Not least 'cos the final team to get promoted provides an opportunity for a truly gut-wrenchingly clichéd last effort as a Towering Blackpool team gave the Bluebirds a little Eyeful and will illuminate the top league after Holloway's bunch of donkeys (according to the bookies' pre-season odds) triumphed.

Aw crikey, that's enough of that.

It was a brilliant first half, enhanced by some right dodgy goalkeeping. And yes, Blackpool will get an absolute pasting in the top tier, but that's hardly the point really. The owner isn't going to be flashing his cash around - and the fans are going to be realistic too.

I noticed a lot of 'em wearing Play-Off Final 2010 T-shirts - no mention of victory on them whatsoever, as if getting there was enough. But you've got to say that these play-offs are the most brilliant way to end a season. Always thrilling, constantly surprising and rarely predictable. Much like this blog. Ahem.

As for the Champions League final, well it was right predictable. Van Gaal and Robben tried their best to tempt Mourinho into playing 2-3-5. It was like trying to lure a blind hermit out of his cave with a copy of Heat magazine.

Jose must positively gag on the notion of more than one up front. So it was that Inter rested back on that reliable rearguard and sniped on the break, with the lad Milito coming up trumps again. Is it me or is Mourinho simply a high-achieving George Graham clone with a better publicist?

He's got them smouldering good looks (that's the wife talking) and a team that's tighter
than my mate Tony Thompson.

Trouble is, will it be enough for the Bernabeu regulars? 'Cos there's no doubt he can put together a team to beat Barca and even lift the big prize a third time, but Mourinho's Real's going to be about as fancy as a Yorkshireman's pint-pot.

Plus the bloke likes to be in charge and doesn't mind being unpopular. I can't see the next manager at Inter being quite so bumptious as to ignore Italian footballers.

At the Bernabeu, Florentino Perez is not exactly the most pragmatic of purchasers when it comes to footy. You sometimes get the impression that Perez would rather win a keepy-uppy competition than a footy match. And it's fair to say that a lot of recent coaches at Real have been scrubbing the decks rather than holding the tiller.

Mourinho will win things, but it won't be off the back of a bunch of one-touch step-over merchants - he'll do it his way. It's not a comfy fit.

In the meantime, England have their latest trot out on the Wembley surface, and having watched a lot of people get dragged through holes in the ground on Doctor Who last week, I fear for our boys. Until I saw this Wembley I reckoned there were any number of candidates up for being the most useless sod in English football.

Every time I think of the pitch, I just want to go down me local garden centre and have a good word with someone. You've more chance of keeping your feet paddling in a pond of piranhas.

Wembley has witnessed several pitch battles
Blackpool's Taylor-Fletcher swapped his boots more time than my missus before a night out and still managed to get tangled up in the knotweed or whatever it is they're using to surface the great stadium.

I was talking about my frustrations with me son Darren and he insisted that these days you can grow as good grass here as anywhere in the world. Not that I know how he'd know. He knows nowt about lawns. He's just a part-time courier.

Any road, this blog's beginning to wilt in this summer sunshine. Besides which I'm welling up a bit, you know.

Ta to all the boys at the Beeb who've had to wrestle with these blogs, especially the mighty Chris Charles. And to all the legal eagles who have toiled to give this bouffant afro of a blog a right good two on the top and one at the sides every so often. Probably 'cos they had to.

To think that this great nation of ours will have to make do with going to http://robborobson.blogspot.com for its future entertainment.
Or making do with getting updates from http://twitter.com/robbo_robson
No more the little cartoon fella. It's the real me.

Here's hoping we'll meet at the next fork in the road. In the meantime, there's a pint getting warm in the best beer garden in Great Britain, a World Cup to enjoy and a few pencils to sharpen in anticipation of an utterly independent blog later in the week.

Raise a beer to Robbo while you're watching our boys slip and slide like newborn foals on Monday evening.

The new blog's up on Thursday. Just not here.
God bless the lot of yer. C'mon England.

What are they going to do exactly? Flounce about being really flipping annoying. Couldn't we have just used Timmy Mallet?

Incidentally, if there are some poor saps getting paid for dressing up as Wenlock and Mandeville, then can't we make some lunched-up, fizz-sorted, pin-striped city bankers do it while we toss IOUs at them or, even better, rotting fruit.

Right. Now I know you Greeks are having a rough time of it a the mo, but get this, them Olympic Games you put on 1000 years BC, they're nowt when compared with the might of the Wenlock Olympian Games.

Mandeville makes a bit more sense - the location of the first Paralympic games - and they couldn't call a character Stoke or it would be assumed that all it could do was throw a football blinking miles.

But the main reason I'm a bit lost with them, apart from the fact that mascots are simply an irrelevance, is that they look like weird eyeballed thumbs with fused-on limbs.
They've got that cutesy thing going on, like in Gremlins. Any moment now the little aliens are going to jump on to your earlobe and suck your brain dry.

Presumably there'll be loads of plasticky or metally models made of these grim puppets, and presumably they'll end up in one refuse dump or another.

I always imagined a big wheelie bin outside the studios where they recorded Bullseye, overflowing with discarded Bullies. It'll be like that.

And how much did it cost to conjure up Manlock and Wendeville anyway?
They got Michael Morpurgo, a children's laureate no less, author of Warhorse - to which even grown men need to take a bucket to contain their tears - to mock up the story for the cartoon thingammy.

It wasn't Wall-E but it was OK. Until the damn things come to life and then got spray-painted by a blinking rainbow. I mean if you're going to go for the Rainbow theme then why not just bring in George and Zippy? They'd be cracking mascots and they could do with the work.

I suppose they're trying to attract the kids. Wenville and Mandylock are definitely in the same ball park as my grandson's current favourites, those primary-coloured psychos In the Night Garden, or the latest savage assault on me delicate senses, Waybuloo.

I dunno, couldn't the money have been better spent on, ooh, the buildings. Or the ceremony? It's not like we're going to have the most glorious opening ceremony is it? It'll be not much more than two (hopefully) bankers in alien costumes holding up a bit of ribbon while Her Maj gets out the scissors and Katherine chuffing Jenkins warbles some awful lament.
Waybuloo - in case you were wondering
I just pray there isn't going to be some Olympic anthem - I bet there is, though. Some plodding pop-rockers'll knock out some heinous drone. Keane, probably. Or Coldplay. You can hear Chris Martin now, can't you, whining out one of his slightly-too-high- for-his-voice dirges: "I will be... Faster.... Higher.... Stronger..."

I'll stop there, 'cos that's just felt too real not to be true.

I was looking forward to the Olympics, me, but all this stuff's twaddle, isn't it? The reason we watch the Olympics is 'cos of people like Mr Bolt, surely the greatest sportsman on the planet right now?

He had another jog to victory on Wednesday. The man makes fibre-optic connectivity look pedestrian.

We don't watch the Olympics to enjoy the twee adventures of Manderwen and Lockville, or any other transient piece of animated tut. I don't even think children watch it for that, do they? Nah, it's the jumping, running, cycling, winning... that's it.

And there's summat else about Villwen and Lockerman I really don't like. I have this horrible feeling that next time the Prime Minister and his Deputy step out together on the lawn at 10 Downing Street, their voices are suddenly going to change, each of them is going to unzip himself and out'll pop these two rubbish aliens.

After that they'll be joined by all the other public school-educated politicians, and Chris Martin, unzipped and scary, all of them leaping onto our ears and sucking our brains dry.

Yeuchhh... sorry about that. Too much Doctor Who I reckon.

Actually, no. Too much flipping Waybuloo.

There'll be no Hollywood epic of the 2010 Cup Final, which is a shame, as there was enough in it for a damn fine script to emerge. Chelsea hit more bits of woodwork than an erratic carpenter in the first half. Saloman Hassungotta Kalou was back to his worst.

