For the last three months, we have been making do with football by rerun, by discussion, by nostalgia. However, whilst 'Match of Their Day', or Best Ever Goals, or documentaries about Italia '90 or Euro '96 keep you going for so long, you can't beat the real thing.
Having said that, the return of the Premier League was pretty weird. Not quite sure why. Maybe the players are badly out of practice. Maybe we and they really need a crowd in the stadium to get things going, otherwise it just feels like a glorified training game. Maybe we just shouldn't be doing league football in June. Maybe it's just too soon and the world is still too strange and scary a place. Football is wonderfully 'normal' and whilst we're desperate for it to be back, it'll take a while to find its place again. I'm sure it will. Perhaps it'll prove to be a good example for us that getting back to 'normal' is important, it just isn't easy.
Somebody very famous once said that football isn't a matter of life and death - it's more important than that. Maybe just for the moment it isn't.