PAUL McGRATH was just one of many, many football fans who loved the throwback nature of the weekend’s Premier League action.
Fresh off the previous week’s nostalgic yearning online for ‘Barclays men’ of yesteryear, the likes of Jhon Duran, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Marcus Rashford and Harvey Barnes delivered long-range stunners from a bygone era.
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Being an Aston Villa legend, McGrath was particularly glad to see the former’s thunderbolt find the top corner and seal a dramatic 3-2 comeback win against Everton.
He posted on Instagram: “Suddenly everyone wants to take a shot at the goal #thanksdurán #properfootball.”
Supporters who replied to him were nodding in agreement since long-range shooting has virtually died out in an era of expected goals emphasis and highly structured set patterns inspired by Pep Guardiola.
Ollie commented: “An art that’s dying.”
While Eamonn simply roared: “Holy crap he hit that well!!”
This week promises to be a momentous one for The Villains as tonight sees them make their return to the European Cup/Champions League for the first time since 1983.
They will do so away to Young Boys of Switzerland.
Swiss is the word for this year’s competition as the controversial ‘Swiss model’ has been introduced in an effort to generate even more money from European football’s premier club tournament.
Uefa agreed to expand the Champions League from 32 teams to 36 and scrap the long-standing group stage.
Instead, all teams will play eight matches in the initial stage as part of a single 36-team league competition.
Unlike in previous seasons, where the group games were completed before Christmas, the league stage will now run through to the end of January.
This week’s games will be split over three nights before the next six match days are played on just Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with two matches on each day starting at 5.45pm and the rest at 8pm.
But the final set of 18 matches will be played simultaneously with an 8pm kick-off on January 29.
After eight matches, the top eight sides in the table will automatically go through to the last 16.
The teams ranked from ninth to 24th will play off over two legs to join them. The bottom eight clubs are out of Europe and teams no longer drop into the Europa League.
Uefa had previously drawn the knock-out games at each stage but now a Wimbledon-style seeded draw will be conducted after the league stage meaning the top two sides in the initial table cannot meet until the final.
Prem clubs can meet each other at any point in the knock-out stage of the competition.
Tuesday will also see the glamour tie of AC Milan versus Liverpool which will be shown on Premier Sports in Ireland.
Meanwhile Manchester City meet Inter Milan on Wednesday and Arsenal face a trip to Atalanta on Thursday.