I sometimes think that a footballer's haircut is a good barometer of how well they think they're doing - and Kalou's 'I was run over by motorbike' look suggests self-confidence.

But really, it looked set-up to be one of them stories that neutrals get a bit giddy over - like Sunderland beating the evil, talented and cynical empire of Leeds United in '73. Or Saints in '76. Or Wimbledon in '88.

But no. Avram's lads, united in their misfortune, with Jamie O'Hara carrying his fractured shins around the park, and Aaron Mokoena throwing himself in the line of fire in a way that Kevin Costner could only dream of with Whitney Houston, looked like it might just be their day.

Then Wince-Boateng's bottling of the pen was followed by the inevitable Didier Drogba goal and that was that. The Blue Meanies triumph.

A word on Drogba. A man of many parts.

There's the agonised writher, apart from 50 Cent I can't think of anyone who's has so many 'near-death' experiences.

There's the jostling, nudging, tugging, needling stuff - but then I forgive any centre-forward that when he gets twice as much coming the other way.

There's the sulk. I swear he's the reason Nicolas Anelka's grown up over the past couple of years. He must have looked at Didi-dums and thought 'I'm not like THAT, am I?'
There's Red Mist Drogba 'n all. Too often the bloke gets his marching orders when it counts.

And then there's the footballer. The Drogba who stands up, doesn't cry, gallops like a centaur (I had to look that one up), shoots like Robin Hood (but with a better Northern accent than your man Crowe), and all in all leads the line like some terrifying matador.

In other words, the bloke's really talented, really annoying and the best all-round centre-forward in world footie at the moment, including Torres.

Chelsea must be commended on their first Double. But I can't quite bring myself to do it,
which is not the case for England's T20 boys, after their majestic drubbing of Australia in the final.

The short-form still seems a bit unsubtle to this old fella's eyes but you can't deny it's entertaining. Credit must go to Michael Clarke for persisting with the blond mullet that is Shane Watson and giving Craig Kieswetter and KP a pie-fest for three overs.

There's nowt like being world champs to make you put aside a few question-marks, but the two men who brought the game home for us were born in Jo'burg and Pietermaritzburg. Is this a problem? It might be for Norman Tebbit, I suppose. And South Africa.

But Craig's Mum's Scottish and Kev's Mum's English and in any case Eoin Morgan was at least as important to England's batting line-up... and he's - ahem - Irish.

Look, the point is, he says, arguing with himself, that England don't write the rules on qualification - and so it's not our fault they want to play for this noble nation of ours. In fact, the least we can do to show our gratitude to the batsman-factory that is the RSA is to go and win the World Cup for them, then they can win it here in 2018 when we host it. Which should happen so long as eminent people in the bid don't get caught having private conversations with their friends.
Kieswetter and KP - English and proud

I can't say too much about Lord Triesman, but we all say things in private that we wouldn't say in public - and if we're getting to the point where every under-the-breath aside is being recorded and then used against us then we might as well turn into a bunch of mute robots with politically-correct placards held above our heads.

It's another shoddy affair, any road. But it shouldn't affect the bid. Fact is, England has the best facilities on offer, the best grounds, an unending supply of interested fans, and we should host it. The main stumbling block is not some alleged text messages to a young tell-tale, but the playing surface of our national stadium.

They'd be better off playing the divisional play-offs in the flipping car-park. Back in the 70s, Scotland fans were pilloried for digging up squares of Wembley's precious turf. I tell you what, dear Pictish friends, pick up your spades, your pitch-forks and your barrows and come and flaming well take the silly sods (of turf) away!

Then we can pool together the greatest minds in lawn preparation and solve this problem. Look for a Cameron-inspired coalition of Titchmarsh, Don and Dimmock to be in place before too long.

Of course, by then, we could have a Miliband in power. I'm all for the brothers having a shoot-out, me. Take note you cowardly Klitschkos. Vit v Vlad? As long as we don't get the boxing equivalent of a Williams sisters final, that'd be grand entertainment.

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Capello's no mug, mind. It looked like he was going to lose one creaking, one-paced and out-of-form centre-back but he's already drafted in an identikit replacement. Lucky old Jamie C.

Fabio takes his job seriously. It seems he's been knocking on doors and pointing his Capello Index Finger in the direction of blokes who have long since turned their backs on an England shirt. Carragher heads the list.

Capello's 30 nearly included Paul Scholes 'n all. The Ginger Ninja has settled into being the Gandalf of the United midfield this season - not too much running around, plenty of savvy distribution, and still the sudden shark-attack tackling.

But, like an MP whose accounts require some explanation, he wants to spend more time with his family. Not sure I could look the missus and the kids in the eye if I'd turned down a World Cup spot, but each to his own.

Clearly Il Gaffa has gone the extra mile to get what he wants. There was talk of Lazarus Hargreaves making it after 48 seconds of reacquainting himself with grass, but Barry must be better than we feared.

Ledley King goes, now he's played four games in 15 days. Good! (Although what he hasn't said is that he didn't get off the sofa once in between them games). He's going to be our Paul McGrath.

I can tell you now who's not going. Warnock, Parker, Bent, SWP, Upson...

Then there's the thorny issue of Joe Cole, but I don't think the Artful Dodger can be left behind. Which means one of Huddlestone and Carrick minding their respective WAGs for the summer. Me, I'd leave Carrick, although they're both in the gifted-but-fragile category.

Too often they turn from elegant sideboards into driftwood during important games, but Huddlestone's been the better player recently.

So that's leaves one more. I'm biased, me, but young Johnson has to go. He does more than stand on his left peg, he's made a place for himself amongst the Eastlands mercenaries, and he'll scare right-backs silly.

So at the mo I reckon I'm taking 24 if that's all right with Fifa. Twenty-five if you include poster boy Becks, who can spend his time modelling sarongs and mixing with the major 2018 decision-makers. Oh and teaching Lennon and Theo how to look up once in a while and cross a ball properly.

There'll be no Fulham representation, sadly. Wednesday night's defeat was very much in the 'brave failure' category. I feared for 'em, not least 'cos the Boro went on a similar journey a few years back and then Seville made marmalade of us in the final. No such disaster for the Cottagers.

Hodgson has made very, very, very good players out of lads you thought might never quite make it: Simon Davies, Clint Dempsey, Damien Not So Duff, and of course, one of the men of the season, young Bobby. I can vaguely remember a chant going up during his days of utter misfiring that went summat like: "Zamora, Zamora, we love you, Zamora, you're always a goal away."

Not anymore. I've pooh-poohed his England credentials, but frankly he goes up in my estimation having been utterly frank about his fitness for a month in South Africa.
It's a pleasing change from that quartet of disaster that Eriksson took to the last WC. Two crocks (Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen), an unproven tall lad and a very speedy lad getting time off from his paper round.

In the meantime, Diego Maradona (whose surname in Geordie means 'my mate's kebab') has left out the best least noticeable player in this season's Champs League - one Esteban Cambiasso.
What could possibly go wrong?
Seba Veron's in, mind. You remember him? Best 10-yard passer in world football? Proof positive that Fergie makes right old rickets in the transfer market? Looked like an extra from Pirates of the Caribbean? He's going to be there, tippy-tapping it back and forth like a Gooner's nightmare.

The fact that Diego's in charge is all the encouragement the other nations need. Man for man there still won't be a better squad out there - and yet the gaffer's about as predictable as a grizzly bear in a forest.

Of course, somehow I've managed to write this blog despite the fact that our country was ungoverned for half a bleeding week! I dunno, it seems that things are fine when them top bods are locked in rooms for days on end.

Still we have a Clam Government - or is it a Keg?

Good luck to 'em, mind. It's just I can't help thinking that you can't play them both in the same team. They could well be the Lampard and Gerrard of British politics.

I can see a coalition government coming up, with Dave as PM and Nick as deputy - and neither of them telling us owt... the Clam years. Clegg n Brown'd be the Clown years I suppose.

