If a third round tie against Derby County did not tickle their fancy there was nil chance of the BBC abandoning Manchester United a second time in 12 years at Yeovil, even before Alexis Sanchez decided United were his favourite team. If ever a tie expressed the essence of the oldest cup competition in football this is it, a draw that revives something of the lost romance that had been seeping out of the competition in the early years of the new millennium. The concentration of competitive interest among an ever decreasing circle of wealthy clubs is proving a real issue in the game. The identity of the Premier League’s top six has become achingly predictable and the ruinous retreat of the teams outside the elite when mano-a-mano with the major powers has led to some mind numbing encounters. As beautiful a team as Manchester City are there is no joy to be had from the stranglehold on possession they assume in too many of their matches. Not their fault, of course, if Newcastle United and the like park the bus at home, but football needs dynamic tension to endure. The damage inflicted by Newcastle et al with their pacifist tone is universal as well particular.

Kiss Of Life

Thank heavens for the domestic cup competitions. The performances of Championship toe tappers Wolves and Bristol City at the Etihad in the Carabao Cup not only showed how others might make City shiver, they were received like the kiss of life by an audience slowly reclining into a permanent state of inertia on the sofa. Coverage of the FA Cup third round was dominated by the winning goal on his Liverpool debut by the world’s most expensive centre half, Virgil van Dijk, and the exit of holders Arsenal at Nottingham Forest, described by one Fleet Street correspondent as being in the top one of FA Cup shocks. That told me both how young he was and how old I am getting. Also in the category of top-one, third-round shocks was that engineered by holders United 33 years previously at Bournemouth’s Dean Court. The idea that Bournemouth, then struggling at the wrong end of the old Third Division, might one day be a top-tier side was as fanciful as Burkino Faso winning the World Cup.