They say good things come in threes (they do in my household anyway) -- so this week let's examine the troika of responses (or failure to respond in Pepe Reina's case) to the calamity of the now infamous Beach Ball goal.

Firstly, I'd like to applaud the Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez for the cool, calm and collected responses to Darren Bent's assisted winner in last weekend's Premier League match against the Reds.

The Spaniard, who has been known to spout forth the 'facts' on occasion, refused to be drawn on the controversial goal and more importantly, whether it should have stood, instead focusing on the mess his players made of retaining the ball in the 1-0 defeat at the Stadium of Light. It showed great restraint when the hounds of the press collared him after the game for an immediate response, but fair play to Benitez, he knows the Anfield giants' alarming slump cannot be blamed on an inflatable foreign object and nor did he try to portray that.

Secondly, why on earth was the offending ball not dealt with in according fashion before it even managed to sneak its way into the penalty area and applying the sort of clinical finish that the likes of Hull City would pay good cash for?

The pictures show it came from right-back Glen Johnson's flank and managed to evade the eyes and attentions of the entire backline before goalhanging inside the six-yard box. What was Pepe Reina doing in the Liverpool goal during this time?

Granted his gaze is usually cast about six foot higher when checking his area, ready to communicate with his defenders to check the positioning of opposition attackers arriving at the back post, but it still seems shocking that he missed a beach ball, a big red shiny one at that. If he saw it, why didn't he put his old size 10 through it?

And thirdly, why on earth are the people running the game letting officials take to the field without knowing the rules and laws which govern the sport?

I didn't know the goal should've been disallowed. After picking myself up off the floor from a laughing fit, I just thought it was one of those unfortunate things that happens once in a while.

I imagine that goes for the thousands of people watching at the Stadium of Light, including the respective managers; Steve Bruce and Benitez, if their lack of protest is anything to go by. The players too can be forgiven for not knowing every single law applied to the game, it's not their jobs.

The one man who should have known before the peep of the first whistle to start the game is match referee Mike Jones. Don't these people have to take an exam to make sure they know the laws of the game? The referees who take it in future should not be allowed to officiate until they pass with a mark of 100 per cent and someone from the Football Referee Association sticks a gold star on his chart and draws a big smiley face on his examination paper.

I might be being a bit premature with this shout but I'm going to say it anyway: Liverpool's wait for another league championship - the last of which came in 1990 - will be extended for another year because their once water-tight defence has suddenly become one big leak.

The foundation of their dominance over the English game in the 1970s and 80s and in more recent times, their ability to challenge for honours in Europe, has been based largely on a defence that is held together like cement and bricks.

Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson, Sami Hyypia, Stephane Henchoz - none of them with the exception of Hansen had the same poise and grace as more illustrious European counterparts such as Alessandro Nesta, but all were bedrocks who saw glory in a clean sheet like a striker sees it in scoring goals.

More recently Jamie Carragher has taken over that mantle. After taking some time to settle in a favoured position (he had unsuccessful spells at right-back, left-back and what many describe as a 'disaster' spell as a holding midfield player), Carragher has not looked back since being installed as the hired gun at the back, keeping marauders far away from troubling his goalkeeper behind him.

However, the Reds' defensive lynch-pin, whose on-field rants at inferior teammates for not putting their faces in front of an opponents boot have become as common place as one of his own telling and timely interceptions to deny an opposition goal, looks to me to be one of the main culprits for Liverpool's poor start to the season.

Three defeats already - with one of them a 3-1 reverse at home to Aston Villa and the last at the weekend to Chelsea - all highlighted in a big bright red marker pen an oversight in Rafa Benitez's planning over the summer. It is no surprise if he was happy to stick with his tried-and-trusted formula at the back. But one-half of that formula, Hyypia, has departed for pastures new and Carragher looks a yard short of pace in those 31-year-old legs.

It is hard to recall a time that Didier Drogba, fine player though the Chelsea striker is, was able to take a ball down unchallenged in a Liverpool penalty area but still with his back to goal, roll around Carragher even though the former England man had a teammate and the touchline to aid his cause, and fire in a low cross to set up Chelsea's second goal in a 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge with such ease.