Any road, Chelsea. I was kind of expecting a nervy 1-0 with United thumping Stoke. But no such jangle for west London nerves.

Frank Lampard firmly told him to let the first team's penalty-taker take the penalty - he's crazy that Frank! - and Drogba managed to regress so quickly into adolescence that I swear his skin took on a Clearasil complexion, and he spent the half-time interval round the back of the Shed smoking fags, sipping cider and listening to Slipknot.

Lamps's ball across to him for Didier's first was the act of a pestered father at the end of his tether. It was the football equivalent of 'All right you can have a flaming sweetie!'

The sulking hulk completed his hat-trick against rice-paper defending and the rout was completed by young Ashley. All right he's not the nation's favourite, what with the wealth and the lack of gratitude in being wed to St Theresa of Newcastle, but he's the best left-back we have, so let's get behind him over the summer, eh?

It was, therefore, a bit of a damp squib of a season-ender after all. For the neutral. And magnificent fun if you were a Chelsea fan, I imagine.

Any road, never mind Chelsea, how did I do? Here's what I predicted at the start of the season, with final places in brackets:

1. Chelsea (1)
2. Manchester United (2)
3. Liverpool (7)
4. Tottenham Hotspur (4)
5. Arsenal (3)
6. Aston Villa (6)
7. Everton (8)
8. Manchester City (5)
9. West Ham United (17)
10. Fulham (12)
11. Sunderland (13)
12. Blackburn Rovers (10)
13. Bolton Wanderers (14)
14. Stoke City (11)
15. Wolves (15)
16. Wigan (16)
17. Burnley (18)
18. Portsmouth (20)
19. Birmingham City (9)
20. Hull City (19)

To quote the great Eric Morecambe, I got the top eight right, but 'not necessarily in the right order'. So let's get the apologies in first:

Alex McLeish, Birmingham fans - a ninth place finish is a brilliant achievement. But you can see how they might have been assumed to be relegation fodder at the start of the campaign. A midfield of Lee Bowyer and Barry Ferguson - come on, how many games did you expect them to end up playing at the same time?

When I looked at their strikeforce back then, I saw Cameron Jerome: The Brummagem Bendter. And Christian Benitez, too. I can never quite trust a striker who seems to have spent longer in front of the hairdresser's mirror then the opposition goal.

Then I saw James McFadden: Elusive, silky-skilled, blinking unreliable and after that, where was the creativity?

None of the above proved a problem and I reckoned without Desperate Dann and Roger Ramjet Johnson at the back. Or the keeper of the season, Joe Hart, between the sticks. A top effort all round. An almost Moyesian miracle from a squad of limited quality.
Gianfranco and the Irons. Sorry for misjudging you so badly.

There's still a part of me that imagines down at the old Boleyn Ground, plucky little Cockney sparrers playing in the rubble are rounded up, sprinkled with the ability to sing 'n' dance and kick a football, and are all set to stroll into the spine of the England team. Not only that, but they play the game 'in the right way'. And with the nicest man in the world in charge, who couldn't wish them well?

Turns out they're a right old ragtag outfit, full of crocks and misfits, and were it not for Scott Parker's drive, occasional glimpses of forward prowess by Carlton Cole and Ilan, and the real dearth of quality at Burnley and Hull, they'd be down.

I'm not sure that the two Davids are the men to pull them out of the hole they're in, but despite my impeccable Northernness I still feel this illogical touch of gratitude to West Ham, so look for the prediction of a Champs League place for next year.
Rafa Benitez has had little to smile about
Rafa and Liverpool: All right, fellow-blogger Phil McNulty thought you'd win the whole caboodle, but I still pegged you for third.

They were desperately poor, even if they occasionally pulled themselves up by Torres's hamstrings. I cannot see them doing any better next year either. Money's tight, big bucks and more medals must be luring the big boys, and Rafa's position looks as secure as a crepe paper chastity belt.

Arsenal: They did well this year, but it's obvious to all but Arsene Wenger what they lack, and that's a bit of midfield muscle (a 2004 Vieira in other words). Oh and a goalkeeper - actually a park-keeper would do a better job at the mo.

Other than them glaring errors, I did all right, I reckon.

But I must take issue with the Manager of the Season award going to 'Arry. Fourth place was never in any doubt, as my prediction proves.

Carlo Ancelotti at Chelsea? Fine achievement, but made harder work of it than he should've. Woy getting Fulham to the Europa League final using a squad with the depth of a razor blade? I should coco.

Hodgson was Manager of the Season for me all right, with McLeish not far behind.

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It's earned me a nice meal out for the wife and meself (if she lets us come of course) from the bookies. And to all them doubters who coughed up their beer through their nostrils when I tipped Spurs for fourth all them months back - well, bow down to a greater power.

Of course, it wasn't a snap judgement on my part. As with these blogs, it was thoroughly thought through. Outside of United and Chelsea, Redknapp had the best quartet of strikers in the division. There was evidence of a sterner spine in the side with Wilson Palacios in for the brave, willing, but aimless Didier Zokora.

The real revelation in recent weeks has been the form of last season's albatross around Redknapp's neck, the permanently pointless Gareth Bale.

Pushed further forward, he's reminded me of nothing less than a 'tacheless 21st century Gerry Armstrong. And if you young 'uns think that might be damning him with faint praise, then watch some reruns of World Cup '82 to see what I mean.

And you can't deny Redknapp his rejoicing either. Of course 'Arry could wrap a room full of reporters around his little finger. He's so skilled at the ever so 'umble art of media relations that he spent this week claiming that Man City can bully a club like Spurs out of a transfer. That'll be the Spurs that coughed up 42 million quid on players this season, will it Harry?

But clearly Redknapp's skills in the communication department extend to his players. He's not found it difficult to lure players he likes from one club to the next. The trail from the horribly broke Pompey was followed eagerly by many.

I suppose Robbie Keane might argue otherwise, but Keane's one of them players - a barrel-chested bantam on the pitch - who might not take too kindly to being rotated. Crouchy looks at the revolving door policy that is Harry's front two as at least meaning that you can get in half the time. Keane possibly took it to mean the opposite.

And I'd have to add that Redknapp's been blessed with a couple of bonuses this season that I wouldn't have expected. David Bentley hasn't exactly turned from show pony to shire horse, but he's put in a good shift in the absence of Lennon.

And Roman Pavlyuchenko, linked with just about every club in the world from Borehamwood upwards over the January window, has returned to nab vital goals to keep Spurs up and running. Young Roman is still more than capable of Bendtnering one towards the corner flag or being so off-target he's almost Berbatoff-target, but he's been vital for the club this season.

If there was one aspect of the fourth place play-off that delighted most, it was the fact that Man City's - and Roberto Mancini's - particular brand of squeamishness when it comes to forward-thinking was nullified by a side that was put out to attack.

I fully expected a pretty nervy, edgy affair of the type Mancini and Rafa Benitez conjured up at Eastlands a while back. That game was so risk-averse I almost expected the announcement next-day of a new insurance company called the Liverpool and Citeh.

Spurs went for it, and in so doing, earned it. I'm not sure how much stock the FandAbuDhabi investors put in flowing football entertainment, but clearly Mancini hasn't been in the business of entertainment since he wrote the theme tune for the Pink Panther.
And for the same reasons, I'm pleased that a positive mindest has seen them pip Villa and Liverpool too. O'Neill, with a budget not dissimilar to Spurs has managed to assemble a squad that possesses all the variety and colour of the landscape of Humberside.

O'Neill always looks like an earnest and schoolmasterly mole behind them specs, but James Milner apart, his team play incredibly predictably. Lots of men behind the ball, plenty of pace upfront.

You boy! In my office now!
Alan Hansen never tires of telling us how centre-backs find pace 'frightening'. If he ever played Doctor Who then you'd have an inevitable scene in which the Time Lord steps out of the Tardis on to a new planet and utters the most chilling words imaginable: 'Oh My God! We're on Planet Agbonlahor!

