WHY SAY ANYTHING?

So Belgium are the best team in the world. This is quite an achievement considering they didn’t win the World Cup which is, supposedly, a tournament to discover which is the best team in the world.

They were beaten, not in the final but in the semi-final, by France, who are the second best team in the world.

In the final, France beat Croatia who are now fourth obviously courtesy of their semi-final victory over England who, despite this loss to the Croatians, (who were four places below them at the time), have moved up to sixth.

You would be forgiven for thinking, using a minimal amount of logic, that France and Croatia would be the best two teams in the world.

England have recently lost to Spain at Wembley and beaten them in Seville. How can this happen when Spain are a mere ninth in the rankings? How can Spain be only ninth in the rankings when they have just narrowly beaten the fourth placed team, (Croatia), 6-1?

Fortunately other teams which England will rarely, if ever, beat even if there comes a time when a month consists purely of Sundays, include Portugal (7th), Italy (20th), Germany (12th), Holland (17th) and Argentina (11th).

This all goes to show that the rankings are calculated by a number of FIFA executives sitting in a pub somewhere scribbling down their thoughts on the back of a beermat. These thoughts are then collected together, completely ignored and thrown in the nearest bin.

Numbers are then put in a hat and drawn out to achieve the real rankings.

The only game in town, according to a certain TV station

Speaking of which, that brings to an end another slightly-less-boring-than-traditional-friendly-internationals week and means we can now return to concentrating on what the overpaid and spoilt brats get up to to scrape a living. Yes, it’s the return of the Premier League with, according to Sky, only one game worth watching. Fortunately for all you subscribers, Sky are televising this game, (surprise, surprise), a fact evidenced by their reluctance to shut up about it.

This is always a situation causing amusement in WSA towers as, had BT been showing the game, then as far as Sky were concerned it wouldn’t even exist. Coverage and build-up to a big game NOT being shown by Sky is deemed as important as what time the pub opens to a teetotaller.

When Chelsea and Manchester United finally get around to kicking off on Saturday morning, (at a time giving Mancunian United fans virtually no chance of travelling to the game on the same day), they will have a chance to lay down a marker for the rest of the big six or they will collect a point each which will make little difference to either of their situations.

With City, Liverpool and Arsenal expected to pick up three points from their games over the weekend this is a game that United in particular can ill afford to lose.

In fact the only other member of the big six with a tricky fixture is Tottenham Hotspur who travel to play West Ham in a derby they could quite easily lose.

So by the time Arsenal kick off against Leicester on Monday night there could be a gap developing between City and Liverpool, then the rest.