While Arsenal’s grip on the English Premier League title slackens, I consolidate my position in first place of the fantasy league I’m competing in with my friends. (The irony stings a little.) There is no material reward at stake and yet there’s a small thrill in opening the app on my phone and seeing that the eleven players I picked scored more points than the eleven my friends picked. I had already a habit of watching the highlights of all ten games that happen every weekend, but now I watch them with a childish eagerness to see one of my fantasy players score or assist a goal. I could cut to the chase by consulting the app, but it’s more exciting to experience the anticipation and sudden gratification of seeing it happen, even if the result was determined hours earlier.

But this excitement comes at a cost. I used to watch match highlights purely to enjoy the football itself, and now I fixate on my fantasy players and whether they might touch the ball at the right moment to score points. I even find myself willing players to perform until I remember their success would directly harm Arsenal’s chances of winning the Premier League title, the real one. A new, manufactured desire betrays my loyalty to the game and to the club I support.

But my loyalties were already split. Being an Arsenal fan and a football fan at once is not so easy these days. We play ugly, conservative, mechanistic football. As an Arsenal fan, I am supposed to feel satisfied as long as we win, but I find little genuine satisfaction in watching the team grind out results. If Arsenal fail to win a trophy this season, it will be nothing less than poetic justice.

The time I’ve spent watching Arsenal games recently is time I haven’t spent watching entertaining football. On Wednesday I sat in my living room with two friends and we watched Arsenal eke out a 1-0 win over Sporting instead of watching the showdown between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. It made no sense not to watch my club play but then it also made no sense not to watch the better match. So which is it? Am I a fan of Arsenal or a fan of football? Which one should be subservient to the other?

Were I to quit playing Fantasy League I’d make little headway in prioritizing my love of football. The tension will remain so long as I remain loyal to one particular team. When that team wins by playing in a way I respect and admire, my attention is repaid. But what about the ugly, cynical football they play nowadays?

And even when “my team” excels, where exactly am I in the equation? How is it that I entangled my personal identity and feelings of self satisfaction with this alien institution? I suspect there is a better place beyond club fandom. A more grounded place with lower highs and higher lows, grounded in myself and my values rather than planted out in some other place that revolves around a different center of gravity.