Well, I see we still don’t use indicators when we drive over here. But it is nice to be home, albeit for an uncertain length of time.
More importantly, however, it feels good to be back and I certainly look forward to a weekend of much football drama and action.
Yes, these days, it is the drama that preempts the action as we get our fill of football news online, on TV, radio and through mobile updates.
But ultimately, we want to watch every single minute of action that is played out on our TV screens and we will get our fair share of some big-time clashes this weekend in week three of the English Premier League (EPL).
Big games indeed with Liverpool at least beginning to look like they could well return to at least playing the game the right way.
The Reds are at home to Manchester United, who certainly look to be applying the "new manager" syndrome of players wanting to impress. Ok, perhaps Wayne Rooney was trying to impress his, allegedly, future boss last Monday.
Quite perhaps the best football will be played at Anfield. Or at least Brendan Rodgers will get his team passing the ball well and the Red Devils on the other hand can pass it better than most.
At the other end of the football entertainment scale, we will see Sam Allardyce's West Ham United play Stoke City in a match that will be truly challenging to watch. These two teams have applied the same philosophy over the years but Stoke City, under Mark Hughes, are now trying to revolutionise their style of play. Instead of clattering people in the air, they now clatter them on the ground.
Still, Rome wasn’t built in a day and Robert Huth will never wake up one morning and think he is Franz Beckenbauer.
The Citizens (of Manchester) went to Wales last Sunday and got deported - and by two countries at that - but it could be the Hull City Tigers applying for migration as Manuel Pellegrini will not want another taste of the chilli this weekend. I just hope this does not turn into a massacre for my mate Faruk’s sake.
However, the "biggest" of big matches this weekend will involve Tottenham Hotspur getting their act together at another North London club. Yes, it is Arsenal, the club with the "most under pressure" manager in English football this season.
The Gunners have the home ground advantage, but they are taking on a Spurs side who still think they have another six weeks before the season starts.
The continuing arrival of some very good players even now is not going to make life easy for Spurs fans. The last two league games has been like watching a bunch of individuals trying desperately to pronounce each other’s names never mind play as a unit. The positives though is watching the arrivals and feeling good about the potential.
We just hope the potential is realised in the shortest possible time unlike Stewart Downing.
By the way, in a chat with my Wingman, we discussed players who play better international football than domestic league football. Obviously, this conversation was sparked by the injury to Arsenal's Lukas Podolski.
He is simply brilliant when he puts on his national strip but Cologne, on more than one occasion, and Bayern Munich would still scratch their heads on the Poldi syndrome.
Darren Anderton never let England down as he somehow miraculously never was injured when major international tournaments came around.
Perhaps, at home we have the opposite scenario in Kelantan skipper, Badri Radzi (aka Piya), who can thread the ball through the eye of a needle for the East Coast outfit but somehow does not look good in our national colours. Go figure.
Know anyone else? - August 31, 2013.
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