The unavoidable Chelsea takeover question foreshadowed by the European Super League protest

When reflecting back on the European Super League and those chaotic 48 hours when football in this country was turned upside down, it is difficult to feel great nostalgia or longing to relive that moment.

Although it led to a unified reaction across the land from supporters of the breakaway clubs, it also made us face some harsh realities around the clubs we care deeply about. How they are run, what is our involvement in them? Have we been asleep at the wheel for too long? Or, more realistically, is our actual power a mere fantasy we are never going to attain?

As a Chelsea fan, it feels highly ironic that a year on from the protest we are again faced with a seismic moment, this one though of longer-lasting effect and serious consequences.

How Chelsea supporters' European Super League protest continues to influence takeover talks

I was at the protest on that Tuesday evening, arriving outside the Stamford Gate entrance at around 5.30 PM. A crowd had begun to gather, but it almost felt like for the first half an hour or so people were still trying to find their voice, or just simply acclimatising back to life around strangers after over a year of social distance due to the lockdown.

Soon though, those voices returned, the signs and banners lifted above the mass sea of faces, each hitting the unified anger at what was seen as an attack on the game we hold dear. The footballing pyramid, the sense of competition and the necessity for risk and reward. "We want our cold nights in Stoke" epitomised the fundamental opposition to the concept of the closed-shop Super League.

Recently I was at the 4-1 hammering given to Chelsea by our local rivals Brentford. It was a humbling afternoon, a freakishly bad day but one that best