Does Roy Hodgson Even Care? This Weekend in the Premier League

Say what you like about modern football, but the Premier League has been great value so far. We had our first managerial sacking after only four games, there have been 122 goals already, while as things stand Huddersfield and Newcastle look to be in the race for a top-four place. By contrast, Everton spent over £140 million this summer, and are currently in the relegation zone.

Football truly is the great equaliser, unless of course you want to buy a Premier League season ticket, in which case don't bother if you're not raking it in.

Do you like your football pragmatic and your managers to look like they are permanently provisioned with a family-sized packet of Werther's Originals? Then you'll be delighted to know that Roy Hodgson is back in the game. Just over a year since he ruined the England national team for everyone – no, it's fine; only a 2-1 loss to Iceland at the Euros, only Harry Kane firing 15 consecutive corners over the bar and the whole world laughing at us again immediately after Brexit – Hodgson has decided it's time to rehabilitate his reputation by taking on the Crystal Palace job.

His first act has been to complete an unprecedentedly bad start to the season, leading Palace to a consecutive fifth league defeat without scoring. Going by the evidence of Frank de Boer's tenure at Selhurst Park, that gives Hodgson three games – against Man City, Man United and Chelsea – to save his job. To compound the underwhelming start to his tenure, when asked about England's defeat to Iceland in his pre-match press conference he replied: "We're going down a route which I've said, reasonably politely, is a past chapter. Who cares?" I'll tell you who cares, Roy: the Queen, Adrian Chiles, Adele, David Davis and all the other people whose blood, sweat and tears have made this country truly great, so don't be so fucking laissez-faire.

On the one hand, David Luiz is a very, very good defender. On the other, he is a frizzy whirlwind of avant-garde positioning, two-footed tackling and inopportune red cards. This is the man who stood tall at the centre of defence as Chelsea won the Champions League and Europa League in consecutive seasons, only to put in one of the most derided performances of all time as Brazil lost 7-1 to Germany in the 2014 World Cup semi-finals. This is the man who was deemed too erratic to win a title with Chelsea and sold to Paris Saint-Germain in 2014, only to knock the west Londoners out of Europe the following year before returning to help them conquer the Premier League.

It wasn't much of a surprise, then, when he put in a composed performance for Chelsea against Arsenal on Sunday, only to be sent off in the last few minutes for a studs-up lunge on Sead Kolasinac. It was the Davis Luiz conundrum in a nutshell: is he a mercurial genius with a PhD in the science of defending, or an eccentric quack with a convincing illusion of effectiveness; a doctorate in the defensive equivalent of homeopathy? The truth is probably that brilliance and idiocy are two sides of the same coin, and every genius is burdened with some form of madness. You'd have to be mad to jump in like that on Kolasinac, who looks like an MMA fighter who would get disqualified for enthusiastically gouging your eyes.

Everyone loves a good red-top scandal. Even if you're the wokest intellectual around, even if you make a point of pretending to read Nineteen Eighty-Four on the tube and sometimes even use the word "allegory" accurately, the fact is you will click on a story titled "ROONEY GIRL BRANDED 'FAME-SEEKING SLAPPER' BY COLEEN OVER THIS MORNING CHAT" and enjoy every prurient, vicarious detail. You can tell yourself it's ironic or intended as a reminder that the tabloid media is a shallow cesspit, but the reality is we all like to debase ourselves and give in to the burning shame of curiosity every now and then.

As such, let's not pretend the backdrop to Wayne Rooney's return to Old Trafford didn't matter: this was not so much a reunion of Manchester United fans and their all-time record goalscorer, as a chance of redemption for our wayward Wayne.

Unfortunately, it wasn't really all that redemptive, with Rooney missing a couple of chances and Everton limping to a 4-0 loss. He got a standing ovation when he was substituted late on, but that will hardly make up for a month of "DRINK DRIVE SHAME" headlines. Still, at least he didn't have to go through the will-he-won't-he of celebrating a goal against his former club, unlike Romelu Lukaku, who scored against Everton and then said cupping his ear at his former fans was "just a bit of banter". Richard Keys would be proud, Romelu, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

The Arsenal fan who jumped over the barriers to celebrate a goal with Shkodran Mustafi, only to find out it was disallowed for offside and be escorted sheepishly out of Stamford Bridge. Conjure up the sense of hollow embarrassment you feel when you celebrate a disallowed goal en masse, and the opposing fans for the day shout "WHEEEEEEEEY" as you shuffle awkwardly, arms suspended in mid-air, people around you making whiny little noises in muffled protest at the perceived unfairness.

Now imagine that it's just you, you're on your own and being spitefully laughed at by thousands of Chelsea fans. It's football's answer to that anxiety dream where you have to get up in front of an audience naked, only instead of a light titter at your unimpressive genitals you're deafened by the sound of angry, red-faced dads calling you a twat.

@W_F_Magee