Of course, O'Neill also loves his big lumbering centre-forward. John Carew is as big and lumbering a land mammal as we've seen in this country, but even so, Emile Heskey's made him look like a delicate sprite sprinkling fairy dust all about him this season.

Without Milner, who's been utterly brilliant, they wouldn't have got anywhere near sixth.
How will Spurs do next year? Well I can't see Harry not adding to his squad. They could still do with another striker, although Harry's missus is apparently as good if not better than Darren Bent ,so he's always got options.

I doubt, strangely enough, that they'll endure as long as the miserly Man City would have done in the Champions League, but it'll be damn good to have someone else other than the Usual Flaming Suspects.

So good on yer 'Arry. You've taken a rich bunch of underachievers up to the top table for a change. All I'd ask is that, on the budget you get, you could stop playing the 'umble pauper. 'Cos it just don't wash, mate.

Steven Gerrard looked like he might be reminding Chelsea of his ability to deliver a killer through ball (should he become available this summer) but the real reason for Liverpool's demise was simple: they're not very good.

I saw that banner depicting the heads of great Liverpool managers with Benitez in the frame too. But I can't see him staying - or Liverpool sticking with him. Rafa says that expectations were too high but then whose fault's that? He was the one who 'guaranteed' they'd still finish fourth.

"They're a quality side... blah blah... meagre resources... blah blah". I mean, Spurs and Villa have forked out a banker's bonus in transfer fees this season, so all this "please sir, can I have some more?" Dickensian apologies don't cut the mustard anymore.

Will Rafa still be the gaffer next season?
But why have Liverpool been, relatively speaking, so abject? The fact - and facts are what Rafa loves most - the fact is that this Liverpool side is born of five long years in charge. The players are his players, by and large, and not the ones he inherited and miraculously conjured a Champs League victory from in 2005.

In other words, he may be a decent manager but Torres apart he can't find a player to save his life. If life is like a box of chocolates then Rafa is the poor fella holding the coffee cream.

It now appears that he cancelled a couple of tete a tetes with new chairman Martin Broughton for reasons best known to himself. Juve appeared to be courting the bloke, but his agent says he's desperate to stay. Given that there's summat between a 10 and 15 million pay-out in the offing if he gets the boot, you wouldn't really expect that agent to say anything else.

Of course, as Benayoun has noted, LFC have to keep hold of Torres and Gerrard if they are to do anything next year (and you can't say that's cut and dried). Or do they?
It's fair to say that Gerrard has had a rotten season. He's looked a little lost without Nando upfront, and although the blokes around him have shown all the imagination of the Institute of Actuaries, he's been looking like a sulky prince all year.

Torres's hamstrings are desperately frail and an over-reliance on an injury-prone performer isn't the wisest approach. Reina would be as big a loss right now.

So what does Broughton do? First of all, he'll have to lock Benitez in a room and ask him some serious questions, preferably with the help of DCI Gene Hunt (although being a Mancunian, Hunt'd probably go easy on the Spaniard).

If Juventus are after him, then I'd fork out for a nice meal between the interested parties and sit back with my fingers crossed. If they aren't after him, I'd invite them over for a curry and a chat any road.

Hodgson's been touted as a possible replacement but that might be 'cos he's genuinely done what 'Arry and Martin haven't done and got a team of little wealth into a major European final. When Roy says we've got a small squad and we live off scraps of food left at the back door of Harrods, you almost believe him.

Meanwhile, Chelsea look certain to lift the title in a week's time. They deserve it. They've been the best squad, if not always the best side. I won't be too elated to see the serial celeb page starlets Cole, Terry and Lamps screeching with joy, but the bookies won't be too pleased either.
The eyebrows have it
Have to say that I'm pleased for Ancelotti, mind. He seems a thoroughly good bloke and he's not got drawn into any of the petty domestics that get to less equable blokes. There's something about that stray eyebrow that makes him look like he's ever so laissez faire but the way he's attacked these last few fixtures, with Drogba, Kalou and Anelka all up front, has been good to watch.

Good to watch are not three words I'd use about the Snooker World Championship final. I've not seen so many balls out of position since that day I spent with the Cat Protection League's Neutering Department.

Graeme Dott's gritty but charmless, like an overripe pear, and Neil Robertson looks like he's let a chimp with scissors loose on his barnet. Plus, for all his youthful Aussie appearance, he takes bleeding ages to work out what he wants to do. I mean, crikey, if he was on Countdown, by the end of the 30 seconds he'd still be writing down the letters.

It's fair to say that both men looked like they could do with a lie-down at 13-11 and it wasn't the exhibition the game was hoping for in the light of these allegations surrounding the world number one.
It won't stop us watching the whole shebang next year, of course. You just have to hope that the final is Selby-O'Sullivan or something - although I expect Ronnie to have retired from the game three times between now and then.

By which time I fully anticipate Benitez to be preparing his defensively-minded team of counter-attackers from the Stadio dell'Alpi for an all-or-nothing final against Jose Mourinho's revived and unrecognisable Liverpool. And Boro to be promoted. Fantasy football indeed.

Of course, Pele played football in a different age - if you want to see what players could get away with in them days just watch a clip of him against Portugal in 1966.

Last night was worse in that it was a game built on deviousness, rather than attacking creativity. The fact that Mourinho was involved is hardly coincidental.

Of course, Barca are the darlings of world football, what with their lovely kit and their ability to move the ball around being so superior it's become known as the 'surpassing' method. And there's the charitable donations to Unicef. All unimpeachable stuff.

But children don't need to be copying Sergi Busquets, who completely Rivaldo-ed Thiago Motta. Motta should have kept his hand down, yes, and he probably would have been sent from the field any road cos a booking was nailed on, but Busquets rolled around like he'd been thumped by David Haye.

Sergi Busquets falls dramatically to the ground following Thiago Motta's challenge

It was typical of the game as a whole. Inter worked very hard on the darker defensive arts. Depending on your point of view it was brilliant or rugged or dirty. Lucio, a great defender in many ways, spent half the game doing Drogba impressions. I've never seen such a lot of bleating. It was like watching a mammoth complain about a splinter.

Walter Samuel may sound like he's off've The Archers but if he was he's be half-inching ploughs and selling knock-off tomatoes from someone else's greenhouse, and never getting caught.

Julio Cesar is an incredibly reliable Brazilian goalie. Time was when your average gold n green keeper was an converted centre forward still desperate to show his flair and individuality, and as such couldn't catch a cold let alone a cross. Nowadays, they treat the job seriously - and with Dunga's array of muscular defenders and ankle-tapping midfielders, the Copacabana samba football has gone all military two-step.

Inter also had the mighty Cambiasso, who Maradona won't pick for the Argentine national team which tells you all you need to know about the managerial 'hand of God'.

Faced with this brick wall of resistance, Barca opted for a twin approach: one, keep tip-tapping back and forth but never get to the byline; two, throw yourself on the deck every time the ball gets put into the box (I swear lemmings must be born and bred Barca fans). Oh and three, give it to Messi and cross your fingers.

It was like watching a big brother trying to resist while a more talented and but horribly spoilt younger brother tries his damnedest to win any which way.

Ibrahimovic, featured in an incredibly laboured ad for a pair of footy boots during the commercial break, and then shown to be not very good at using them on the pitch, lost half his shirt at one point. I still think the bloke's just Paul Mariner with a fancier name. Young Pep must agree cos he decided to take the big lunk off and put the centre-half up there instead.

Jose Mourinho celebrates Inter's win with typical exuberance

Mourinho was of course at the centre of it all, thriving on the injustice and buzzing around Guardiola like a wasp with a persecution complex. He appears to be ridiculously paranoid, but then again, what if he's right? What if everybody really does hate him?

