If the extreme temperatures and the earlier start to the season had made the adjustment back into Premier League Land a little tougher this time around, then a petition calling on a referee to be banned from officiating a team's matches - and that petition seemingly being backed by that club's manager - should bring us right back to reality.
By Monday morning over 95,000 people - you'd presume all Chelsea fans - had signed up to change.org's call for Anthony Taylor to be removed from officiating any future Blues fixtures following the fallout from Sunday's fiery 2-2 draw with Tottenham.
The change.org platform has after all become the go-to for the aggrieved supporter in modern times, with hot take calls for replayed fixtures or alterations to VAR sitting alongside heartfelt pleas for health reform, asylum status or inquests into deaths from bereaved families.
Chelsea and their supporters were incensed about the decisions around both of Tottenham's goals in Sunday's 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge, with the latter strike from Harry Kane coming in the dying embers of the game and moments after Cristian Romero's tug on the long hair of Marc Cucurella went unpunished.
And as the petition was set up and began circulating around the world off the back of events at Stamford Bridge, Thomas Tuchel sat in the stadium's press room and admitted that he does have a problem with Taylor refereeing his side's matches, something he'd rather not see in the future.
“Maybe that would be better,” he said, when it was put to him that there had been a previous petition launched by fans last season off the back of what is seen as a history of incorrect decisions by Taylor against Chelsea by the slighted supporters.
“I can assure you that the whole dressing room, every single person thinks that,” he continued, claiming that Chelsea simply do not get any good fortune when they are refereed by Taylor.
The Blues boss - who can expect a ban to be forthcoming following both his comments and his two altercations with Antonio Conte, with both sent off - also railed against VAR Mike Dean for his failure to intervene in the Romero incident and for the first Tottenham goal, when Richarlison was standing in an offside position but was deemed not to be blocking Edouard Mendy's view of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg's shot.
But Dean, a man who once thrived as the centre of attention, is removed from the spotlight and hunkered down in a Stockley Park booth these days, meaning that all of the post-match ire was focused on Taylor as the petition filled up and the vlogs from blue-shirted supporters lamented the ending to a game Chelsea had largely dominated.
But will anyone listen to them?
Neither the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) or the Premier League are going to ban Taylor as a result of the collected signatures, and even if Chelsea decide to make some sort of official effort on the matter, largely to play to the gallery, then they seem certain to come up short.
There is, after all, no official process for clubs prohibiting certain referees from overseeing their matches, with an often tumultuous relationship attempting to be managed on all sides.
There have been agreements reached in the past though, with the most famous of those being Mark Clattenburg's failure to referee another match at Goodison Park for over six years after a fiery Merseyside derby in October 2007.
The north-east official awarded Liverpool two penalties, sent two Everton players off and then failed to give the hosts a last minute spot-kick when Jamie Carragher dragged down Joleon Lescott. Dirk Kuyt, who scored those two Reds penalties, also somehow escaped a red card for a wild lunge on Phil Neville.
The actual reasons for Clattenburg's long Goodison absence have never been made public, although it is suspected that security concerns were behind the move.
There have been slightly more convenient arrangements as well.
Because while much focus fell on Sir Alex Ferguson being fined £30,000 and receiving a five-match touchline ban for comments about Martin Atkinson after Manchester United lost 2-1 at Chelsea in March 2011, there was less said about Atkinson being kept off United games for the next 10 months. You suspect that seemed to be in the best interests of everybody.
More recently, Southampton went public with their desire to have referees Lee Mason and Dean removed from officiating their games following a dire week in January and February last year.
Mason disallowed a Danny Ings goal and ignored a penalty appeal in a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa, and then Dean sent off Jan Bednarek - having already dismissed youngster Alexandre Jankewitz for a wild lunge in the second minute - in the closing stages of a game at Old Trafford, where Che Adams also had a goal controversially disallowed. Saints were 7-0 down at the time of Bednarek's red and ended up shipping nine.
Although widely reported at the time, the club stopped short of making an official request to remove Mason and Dean from their matches, instead just heading for talks with the PGMOL over the decisions.
Their complaints did work, although they were picking on pretty easy targets.
Mason was to retire at the end of the season anyway and so didn't referee Southampton again, while Dean - on a farewell tour last season and so given some bigger games than in previous years - only refereed them one more time in his career in this March's 4-1 defeat to Manchester City in the FA Cup.
So should more aggrieved clubs complain like Southampton did?
Some have verged on doing so of late, with Newcastle, Liverpool and Everton among clubs to 'seek clarification' from the officials' board after decisions went against them.
Newcastle were the most vociferous about this, and submitted an official complaint to the PGMOL in December last year after a run of calls went against them. Eddie Howe confirmed they had received a reply in February this year, adding that it was "enjoyable to read" with his tongue firmly in his cheek.
None of those complaints centred around specific referees though, and were instead seen as seeking to gain a greater understanding of VAR protocols and why certain decisions were reached, but some would have applied pressure in the right places.
Some supporters like to point out how referees have seemingly been kept away from certain team's matches throughout their careers, therefore by default refereeing other sides more often, as evidence of some sort of shady conspiracy, but there are usually geographical rules at play.
Taylor, from Greater Manchester and a fan of non-league Altrincham, was often kept away from the Manchester clubs' matches at the start of his career because of the perception that he could be biased one way or another, meaning that when he would be seen in a 'big' game it would often involve the London clubs.
As Taylor has risen through the refereeing ranks where he's from is now largely ignored when it comes to allocating him matches though, something that Liverpool fans are often sceptical of when he officiates Reds fixtures against their two Manchester rivals.
Dean, too, was kept away from Liverpool and Everton games for much of his career because he is from Merseyside, until the self-confessed Tranmere fan started picking up more of their matches towards the end of his career, probably because he had seen and done it all by then and both the PGMOL and the Premier League thought there was nothing he couldn't handle.
Taylor might one day be viewed in a similar light, for he is highly regarded by UEFA and FIFA, and so while Tuchel's fury and a fan petition isn't likely to get a Stamford Bridge restraining order slapped on him, it won't make any of the noise die down either.
The Premier League is well and truly back, as is all of the noise and bluster that comes with it.
