In the face of these apocalyptic predictions, Watford have flourished from mid-table mediocrity to a club skyrocketing toward the top-flight. And with such ascendancy, the benefits of the Pozzo empire have come sharp into focus.

The virtually unanimous praise of Villas-Boas from Spurs players and even Monday's mass celebration on the touchline show a team that's united, happy and fully behind their manager. Either that or the Spurs squad are more deserving than Daniel Day-Lewis of an Academy Award for good acting at hiding their dislike so well.

As the old adage goes, to never meet your heroes, so it transpires as ESPN sit astride their proverbial horse and ride into the British sporting sunset. They arrived as great American conquerors who would finally give Rupert Murdoch's monopoly a bloody nose and more. As it is, they have conceded to their great rivals and stepped aside for a younger challenger.

For all of football's status as a European cultural icon, for all its intangible preeminence, the meat of its success, the living, breathing organism that is the European football fandom, is actually millions of organisms: individuals, countless raving, screaming, chanting, singing fans, all convinced like the followers of many a world religion that any and all non-subscribers to their creed are doomed to damnation

A beautiful country, geographically sandwiched between Pakistan and Iran, Afghanistan's history is blotted with devastating wars. Over the decades, peace has continuously eluded this scenic Asian nation, which has ensured that football, and all other sports, takes a backseat.

A prevailing topic is the suppositional death of the 'old fashioned full-blooded tackle', yet the one thing football discussion hasn't tackled itself is the continuing existence of one of football's other old-time traditions: doping.

The sense of deflation I experienced surprised even this most devoted of Reds fans. That he was retiring was no great shock in itself; the realisation that his exit belied a potentially greater psychological blow to those of us clinging to the disappearing era of one-club man football struck a far deeper chord.

Torino AC, the club so devastated by the Superga Disaster all those years ago, did not place the same emphasis on the continual commemoration and reminiscing employed by Manchester United and its fans worldwide. Perhaps this is why they struggled for so long to regain any sort of pre-eminence.

This week, there was promising progress in the ongoing battle for football fans to get their voices heard. After mammoth efforts from organisations such as Supporters' Direct and the Football Supporters' Federation, as well as individual fans, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee have recommended what is surely obvious - that supporters' opinions deserve to be heard.

Some of the fans - not all, but some - now feel that there is now no way back for Leeds - not to anywhere approaching the pre-eminence they once enjoyed in the game. If that's the case, then the question arises: what is a reasonable aim now? To gain promotion to the Premier League, and strive to survive?

While it may be frustrating sometimes to support a selling club, they are an integral part of the football landscape. If it wasn't for Lille, there'd be no Hazard, if it wasn't for Stuttgart, there'd be no Gomez, and if it wasn't for Monaco, there'd have been no Henry, and so on.

Whilst Charlie Morgan was only doing as would any other 17-year-old in front of a stadium full of home fans, his behavior is symptomatic of a growing lack of respect in modern football.

Alex Ferguson routinely pours scorn over the idea of recruitment at this time of year, but he should know more than most that for every Jean-Alain Boumsong or Ricardo Rocha there's a Nemanja Vidić or a Patrice Evra out there waiting to be snaffled up.

It would be difficult to imagine that any other club should have such a long, unbroken run of live TV coverage in their FA Cup ties. On Saturday, they will figure in their 38th consecutive such event. This will be a home tie against Fulham - hardly a game bursting with giant-killing potential.

In a season that has seen successful and well regarded managers such as Roberto Di Matteo (Chelsea) and Nigel Adkins (Southampton) cruelly handed their p45's, Murray has now become the first presenter of the year to meet his demise (handed his p45, he's not dead ... dead annoyed maybe!).

Whatever your opinion of Liverpool, the Premiership is less entertaining when one of its most famous clubs is floundering in mid-table. However, it remains hard to determine which direction the Reds are headed, they are an amalgam of 'ifs, buts, and maybes', with a worrying lack of definitive answers.

The digital age has brought many changes - some easy to understand, others impossible to fathom - but to protect one's IP is as critical now as it was when Percy Shaw took out that patent of cat's eyes.

There is no doubt that fans, however, would prefer to be paying a more reasonable amount to watch their team play. Some season tickets at Arsenal have tipped over the thousand pound mark, which can be used to assist the argument against the amount of money in football.

Lionel Messi has been awarded the Ballon d'Or for the fourth successive year. The Barcelona and Argentina forward was announced as the winner of th...

My first reaction when I heard Cole might be returning to Upton Park was weary resignation - another washed-up player with his best years behind him and ruined by managerial incompetence.

Despite my best efforts to write about golfing antics on and off the course in an engaging way, it seems that most of the males I know are completely uninterested. Forget the golf, they say, and write about football instead.