Clearly he's not Serie A's cup of cappuccino, not least cos he appears to have banished all things Italian from the club. He makes Wenger look like the sort of bloke who has St. George's flags flapping from every window. And no one likes a stirrer.

Truth be told, Busquets' writhing left the majority of us hoping for I Nerazurri to pull it off. And to stifle such a gifted side so easily is very impressive, as Guardiola was generous enough to concede.

The final will see Mourinho up against another ex-Barca man, van Gaal, for whom you would assume the Portuguese might have a bit of respect. I doubt that'll stop him prodding his stick into the hornets' nest one more time, mind. Inter to win 2-1 is my prediction (and Mourinho to claim responsibility for the waxing and waning of the moon afterwards.)

Expect a little more integrity on display tonight when the heir apparent to Sir Bobby Robson's role as nicest Englishman in football, Roy Hodgson, seeks to take a paper-thin squad all the way to the final on the back of good football and earnest endeavour. All the best, sir. And may your team play like grown men, and not play-acting stage school ninnies whose parents haven't told them how to conduct themselves properly.

Sadly, Portsmouth have been joined by the two leading candidates for the drop at the start of the season, Hull and Burnley.

Brian Laws has bemoaned Burnley's lack of consistency, but I think losing 16 out of 18 games away from home is bloody consistent. The Burnley defence has been so holey it should be made into a site of pilgrimage for Hansens and Lawros everywhere.

But there's a sense of reality at Turf Moor, and that includes a highly appreciative bunch of fans, who kept singing to the very end of the 4-0 drubbing by Liverpool. Good on them.

Meanwhile, Hull have begun an internal game of pass the buck. George Boateng's blamed Phil Brown, who's still out on gardening leave. I guess if the flowers have been badly affected by frost in the first half of spring, he'll leave them outside and give them a really good talking to in front of everybody. Mind you, some fans are still lamenting the passing on of the Orange Crooner.

Chairman Adam Pearson has blamed his predecessor, Paul Duffen, who, to be fair, has proved to be a keen student of Ridsdalean Economics. The fans blame Pearson for bringing in Mr Bouncebackability Iain Dowie, who for all his spring-heeled enthusiasm, couldn't rescue a teaspoon from the bottom of a washing-up bowl.

Dowie's a kind of bushy-tailed, empathetic Grim Reaper, or Death Management Consultant, I suppose. The face fits, any road. If he taps on the door of your football club, be afraid, be very afraid.

Of course, the old cliché has been trotted out by both clubs: "The league table doesn't lie." Fair enough, but it doesn't tell the whole truth either - especially when players get all end-of-season a little early. Certainly, Stoke turned up at Stamford Bridge with trunks on and lilos out.
Tony Pulis apparently suggested the Potters had had their pants pulled down and their bottoms spanked. Lee Dixon said it was worse than that - and whatever that means, Lee, son, I don't want to go there!

But it looked like the refs might be mentally scrolling through the cheap flights to Marbella 'n' all. I've seen less dodgy pens behind a bookie's ear than the one that gave Villa the points against Brum.

You might expect Birmingham to have taken the foot off the pedal by now, but that big, angry troll Alex McLeish was stomping and cursing up and down the touchline like the match officials were the three billy goats gruff trap-trap-trapping across his bridge.

Pundits tell you, if you go to ground in the box you've got to get the tackle right. Unless of course the ref's half a mile off and trying to keep up with the fleet-footed anagram Agbonlahor, in which case just let the bloke have a shot. (Given Gaby's indifferent finishing it's not a bad call every time.)

It's one of them decisions where a quick video replay would've told the ref all he needed to know. And it would have taken just as long as it took Martin Atkinson to calm down the screaming banshees in Birmingham shirts.

Everton's last-ditch penalty was nowt at all, just Tim Cahill dropping like a toppled wardrobe and Lee Mason buying it.

I wasn't too convinced by the Chelsea penalty either. But having said all that, I was almost praying for the ref to make a horrendous blunder during the Arsenal-Man City snooze-athon on Sunday evening.

Are City really going to stick with Mancini next season? 'Cos by hell they're not going to be England's most expansive team are they? He's got the budget of Croesus and the mindset of Mick McCarthy. He's so conservative, he makes Rafa Benitez look like he's in Hair the Musical.
Anyone seen Boss Hogg?
Even Emmanuel Adebayor's arrival didn't spark much excitement beyond the predictable chorus of boos, although whether that was 'cos of his provocative goal celebration at Eastlands last year, or the fact that he modelled his hairstyle on a pig-tailed Daisy Duke is another matter.

The race for fourth is tighter than my father-in-law's wallet but, if only for the team's more adventurous spirit, I'd prefer Spurs to bag fourth. Plus I tipped 'em, to almost universal derision, to bag the last Champs League spot at the start of the season.
And I'm still backing Chelsea for the first spot.

You're a Koppite. It's Liverpool 0 Chelsea 0. And with the last hoof of the game Steven Gerrard sweeps a right-foot belter into the bottom corner from 35 yards. Who's jumping up and down, eh? Somewhere down the East Lancs Road the love for Gerrard (something that up until this point was a love that dare not speak its name) comes flowing.

In the Scouser's honour, United erect a statue of Stevie G outside OT, Sir Alex offers to take David Ngog, Emiliano Insua and Lucas Leiva off Liverpool's hands and Gary Neville records a touching version of 'I Will Always Love You'.

United skip along to the Stadium of Light and goals from Zimmer and Bus-Pass (you know who I mean) leave them a point clear with only Pulis's premature holidaymakers to come.

I'm smiling but it's not going to happen, is it?
Is it?

Hellfire, if it's that blinking hard why not get a sponsorship form and do summat for Sport Relief at the same time, you pampered apoths! Some people have been trying to get home for a week!

The worst that's going to happen is that you might get a stiff neck from your Nintendo DS, or aggravate a paper-tear when you're shuffling the deck for the latest round of stud poker.

The idea that Barca's defeat in Inter was summat to do with the transport is flaming laughable. I missed the match as I had better things to do. I was down in that London and fellow BBC blogger Chris Charles took us to QPR-Watford.
Wake up, Robbo!
I have to say it was end-to-end stuff - trouble was the ends in question were the sides of the pitch. It's hard to think when I was last so poorly entertained - except I did sit through one of Amanda Holden's sitcoms once.

Besides, the P-Block's banter was perky enough to keep a tired Teessider distracted from the sort of football you want to scrape off the pavement and take home to put on your roses.

Mr Charles did a very passable impression of Lukasz Fabianski and dropped two full pints during the evening. Watford dropped three full points and they're still not safe. I doubt the Championship's going to miss them if they do go down. A poor team who still got four points off the Boro, which tells you all you need to know about our teeth-grindingly average season.

I was in for Bayern-Lyon, though, which proved to be a poor choice. I've said this before but there are players, some players, who for reasons you can't entirely put your finger on, get right up your nose - like Arjen Robben.

Clearly the bloke is a top footballer, despite possessing a right foot that couldn't be guaranteed to kick a stationary space-hopper. I'm not quite sure why the Lyon centre-back, Cris, couldn't have stopped his inevitable cut inside more easily.

By the way - Cris?! What is it with this one-named Brazilians? Soon there'll be a back-four somewhere in Europe of Dave, Pete, Mick and Nigel - and every one of them will be Sao Paolo born 'n' bred.

But Robben... well, part of the irritation is definitely the man's style. All that twinkletoes stuff, like he's pattering across the surface of a lake and trying not to leave a ripple. It drives me Tonto.

There's also the tumbling. He epitomises the modern-day forward's tendency to drop to the floor if someone so much as exhales in his direction. It sort of reminds me of a teenage reprobate saying to an irate schoolteacher: "You touch me, man, and I will like SO report you to the auforities! You get me?"

