Air raids are the new trend as game goes back to the future

The first seven rounds of the Premier League season have shown that set pieces, long throws and generally getting it launched are back and possibly better than ever

- Barney Ronay

To see a world in a grain of Wayne Rooney, an eternity in a robot-voiced YouTube tactics clip. To find yourself submerged in a vast rolling wave of information in the course of only seven rounds of Premier League games.

As English football enters its latest international break it is a little startling to think we have had only 70 Premier League matches to this point, with 310 more still to go through the slog of autumn into spring. Seven rounds of games? Really? Is that all?

If it feels like more, this is to some extent a function of the Bald Fraudification of English football, the acceleration of the narrative arc. Careers must now rise and fall at alarming speed. The dominance of social media has created this relentlessly overstimulated hivemind, a networked conversation that must always happen, that rewards and promotes the loudest and most scandalised voice.

As an example - and in fact the source of the original term - it is now axiomatic that there must always be at least two Bald Frauds operating in the Premier League at any given time, a nonnegotiable that created its own lovely moment of synergy at Stamford Bridge on Saturday as Enzo Maresca literally passed the Bald Fraud Baton - an actual baton - to Arne Slot during their post-match handshake.

One consequence is that nobody seems to like an international break much these days. This is logical. The product is designed to be consumed in constant rotation. But it is still a timely moment of cold turkey, with the league frozen at an unusually interesting point. Liverpool are off the top, having dominated since last September. Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, Everton, Sunderland and Tottenham are among the top nine.

So what is the story of the season so far? At this early stage it is perhaps more useful to identify what isn’t. Some narrative-busting first (disclaimer: narrative may turn out to be true; short-term crisis meter can go up as well as down).