Hawk-Eye and David Luiz kick the Premier League restart off

“When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master.”

“Only a master of Arsenal, Mikel.”

And unfortunately for Mikel Arteta, an Arsenal side that contains David Luiz at centre back. Well, not if Arteta can help it.

Despite his attempts to keep Luiz out of the side by starting Pablo Mari and Shkodran Mustafi in the heart of defence, Arteta’s plans were scuppered by an injury to Mari after a little over 20 minutes.

It then took only another 20 minutes for Luiz to begin working his wicked ways.

Kevin De Bruyne, for once, hit a pass straight to an opposition defender. But perhaps there was another layer to this from De Bruyne. He is, after all, a very smart player with a wonderful passing ability.

Is it plausible that, despite realising Luiz would be there to block the pass, the Belgian thought it was still a worthwhile ball to play? On a rainy night in Manchester with a skidding turf, a slippy ball and an erratic Luiz - perhaps De Bruyne thought he may as well kick it at him and see what happens.

De Bruyne’s pass skidded towards Luiz who, in a moment of indecision, didn’t quite adjust himself and saw the ball fly off his thigh and bounce up perfectly for the onrushing Raheem Sterling to hammer past Bernd Leno.

But let’s be fair to Luiz. The pitch was very wet and the way that the ball bounced off the turf and flew at his knee was a bit tricky. It’s the first game back and like everyone, he’s just getting back into the swing of the things. Let’s put an arm round him, give him a bit of support and I’m sure he’ll put in a solid second half display.

And just like that after four minutes of the second half, Luiz had conceded a penalty an gotten sent off after Man City had deployed a classic ‘route one’ attack that would have had Charles Reep and Graham Taylor on the edge of their seats.

A pumped ball forward from Ederson was nodded down into the path of the onrushing Riyad Mahrez. His first touch took him round Luiz who, in panic and despair, hauled down the Algerian.

It rounded off a disastrous night for Luiz who, in roughly 25 minutes on the pitch, had made an error leading to a goal, conceded a penalty and been sent off. A perfect hat trick.

In fairness to Luiz though, he made the incredibly brave decision to come out in the post match press conference and admit his mistake.

In fact, it was a night that heavily featured humble apologies.

Hawk-Eye - the Premier League’s goal line technology operator - were forced to come out with their own letter of apology after a technical error led to Sheffield United not being awarded a goal.

VAR has always been the controversial one, causing raging debates which have begun to dominate pundit’s post match patter. But Hawk-Eye, the sensible older sibling, has always been the one that you can rely on. Lovely, infallible Hawk-Eye.

That was until Aston Villa keeper Ørjan Nyland managed to find a cheat code, a glitch in the matrix, by pressing the ball into the post despite having already carried it over the line.

It was a sad moment as the steady and reliable Hawk-Eye finally met its match in a frightened and guilty looking back-up goalkeeper.

But even then, we can still find a way to shift the blame onto VAR, and understandably so. Surely it could have stepped in to rescue the day, to let a befuddled Michael Oliver know that it was in fact a goal.

Or perhaps VAR just enjoyed seeing the smug and usually reliable Hawk-Eye finally being taken down a peg or two.

Either way, it could have consequences towards the end of the season as Sheffield United may again feel the Premier League gods are against them. In 2007 they were left aggrieved after West Ham’s illicit signing of Carlos Tevez helped the Hammers avoid relegation at their expense.

And now in 2020, points have been dropped in the race for a European spot due to a technical error with Hawk-Eye. However, there is a limit to how aggrieved they can feel considering it was arguably one of their worst performances of the season. And that Villa deserved at least a point, if not all three.

And so the Premier League came back, not quite with a bang, but with a technology mishap and a calamitous display form David Luiz. So really, all pretty much as expected.