Between the transfer murmurings, pre-season training jollies in Colarado and breathless anticipation of which betting company will be Watford's sleeve sponsor, its clear the Premier League machinery is beginning to clank into action again. Usually this is a time for hype, for daydreaming, for forgetting everything you learned last year and beginning again. Not this time, though.

The Premier League's glossly corporate grin looks particularly ludicrous a week and a half on from the close of a bewitching, dazzlingly fun World Cup which feels more and more like a sunstroke-induced fever dream. Think of the hand of Jordan Pickford, or Iran being a mere last-minute scramble away from dumping Portugal out; of Xherdan Shaqiri's pro-Kosovan winner against Serbia, or Manuel Neuer being robbed while attempting a Cruyff turn 35 yards from South Korea's goal. All moments laden with high-stakes drama, all now becoming but a fading communal memory along with singing in the street, decent memes and grown men jumping through bus shelter roofs from the tops of double-decker buses.

Goodbye bonhomie and nationwide glee. Hello again tribalism, bad blood and frame-by-frame GIF replay pedantry. Compared to Panamanian broadcasters weeping with pride for the simple fact of seeing their team at a World Cup, another domestic season doesn't feel like it's going to matter much, does it? Look at the new recruits, holding shirts, pretending to sign blank pieces of paper. Wake up sheeple. It's a charade.

Then there's the fact that Manchester City are very obviously going to absolutely walk it again. They were demonstrably three or four leagues ahead of everyone else last season, and have enough money to drop £60 million on Riyad Mahrez as a third-choice winger. Quite apart from that, you go and watch the trailer for the upcoming doc about their record-breaking 100-point season, see Pep's winning mania and tell me they won't.

Who's going to challenge them? City were rattled by Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool, and maybe the sense of adventure and derring-do which defined them last season will still be there. But after buttressing their wobbly spine with splurges on Alisson (£69 million), Naby Keita (£52.8 million), Fabinho (£40 million) and Virgil Van Dyk (£75 million), there's a nagging sense that the Arkansas Chuggabug act we enjoyed last year will be gone. They look set to be more balanced but less fun now they're aping City and United's galácticos pretensions.

There's not much else to look at right now. Tottenham will probably remain enjoyable but a bit Spursy. Manchester United will still be a glowering, suffocating presence. The midtable drift will continue. Maybe Arsenal will do something. Nobody will care if they don't.

That said, there's a bit of hope in Chelsea, of all clubs, who under Maurizio Sarri could become interesting for something other than resembling an episode of The Thick Of It. Fulham could be fun too, should they hold onto their thrusting youthfulness and slick incision, and Wolves' airlift of half of Lisbon will be intriguing. Nevertheless, there's a more obvious hollowness to the Premier League's insistence on its own importance than in recent years.

Whatever happens this Premier League season, it won't have the balmy sparkle of the World Cup. Harry Maguire's eight-stone head has completed this tour of national service. Argentina won't be there to have a national meltdown. No Iranian defender doing a half-arsed somersault throw-in. No Isco saving a small bird or the Japan team tidying up their dressing room after spectacularly imploding or Kylian Mbappé literally devouring Marcos Rojo whole. All summer heatwaves have to break at some point, but this one will leave me especially cold.