Martin Skrtel hasn't convinced me since he wandered down to Anfield from his cave; Dan Agger looks a fine player but on past evidence can not even be guaranteed to give you half a season because of injury and expect to see Sotirios Kyrgiakos wheeled out for League Cup games only.

This, coupled with Carragher's form on the wane, should spell a few things out for Benitez: a house is built on its foundations, but even they need replacing after years of wear and tear.

Despite their rocket cars, solid gold houses and millions of currency winging its way to their personal bank accounts, I do have to feel a bit sorry for footballers at times.

I turned on my TV this morning to discover the whole world and his cat lining up around the block to throw in their two pennies' worth over Wayne Rooney's reaction to being substituted in last night's 1-0 win over Besiktas to get their Champions League campaign off to a winning start.

'Incensing fans to riot' one news reader opined; 'Fergie won't stand for that kind of petulance' an even less informed offer from their less than trusty sidekick.

So what heinous crimes did the Manchester United forward commit in the short walk from the field of play to the dug out?

A few words, no doubt some of them choice, headed in the direction of the baying Besiktas fans hardly constitutes 'incitement' of anything.

English teams enjoy the same sort of relationship with fans from the city of Istanbul as cats enjoy with dogs, but come on, I don't think one player talking about things other than the weather with 40,000 natives in the Inonu Stadium warrants singling him out as a source on tension.

And so the England forward let off a bit of steam by taking his boot off and throwing it down to the floor: you show me a player that likes getting substituted in any game and I'll show you a player that doesn't care if he is in the team or not.

I often wonder what kind of sights we would see if we could see images from inside the changing rooms as managers around the world announced their starting XI before each game.

If people think Rooney acted petulantly to coming off after an hour, imagine the clamour that would follow after seeing images of him being restrained like a rabid animal from Sir Alex Ferguson after the Red Devils manager had just told him he was starting him from the bench.

The rabid scenes at Upton Park on Tuesday night gave all of us a jab in the arm like a tetanus shot that hooliganism still lurks in the darker corners of football.

It did not make for good viewing. West Ham fans on the pitch at the Boleyn Ground provoking Millwall supporters, the stabbing incident before kick-off and the unsavoury scenes of hundreds of fans goading riot police after the match was just the sort of postcard image both clubs would have wanted to show anyone thinking of joining them for their next fixtures.

But it's easy to blame the clubs, in this case West Ham and Millwall, for failing to control their fans. Don't get me wrong, clubs and players do have responsibilities to conduct themselves in the right way and set an example, especially to those young enough to absorb the words and actions so readily. Players are scalded for any behaviour we decree not befitting of a man taking home in a day's salary what we would struggle to take home in a month and yet the majority of whom do a ton of work for good causes and to promote their club behind the scenes in the community without so much as a mention.

Clubs in England have worked feverishly over the last 20 years with the Football Association to eliminate this kamode element of fans and make grounds a more family-orientated experience. Stadia has been improved beyond recognition to the old wooden shacks I used to visit as a young boy in the early 1980s and while police presence has always been something I associate with going to matches, training and handling to diffuse situations between rival supporters before they flare up have, for the most part, allowed the majority of fans to enjoy their match day experience.

Clubs have actively seeked out those perpetrators of violence, initiating bans -- some for life -- on anyone misbehaving in, around, or in some cases travelling to the ground.

They not only provide their own security within the stadium but also have to pay local law enforcement to police outside the ground for every match day. And that doesn't come cheap.

Trying to oversee the good reputation of a football club with it's hardcore element hell bent on tarnishing must be a lot like trying to run a successful restaurant with a chef who only does a shop once a week. You've got 60 covers for a lunchtime service, the stoves have been cleaned, floors have been swept, the glasses and cutlery polished. On the surface, it appears immaculate; somewhere you would happily take your family for an afternoon and even be willing to overlook the extortionate prices the chef has finely inked on an exuberant menu for four times what it costs to make the dish.

The dining room is a whirlwind of hot plates, clinking of glasses and the hospitality of staff tentative to your needs.

