3 o’clock can’t come quickly enough. First Michael Ballack sees fit to question the integrity of Wigan Athletic, then Sir Alex Ferguson decides to do the same to Bolton Wanderers. If you support Chelsea, Ballack has a point (because didn’t Steve Bruce used to play for Manchester United?) but Ferguson is going too far; if you support United, Ferguson has every right to question why Bolton’s players are already ‘celebrating’, but Ballack is impugning the character of an honest manager. And now Ricardo Carvalho has added fortune teller to his repertoire of skills. Please make it stop.
To cap it all off (for the moment at least – god knows what sort of revisionist takes on the season we’ll be getting come 5 o’clock!), Avram Grant has proposed that if two teams finish the season level on points, there should be a winner-take-all play-off to decide the champions, rather than it coming down to goal difference. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? Does Mr Grant, I wonder, think that should apply everywhere? Because if Everton lose and Aston Villa win, this afternoon, then Villa will qualify for Europe on goal difference despite Everton having been in the top five for most of the season. So: a play-off? And if Bolton lose at Stamford Bridge (where they’ll be either having a day out in London or fighting as if the very devil himself is at their back, depending on whether you wear red or blue at the football), and Fulham and Reading both win, they’ll all be tied on 36 points and one of them will be going down. Three play-offs?
No, the thing of it is, Avram, old chum, that being held hostage to goal difference is what your club gets for charging fans up to £60 a ticket to watch over £250 million worth of players grind out results with ‘efficient’ football, while Manchester United and Arsenal were busy fulfilling their duties as entertainers. Sorry.
I leave you now, with a plea to both Manchester United and Chelsea to remember that, when all is said and done, this is actually just a game. And also just to note that Paddy Power have odds of 11/4 that Chelsea will score from a penalty this afternoon. And Bolton? 18-1. I’m just saying . . .
