PREMIER LEAGUE: No one welcomes a recession, but it has brought a disarming sense of humility to the Premier League

IT WILL be of scant consolation to those of you forced to read this by the light of candles made from ear-wax and who will then use these pages as a makeshift duvet, but this recession thingy apparently does have some advantages.

Take the Premier League, for example. Has anyone else noticed the disarming sense of humility that has crept into the top flight over the summer? Where the elite A-listers of English football would once swagger around with all the bashfulness of a banker on bonus day, they now shuffle quietly from room to room, staring at their feet and mumbling half-hearted apologies.

This modesty is everywhere. Chelsea, now that Roman Abramovich is down to his last few billion, have become as thrifty as a wartime housewife, and Manchester United, never shy of trumpeting their status as the globe’s biggest club during the boom years, have replaced the world footballer of the year with a winger from Wigan. Portsmouth, meanwhile, who only last summer unveiled plans for a new stadium designed to look as if it was floating on the Solent, will soon be so short of players they might have to apply for permission to use a monkey rush goalkeeper.

Even the comedy headphones habitually sported by players during post-match television interviews seem to have shrunk in sympathy with the times: the pair Darren Bent wore after the Bolton-Sunderland game on Saturday appeared to have been pilfered from Monkwearmouth railway museum’s audio guide headset.

There is one glorious exception to this penny-pinching rule, with Manchester City apparently determined to single-handedly kick-start the economy with a ludicrous summer splurge. Yet even this can be seen as slotting into football’s grand plan, on the basis that City – as dedicated pursuers of perversity for well over 100 years – will always make a point of bucking the most level-headed of trends.

No, this is without doubt the Austerity Season, an echo of the 1948 London Olympics, when athletes were told to bring their own towels and Horlicks was considered the giddying height of luxury. Premier League teams have not quite been reduced to pre-match meals of whale meat and vitamin tablets, but at least there is an acceptance that budgets will have to be trimmed, even if that dents a few egos along the way.

This new mood of (relative) sobriety comes as something of a relief. For all its marketing savvy, the Premier League has never been entirely convincing when attempting to rechristen itself the ‘Greatest League In The World’, possibly because English football – like the nation as a whole – has always revelled in self-loathing.

The dreadful weather, the extortionate ticket prices, the interminable exiting of major international tournaments at the quarter-final stage: all are symptoms of a deep-rooted sense of inadequacy not shared by the rest of Europe. It is, after all, impossible to imagine a group of Italian football supporters striking up a chant of “We’re shit and we know we are” in the face of another capitulation.

Far better, surely, to leave the strutting self-confidence and wilful disregard for good housekeeping to Spanish football, which has always operated in its own bubble of ridiculousness. Hence the need for widespread rejoicing at Barcelona’s imperious drubbing of Manchester United in the Champions League final and Florentino Perez’ decision to make a sequel to his ill-fated Galacticos blockbuster with Real Madrid.

There are other perks, too. Premier League audiences will no longer have to suffer the wretched posturing of Cristiano Ronaldo, whose absence will prompt roughly the same level of wistful regret as smallpox. C-Ron, CR7 or whatever he chooses to term himself this week can instead fulfil his lifelong ambition of annoying the hell out of everyone in Spain, where his antics will hopefully be met, in time-honoured fashion, with a barrage of bleeding pig heads.

The departures of others, such as Xabi Alonso and Guus Hiddink, will be genuinely mourned but, still, it is refreshing to contemplate the arrival of an actual football season, rather than a nine-month-long money fight.

The losses sustained by the traditional top four might just open the door to a newcomer – probably Manchester City, but maybe not – while the title race could well be a four-way contest.

Chelsea, having retained their increasingly geriatric collection of superstars, should probably be considered favourites for the title but there would be a certain pointed satisfaction in the league crown being returned to Arsene Wenger after a five-year absence.

Having long preached economic prudence, a triumph in the Austerity Season would be rather fitting. Saturday’s riotous 6-1 win over Everton was a good start although, in keeping with the times, a sombre 1-0 might have been a bit more appropriate.