Then we move onto the kitchen. As said, the stoves have been cleaned, floors mopped furiously as if getting ready to stage an episode of Strictly Come Dancing. But then, your delicate senses are directed towards the fridge; when you open it, it should be a kingdom of fresh produce, locally sourced ingredients and the tenderest cuts to make the mouth water. The life source of your operation.

But you've got a sloppy chef who think fresh produce means fresh out of a can and lasts three weeks. When you open the fridge door, you're greeted with decaying vegetables, sauces that have developed mould and rancid cuts that would make even those with a palette like the inside of a bird cage turn their noses up. The rot of the old will always spoil the splendour of the new.

I'm not just here to sound out the shortcomings of West Ham and Millwall fans, far from it. I understand football rivalry, I dislike pretty much every other team on the planet other than my own when I'm not in a working capacity. But I think I have a pretty clear sense of the parameters of acceptability in letting another group of supporters know what I think of their team/town/women with words and the parameters of unacceptability of doing it by force.

This disease is not exclusive to English football by any means either. English football and its fans have done well to shake off the unfortunate tag of 'English invaders' that served us so well in the late 1970s and 1980s. Armed with the mandate of burning the locals, terrifying the opposition and getting on a first-name basis with the local constabulary, Uefa subsequently imposed a ban on all English clubs from its competitions after the Heysel Stadium Disaster in 1985 -- in which 39 people died and 600 were injured -- which lasted five years (Liverpool were banned for an additional year which also saw a number of their fans charged with manslaughter).

Every country has its hardcore fan-base. Real Madrid, Europe's most successful club, are backed by the notorious right-wing group, Ultras Sur. The Italian side Lazio give carte blanche in and around the Stadio Olympico to their Irriducibili fans, which is a bit like having 10,000 rabid dogs on the loose with the keys to lock up after they're finished. Teams in the Balkans have been investigated by Uefa for everything from racial abuse to the attempted murder of their own players.

Even in the UAE, a country in its infancy in terms of professionalism, the authorities are getting a taste of how much this great sport can dement even the most upstanding members among us with the Al Ain fans, who found themselves up before the beak on more than one occasion last season for their fans' raucous behaviour.

Hooliganism is still alive and unwell in football. No matter how much is done to paper over the cracks, underneath every club's goodwill in the community scheme and every attempt to stamp out the undesirable elements, it lurks. It feeds off the energy of the game just as much as every aspiring footballer and dedicated fan. Perhaps even more so.

Everybody who has lost faith in the authorities governing the game of football raise their hands. I have both of mine in the air. Right now, Adrian Mutu looks like he needs a hand OR two OR 17 million to be exact.

London club, Chelsea sets an ugly precedent by suing Romanian striker Mutu for 17 million euros  and the London club's cronies, FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sports(CAS, which deals with doping policies),  duly obliged by ordering the Fiorentina striker to pay up. What next? Is Abramovich going to send his evil henchmen to stick needles in Mutu's eyes while he sleeps?

The order was made on the 31^st of July 2009 but the story goes a long way back, I'll keep is short. Nouveau riche Chelsea spends big on Mutu to acquire him from Parma in 2004. He came highly regarded due to his goal scoring record in the Calcio. His first season was less than memorable and like many of Chelsea's recently acquired strikers, he found English defenses to be a little less porous. Add that to a spat with new manager Jose Mourinho and you can say that he was already in the doghouse. Not shortly afterwards he was tested positive for cocaine for which he was given a seven month ban and a 20,000 pound fine. Oh yeah, and he was fired by Chelsea which pretty much meant that any club could swing by and pick him up for absolutely no cost, if they were willing to deal with the stigma of signing a 'tainted' player. Chelsea was so desperate to get rid of him that they did not even want to wait around to see if another club was interested. Why couldn't they have waited and sold him? He's a recreational drug user, not a legless leper. Juventus were more than happy to oblige. It was later on that Chelsea decided to sue the player for not fulfilling his potential and violating his contract. I thought that was why he was banned, fined and fired!! After a few years of legal battles, the details and the reasons behind which I don't really understand, the CAS ultimately decided to side with Chelsea and have ordered Mutu to pay. Wow. Absolute pants-dropping hilarity!