Of course, the premature balding would be a source of comfort, were it not for the fact that you could never get close enough to the little so-and-so to give him a good Benny Hill-style slapping. Plus he eschews the Bobby Charlton (or indeed Boro legend David Armstrong) comb-over in favour of a number two all over. (Armstrong's stray comb-over was so long and trailing you could've sworn that somewhere up in the sky there was a kite attached to it.)

And it's not just me... Louis van Gaal looked like he was going to give his strutting charge a good slap when he brought him off. But on reflection, I've decided that young Arjen represents that kid in your, or indeed the opposition team, who you really craved to be. At our school, it was Jimmy O'Toole.

Jimmy was pacy. I had two speeds and they were both slow.
Jimmy was tricksy. I was a one-trick pony meself, and that trick could be summed up in two words: 'Get rid!!'
Arjen Robben - you either love him...
Jimmy was a clinical finisher. As was I, if it was a Lancashire Hotpot and chips - a half-decent chance and I turned into Emile Heskey.

Of course, Jimmy's talent was frittered away once lasses caught his eye... He's fat now, with two failed marriages behind him, so it's not all bad. And he's never beaten me at pool. But it's still the case that every time I see the bloke, there's a 12-year-old inside of me that wants to slide across the pub carpet and take the cocky beggar down across the back of the knees.

When Toulalan got his first yellow card for felling Robben, I couldn't help sympathising with him. 'Take the prancing show-pony down' I hollered. (OK, that is a slightly refined version of what I actually said.)

And yet for all that, I have no doubt that if the bloke pulled on a Boro shirt, I would embrace him as one of Teesside's own. A Dutch Pele for little ol' Teesside.

In a similar way, the citizens of Loftus Road have already warmed to their own 'White Pele' Akos Buszaky (I think if you join a supporters' club these days your membership comes with a free White Pele) and that touchline tyrant Neil Warnock and his curious pantomime dame eyebrows.

And there's no denying that whoever ends up playing Bayern in the final - and dear God please prevent the lame Lyon from getting there - the first thing they'll have to do is stop that red, red Robben from bob-bob-bobbing along.

And don't forget, you can now follow me on Twitter!

It is with this in mind that I offer up, in consultation with some petty and vindictive pals down the Blue Bell, a few alternative first XIs for this Premier League season.

I look forward to receiving alternatives from your wise, warped brains.

The 'Call Yourself A Professional Footballer - Pull Your Blinking Finger Out' XIThe players who couldn't beat your granny in a one-on-one. The players whose wage packets are inversely proportional to their ability.

1. Manuel Almunia: Qualified for England and worse than ever - that Barca game apart.

2. Paulo Ferreira: I doubt he expected to get a kick this season and he's lived up to that expectation even when he starts for Chelsea.

3. Emiliano Insua: Couldn't defend a sandcastle from an incoming toddler.

4. Clarke Carlisle: Nice bloke - bright too - but too often he's just consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant.

5.Titus Bramble: Some bloke wrote a book called Titus Groan - could've been written for Bramble, although he took his goal well against the Gunners.

6. Mikael Silvestre: Arsenal, Man U, France - it's a miracle. Has he got Derren Brown working for him?

7. Lucas Leiva: Maybe he's cursed by being that rare combination of Brazilian and average.

8. Jermaine Jenas: Not around much this year... so no change there.

9. Alberto Aquilani: Signed for £17m, plus add-ons - the add-ons being the medical bills.

10. Johann Elmander: Plays with his back to goal, even when he's facing it. Hopeless.

11. David Ngog: There's a new Monopoly board game set at Anfield and one of the Chance cards says: 'Go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass to Ngog'.

Manager: Roberto Mancini (if Bobby Manc fails to lead City to the promised land of the Champs League).

2. Gary Neville: Got back to fitness by imagining himself trapped at the end of a cul-de-sac by Liverpool fans.

3. Jody Craddock: Solid, reliable, full of moral fibre - an all-bran of a centre-back.

4. Sol Campbell: Freakishly good on his return to the big time - well, to Arsenal, anyway.

5. Kevin Kilbane: Never been a world-beater, but has that thing we fans crave - a good engine.

6. Graham Alexander: It only seems like yesterday that Walter Winterbottom included Graham in his England squad.

7. Paul Scholes: After the snog from GNev I doubt we'll see him score again. What a player.

8. Danny Murphy: Another quietly efficient season - he's like a reasonably well-off man's Xabi Alonso.

9. Kevin Phillips: All right, he's only played a sum total of seven-and-a-half-minutes, but he's not forgot a thing, has he?

10. Ryan Giggs: Ryan was Sports Personality of the Year - and he is a good sportsman, isn't he?

11. Damien Duff: Reborn at the Cottage, despite a pledge to stick with it at St James' Park.

Manager: Sir Alex Ferguson.

1. Heurelho Gomes: (Or indeed Paul Robinson or Craig Gordon).

2. Gary Neville: Still a bit of life in the old dog when the Brazilian Pokemon twins aren't available.

3. Gareth Bale: Remarkable transformation, the simian left-back is one of the most dangerous players in the division.

4. Sebastian Bassong: It's hard to imagine any Newcastle defender from last season could be up to much, but he's done OK.

5. Charles N'Zogbia: Another ex-Toonite, he's over the sulks and top-notch.

6. Florent Malouda: Couldn't believe he got to stay at the Bridge, but a few braids later and he's one of the best players there.

7. Dirk Kuyt: I bow to his work-rate.

8. Darren Bent: Facts are he's scored half of Sunderland's goals - which surprisingly is a lot more than eight.

9. Bobby Zamora: Unrecognisable from the lummox at Spurs - he's been undeniably brilliant.

10. Cameron Jerome: A bit of a pace-over-product merchant, but Brum's good season has a lot to do with him leading the line.

11. Darren Fletcher: (See Dirk Kuyt).

Manager: Roy Hodgson.

1. Peter Cech: Can hardly catch a cold these days)

2. Gary Neville: Forget what I said earlier - one-paced and tiresome.

3. Wayne Bridge: After all the shenanigans about not playing for England, doesn't look like we'll miss him after all.

4. Michael Carrick: There is some kind of killer blow missing in Carrick - it's like he's a Geordie Tim Henman or summat.

5. John Terry: Could be outpaced by an overfed tortoise.

6. Geovanni: Remember him? Used to score spectacular goals when Mr Brown was in town and the future was orange.

7. Anderson: Have never seen him look like he knows what he's doing. Ever.

8. Jon Obi Mikel: Apart from giving away stonewall penalties and getting away with it, what does he offer?

9. Jason Scotland: You're a goalscorer, you're called Scotland. How's that ever going to work?

10. Kenwynne Jones: Looks imposing 'til he lets another sitter through his legs, when he looks like a bow-legged flamingo.

11. Michael Owen: Not entirely his fault, but the man needs to get working on his punditry persona quick-smart.

Manager: Rafa Benitez

We were trying to think of the 'Most Irritating XI You Could Put Out on a Premier League Pitch' and we suddenly became aware that you should do worse than name England's starting XI: Cashley, JT, Rio, Gerrard in tumbling mode, Shaun Cul-de-Sac Wright-Phillips... so we stopped doing that list there and then.

Just think how insufferable they'll be if the unthinkable happens...

P.S. You can (at last) follow me on Twitter.

But you can't see United taking 12 points out of 12, so it's not going to matter if Chelsea do stutter again.

Football is a squad game these days, they tell us. I suppose that's true. The numbers one to 11 don't mean owt now, really. When Harry Redknapp says to Roman Pavluychenko: "Son, you'll be wearing the number nine shirt today," it means nowt. He always does. Your wearer of the number nine shouldn't be hiding his light under a sub's zip-up tracksuit top of a bushel.

I doubt that there's a room without a ball in it in his mansion. I've always loved watching Rooney, even if sometimes it's from behind the sofa, 'cos of the way he lights up when the ball's at his feet. He's still a kid in the park at heart.

