English Premier League’s Project Restart – football is back but not as we know it
- Project Restart will begin with Aston Villa vs Sheffield United but game promises to be different from December meeting
- Germany’s Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga offer glimpses into how sport will change during coronavirus pandemic
There’s something unusual about the English Premier League being slow to return to action.
Normally, while the stars of Spain and Germany are still enjoying preseason, their counterparts in England are several weeks into the new season.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed many things about football, that much we have seen from what little action there has been since La Liga and the Bundesliga returned.
That will change on Wednesday with Aston Villa playing Sheffield United and it is fitting that Villa are at the forefront of this brave new world. It was their director, William McGregor, who called for the foundation of the Football League back in 1888.
Times have certainly changed since the clubs first met in the league in 1893 but with no games for the last 100-plus days and a global pandemic still ongoing, the game will be unrecognisable from when they met back in December.
So what can we expect to be different with the English Premier League’s return?
