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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Barney Ronay

The Premier League is back: welcome to the new era of post-verdict unreality

Enzo Maresca, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Enzo Fernández, Erling Haaland and Phil Foden in a psychedelic swirl
It’s a strange new dawn for Manchester City – and everyone else. Illustration: Guardian Design; Getty Images

The internet: an apology. It turns out you were right. It was actually a simulation all along. Now, talk to me about chemtrails again. And yes, maybe Vinícius Júnior has been replaced by a handsome, baffled-looking waxwork.

Welcome to the weirdest weekend of them all. We are now post-judgment, post-statement, postlapsarian. As the Premier League prepares to snap back into what must be described, out of habit, as reality, armed with the knowledge its serial champions have been the authors of a 10-year sham supremacy, the first question is fairly simple. How is it going to feel?

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