Man United without him have been half as good. Valencia has improved, Nani has his moments, but Berbatov's been a platinum chain around Fergie's neck, while the capture of Owen was pure hope over expectation. The twang of his hamstring sounded as predictably as the wife's oft-repeated phrase: "What time do you call this?"

Liverpool have suffered similarly in the absence of Torres. Benitez has done his best, I'm sure, to minimise the effect of his frequent absences, but it's been like trying to paint a masterpiece using grey and more grey. Gerrard's been less rampaging box-to-box dynamo and more side-to-side sulk this season - and Liverpool, Europa League aside, have been plain feeble.

At the Emirates, it seems as though Arsenal's best chance of glory was ripped away from them with Robin Van Persie's injury in November. And Wednesday night's was another of them adverts for the Arsenal way that must have your average Gooner chewing holes in his scarf.

All tippy-tappy, this way and that-y, and all the penetrative power of a day-old kitten pushing at a cat-flap.

He's an angular bloke, Van Persie, and Arsenal were sharper, smarter and, well, to put it bluntly, they had that shot at goal all of a sudden.

(Perhaps we should also take a moment to compliment the man who won last season's Vampire Award - awkward flapping and a fear of crosses - Heurelho Gomes. He could be the season's best keeper. He's bold and decisive these days and still has the reach of a successful marketing campaign.)

Both he and Fergie have done remarkably well this season. If they were dog-breeders, it'd be the equivalent of getting a cross-breed to the final of Crufts. It's been make do and mend for both of them.

Manchester City have been feeble without their poster boy, Carlos the Hackle. It'll be interesting to see how Tevez responds to his latest chance to trip, gag and bag the last vestiges of a title challenge.

Chelsea's almost inevitable success will be down to two things: Drogba, yes, but more importantly a deeper squad. You just compare the respective benches of the top teams.
Chelsea: no Drogba, we'll bring on Anelka. No Malouda, bring on Cole. Even (Hasungotta) Kalou has been seen celebrating in that irritating face-wiping gesture more times than you expect this season. (What's he doing exactly? Cleaning the visor on his motor-cycling helmet?)

United: No Rooney, we'll bring on some Bulgarian chiffon or a cocky child.
Arsenal: No Van Persie, well we've got Barn-Door Bendtner and his wedge-shaped boots.

Liverpool: No Torres to break down the opposition defence, well take your pick from this trio of inflatable comedy hammers - Kuyt, Babel and Ngodsname Ngog!
So yes, it is about squads these days, unless, that is, your star man keeps fit enough not to make it an issue. Chelsea have had enough injuries to see them falter, but enough wise heads to see them through.
Carlos Tevez - poster boy
Their rivals are going to need some ballast for next year, but as Chelsea know and Manchester City will prove next season, in the land of the horribly debt-ridden, the owner of the bottomless pit is king.

Citeh already have a set of subs so expensive they could be make the Russian navy jealous. And it's only going to get worse for everyone else. That billboard of the grinning gaucho, Carlos, smacked of hubris, but I reckon it was only 12 months too soon.
And the Sky Blues are where my money is already at for 2010-11.

As for the candidates for PFA Player of the Year, well if I was a member of the PFA - and it's only ill luck that has prevented that from happening - oh, and beer intake - and a lack of talent - then my vote would be going to Wazza, absolutely.

Drogba's been immense but there have been the occasional feet-stompings and tizzy-fits that suggest only Supernanny could sort him out. Fabregas has been too often watching from the sidelines. Tevez sometimes comes across as a rather ill-treated Duracell bunny, and I still think he lacks a bit of nous.

Rooney has single-handedly kept United going this season. Without him, Fergie would be scrapping with Rafa for sixth spot. Give it to the Bear-Man!

Ancelotti's men were assisted somewhat by the official we call Lettuce - as in Webb's Wonder - as in I wonder what Howard Webb was thinking.

John Terry's Grim Reaper of a scythe at James Milner was a bit Halloween 'n' all, (Gerrard's elbow, JT's lunge... does a captain's armband mean you're above the law?) but in the end Chelski deserved it, even if O'Neill was probably doing his best Yosemite Sam impression for hours after.

They need a goalscorer. Preferably one that can turn average into title-challenging. Rooney gets better and better, doesn't he? He's the only bloke at United at the mo who seems to know not to pull on a door that says Push. And, as with Torres at Liverpool, when he's not there, the team has all the cutting edge of a bouncy castle.
Portsmouth fan John Anthony Portsmouth Football Club Westwood
Still, I'd have said the same about Portsmouth. Picquionne? Not so much a footballer as a spicy relish. Utaka? Yep, it sounds like 'attacker' but looks like a runaway tricycle.

Dindane? He'd need four attempts to finish a fancy canapé, let alone a decent chance. With relegation assured, the semi-final must have come as a light relief, I suppose. And by heck, I almost wept for them fans when Wiley blew his final, fateful whistle.

It's been a dire season for Pompey and that wild-eyed top-hat-wearing, walking billboard of a Portsmouth fan has kept bawling out his support along with the rest of them, despite the club having been ripped open and passed around like a bag of crisps on a pub table.

The blokes who wore their colours on Sunday were noble indeed, mind. The last team to get relegated and reach the Cup final were a fine and noble tribe too: the Boro. Of course this was 1997 - the year of the two-point deduction, so we've got a hell of a lot in common with Pompey 2010. Not least that we got stuffed by Chelsea in the final...

But let's praise Pompey for getting themselves in the position to be on the end of such a kicking. First of all, they were up against that folk hero-turned 'Judas', old 'Arry. Not only did Redknapp waddle off from the south coast, but a lot of little Pompey ducklings scuttled off after him: Defoe, Crouch, Kranjcar...

Of course, there are some ex-Spurs at Pompey: Michael Brown, the ludicrously forenamed Kevin-Prince Boateng (what's his sister called? Tracy-Princess Boateng?) And the man of the match, Ricardo Rocha. That's right, they were all a bit pants at White Hart Lane.

By the way, in Portuguese, Rocha means 'rock' or 'boulder'. Never could one man have so lived up to his name. (Although one day I hope to make Timmy Mallett live up to his by using him to bash in some tent-pegs).

Boateng was a live-wire all afternoon. And Michael Brown? Well I'd give him a yellow card just for putting his boots on, that lad. He is to midfield creativity what Liam Gallagher is to oratory.

Of course, David James survived courtesy of one of them refereeing decisions. Officials in this country seem to treat goalkeepers like doe-eyed, ice-bound seal-pups who are within an inch of getting clattered by some club-wielding marauder of a striker.

James knew there was nowt in Kranjcar's challenge, but increasingly the big stopper is becoming one of them rare breeds - a smart and honest English footballer.
Avram won the battle of the bosses
So Redknapp was vanquished and Avram Grant now has the chance to bite back at Chelsea and win the FA Cup Final. As I say, it's not going to happen, but the Cup is and always will be about the impossible dream, so let's not pour intimate waters on the Pompey chips just yet.

They'll be back at Wembley in a month's time. During which period they can invest in some crampons so they can stay upright on the Wembley surface.

Redknapp's right - the pitch is a disgrace. If we carry on like this with our playing surfaces, I fear for London 2012: we'll have Usain Bolt sprinting along on something resembling a water bed; Team GB's rowing eight will spend half the race wiping pondweed off their paddles; questions will be raised about the use of cobblestones in the velodrome; Beth Tweddle will be vaulting off a real horse and Tom Daley will be doing a full pike with triple flick-flack into a washing-up bowl.

It's just embarrassing. I can only imagine that come 15 May, Wembley will be covered in green nylon carpet tiles.

In the meantime, poor old Tiger is still getting it in the neck for not being happy at hitting rubbish shots. If you think he's bad, you should try playing golf with me.

