAR- it's one of the reasons I will often watch a WSL game ahead of a PL game now if the schedules clash. I just don't like that gnawing sense of it in the background and I find it a real mood killer.

Chorley and Derby were both trying to win the game and both playing attacking football. We, for reasons that are totally understandable, very rarely see PL games nowadays where both teams are attacking one another. The wealth gap is so wide that most games are attack v defence.

PL games follow a very predictable pattern now- team has 70%+ of the ball and tries to work out a way to get past heavily manned defence. I don't really object to watching games that are like that per se, but when the vast majority of them have this pattern it becomes dry.

But the other thing that has really begun to bother me about PL football is how much of the game is focused on trying to buy fouls and break up the rhythm of the game. All teams do it, get ball, stick arse out, feel contact, go down.

The penalty situation has now become a bit farcical but general play is constantly broken up by this action which is so, so widespread. Again, I understand why and I want Arsenal to do it when I watch them, but it really takes away from the spectacle.

It reminds me of heavyweight boxing which is, to me, often really dull because the fighters just end up clinging to one another for the whole match and trying to avoid being punched, rather than punching. I prefer a bit of a slugfest, even with inferior fighters.

And I guess that's the real parallel, I know the PL players are better and they can do things like seek contact because they are good enough to do it in a way that Chorley and Derby's reserve team aren't.

I guess my conclusion is that there is such a massive focus on marginal gains like drawing contact and trying to get penalties that the game itself has, imo, become a lot less visceral and, therefore, quite a lot less interesting for me, Clive.

I should say this is why Leeds are so welcome in the PL. They can just as easily win a game 5-0 as lose it 5-0 and that kind of unpredictability isn’t so much rare as it is virtually extinct.