My local course is scarred with evidence of my progress through it. There's a tree on the fourth fairway that's got my three-iron still lodged in it. In my rage I've actually chipped a frog out of the water and on to the 10th green.

And if you dig deep enough into a greenside bunker on the 17th, you'll find a rusty piece of junk that used to be my sand-wedge.

Well done, Phil Mickelson. Augusta got the decent family man it wanted as its winner. And Westwood need not berate himself. Mickelson could carve a half-decent ice-sculpture from a fairway iron. Top man.

Golf's on the menu for the next few days and Billy Payne, chairman of the Augusta National Club, took the opportunity to lob a slagging off at Tiger Woods on the eve of the tournament. Tiger has not been a role model for our children, he said.

A lot of people in golf have taken the opportunity to batter Woods for not being respectful to the game, never mind his missus, and I can't see that. Maybe he's aloof, maybe he's selfish, but that's probably what makes him so good.

He brings more interest to their silly stroll about with a ball and stick than any other player and still they play all high 'n mighty - they weren't tut-tutting in 2005 when that pitch shot rolled back into the cup on the 16th green.

Meanwhile, it was a rough night for Man United on Wednesday and I'm sure Sir Alex's 'typical Germans' remark will come back to haunt him.

The little throng that surrounded the baby-faced ref after Rafael's ill-judged tug - as far as I can tell it was made up of a Frenchman, a Dutchman, a Croatian and only one German, Schweinsteiger - was just a reflection of footy life.

It's lovely that Fergie is so touched by the tragedy of his Brazilian player's sending-off, but it really does get a bit much when he complains about the harassment of referees. It's like a polar bear arguing for better protection of seals.

The fact is United had it in the bag last night and they blew it right royally, although I feared the worst when Peter Drury launched into his usual Theatre of Dreams fanfare just before Olic scored.

Only commentators on football matches do the chicken counting - true fans don't even trust that the eggs are anything but empty shells. Keep Drury off commentary for any England game in June.

I wasn't surprised Ferguson risked young Wayne but he did nowt and hobbled around like a keen dog with a thorn in its paw. The real surprise package was Nani on the left wing - he went from the neutral's nana to a nerveless assassin in one half of football.

He was tremendous, as opposed to Carrick, who had one of them games when you think he's made of balsa. He was feeble, edgy and too easily dispossessed. Once again a Hargreaves would've served them better.

Still, Bayern played the 10 men brilliantly for the most part, and Robben's winner was utter class. It still beggars belief that a man of the Flying Dutchman's standard is incapable of doing more than feathering the football with his other foot.

I'm bewildered as to why he buys a boot for his right peg, but the left does make up for it pretty often.

I'm not that sorry there are no English teams in the last four. They've had it good for a long time but it marks a high-tide mark in our overpaid, over-hyped league's dominance of the tournament.

I kind of want Woods to trounce the rest of them at the Masters

The good news is that some of our lads might get a little rest before the World Cup now they've got three fewer big games to play.

Some of you (with a vested interest) will say I'm being unpatriotic but I wouldn't mind Gerrard and Johnson not having to bother with any more Europa Cup either. Ha'way, man, Benfica!

As it stands my early-season predictions are still looking right solid. Chelsea to win the Premier League, Spurs to get fourth, Hull and Pompey to go down (forget that I tipped Brum to join them will ya?).

I also thought United would win nowt and that's looking spot-on. All right they've won the Carling Cup but when Boro bagged that in 2004 I was inundated with lamebrains telling me how it wasn't worth diddly so on this occasion I'll agree with you.

And as for the Masters, well, I kind of want Woods to trounce the rest of them into the fake sand now. That'd make the Augusta National choke on its Amen Corner.

You can always dream.

I've not met a single person in the last 24 hours who can adequately explain why, when Liverpool were in desperate need of a goal, he removed the man most likely to get one. I was reminded of the time Graham Taylor took off Gary Lineker and replaced him with the worthy but lethal-as-a-cotton-bud Arsenal striker Alan Smith.

If there are any of the 'In Rafa We Trust' brigade still out there, we need to hear from them. Torres was exhausted, he claimed. Not as exhausted as the well of inspiration the manager dips into every time he sends David Ngog on to the pitch.

He had plenty of attacking players on the pitch: Babel, Ngog, Kuyt, Rodriguez and, up off the treatment table for the fifth time this season, Alberto Aquilani (I assume that the name Aquilani has the same origins as aquiline, which means 'eagle-like' - or in Alberto's case 'Eddie the Eagle-like' given that there's been so many lame launches of his Liverpool career).

Torres himself looked bewildered by the decision. Gerrard wasn't too chuffed. Could Rafa really be keeping his powder dry for the Europa League (Europe's Mickey Mouse Cup)?

Mind you, logic is sometimes absent from even the best of managers.

Manchester United's top dog fingered his way through the file of post-match excuses and then stuck with Page 1 - 'the officials were abysmal.'

Well, yes, but they were even-handedly so. Drogba's offside was missed: Macheda's handball was missed.

Penalties were denied at both ends - although Park's collapse barely merited one, whereas Neville's take-out of Anelka suggests that he's got a job as a bodyguard should, say, David Beckham decide he needs one.

There's no doubting that referee Dean got some decisions wrong but there's no way Ferguson can claim that Chelsea didn't deserve their win. Slagging off the officials doesn't alter the fact that United were a player short on Saturday.

There was a bit of pre-match hype surrounding Berbatov - regular 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' stuff - but he didn't produce the action to justify the words.

People have been talking about Rooney's movement all season and only in his absence can you really appreciate it. You'd've needed one of them time-lapse cameras that records plants growing to truly track Dimi's movement. Indeed, Wazza on crutches would have been fleeter of foot.

You have to say one of the revelations of the season has been Skiptoo Malouda.

He ended last season with a reputation as a lightweight - Malouda and Kalou looked like they needed shipping out - and yet the Frenchman has been far and away the best left-sided midfielder in the Premiership and the way he strode beyond Fletcher and co for Chelsea's opener proved as much. Joe Cole's finish was a delight, even if he did look as surprised as the rest of us at how well it worked.

Clearly, Chelsea should march confidently towards the title now. There are some mouth-watering fixtures still to come, mind...

Should Darren Bent go to the World Cup?

It's quite possible that Spurs and Man City could utterly scupper their nearest rivals' hopes of winning the Premier League.

It's the sort of prospect that makes a supporter positively ache for victory. In fact it turns every self-respecting fan into Kevin Keegan... 'I'd love it, LOVE IT, if we beat them now!'

Of course the fourth-place run-off is far from settled, even if it seems that the next time Liverpool are within an ace of taking another three points, chances are Rafa will play a front three of Carra, Agger and Phil Thompson.

It continues to be a potty season of course. You rule out Villa, they take three points. You ridicule City, they win 6-1. You big up Spurs, they get thrashed and give away three penalties. Fortunately D. Bent is the taker, so they were spared.

I'd like to think that Bent could cut it at the World Cup. After all, bagging 20 plus goals when your supply lines are as wayward as Sunderland's is a fair effort. And clearly his strike-rate on penalty kicks should qualify him for the inevitable quarter-final shoot-out against Portugal.

But he's one of the current crop of hot-headed whack-it merchants when what we crave is an ice-cool slide-rule finisher (which is probably why most football pundits took so long to wipe the nostalgic tears from their eyes every time Michael Owen crashed home another pocket of thin air and watched the ball dribble out for a throw-in.)

Of all the candidates, Zamora looks the coldest-eyed of the lot. That's where we're at. We've got Defoe, Carlton Cole, Agbonlahor, Bent... and the best you can say about them all at the mo is that they're not Heskey.

But then I reckon that means I've got an outside chance meself.

I reckon Capello will still be going with Rooney, Crouch, Defoe, Cole and Heskey. And some of us will be scratching our heads but showing the same sort of blind faith as the Koppite who still believes in Benitez. There must be at least one left.