The Romanian says that he's on his way to bankruptcy due to the fine. He may be a national icon in his country but ever since his sacking from Chelsea,  Mutu has found it difficult to find the net consistently. It's only when he landed in Fiorentina that he's returning to the kind of form that he was known for. For an aging striker who only has a couple more good years left in the tank, this decision is going to rob him of everything he's worked for.

Sure, he's made some extremely bad decisions. Don't for one second think that I'm advocating his behavior. Being an athlete, a role model and a Chelsea employee; it was his responsibility to stay clean. A responsibility that he fell short of and was duly punished for with a seven month ban,  a 20,000 pound fine and the loss of his job. Once you've been labeled as a drug user, it's much harder for a player to find a new club than to be recuperated and find a healthy working relationship with the old one. Why didn't they ban him for longer or give him a heftier fine and let it go at that? Why did they re-introduce him to football and then decide to punish him at a later date. Why do they let Mafioso tactics like this even exist? 

I'm no sage but even I can see the befuddled logic and the complete lack of consistency with the decision made by the CAS. And don't even get me started about Chelsea's daylight robbery. And all in the name of the Anti- Drug campaign. Yeah, we know drugs are bad. Any two year old will tell you that drugs are bad. You don't need to bury a former player to make that point. I'm sure that Chelsea is looking out for the team's benefits but this is taking it too far.

There's a reason why there's been such outrage about this issue. This isn't the first time that there's been a doping scandal in the football world. It's just the first time it's been dealt in this way. Let's take a short jog down doping scandal memory lane. Since I'm a child of the 80s, you will have to excuse me if my memory doesn't go further back. Did they even have steroids back then that didn't make your head explode? Rio Ferdinand missed a drug testing session and was banned for eight months and was given a fine. You know he didn't miss it because he was watching reruns of Dr. Who. He had something to hide. His club supported him on his return and these days he's one of the best central defenders in the world. Abel Xavier of Middlesbrough was tested positive for anabolic steroids and was banned for a year and a half along with his fine. On his return, he played out the season for his club and then moved on to the LA Galaxy. God only knows what punishment the CAS was thinking up for Xavier before they settled for the 18 month ban.

All in all, this incident leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Maybe Mutu was an absolutely despicable man who liked to pee in the team's Gatorade, kick puppies for fun and make holes in Jose Mourinho's legendary overcoat. Maybe that's why they wanted to dispose of him so quickly and then hit him with a sucker punch. It still doesn't explain the way they handled the situation.

Sorry Chelsea fans, you really don't have much of a comeback in your team's defense. For a team that plays the game so beautifully, Chelsea's boardroom decision is as ugly as is gets.

 

It's so easy to go from hero to zero in football. In the London derby between West Ham and Tottenham on Sunday though, we were given two servings of the slightly sickening treat.

Jermain Defoe was greeted with a crescendo of boos, disdain and a few gestures of throat slitting from the West Ham faithful upon this and every subsequent return to the Boleyn Ground since he departed to Spurs in February 2004.

Defoe endeared himself to the Upton Park faithful when, just a few days after relegation from the Premier League at the end of the 2002-03 season, he handed in a transfer request. His timing, at least on the football pitch, is a little more tactile. Since Paul Ince's retirement, he is the figure the West Ham fans most love to hate. Well, apart from one of their own it would seem.

But it was the in-form England striker who had the last laugh as he smashed in Spurs' equaliser as helped the north London club continue their impressive early season form with a 2-1 victory.

Defoe was the grateful recipient of a defence-splitting pass that left him with the task of leathering the ball past a despairing Robert Green in goal. However, it wasn't one of his own teammates putting this chance on a plate for him.

Defoe would have been forgiven for shunning his own players to leap on the robust frame of Calrton Cole, who had inadvertently supplied his England chum for the leveller, as Cole undid all his earlier good work of opening the scoring in one kick.

Cue the Upton Park boo boys. Nevermind that Cole had opened the scoring with a contender for goal of the month, had the Spurs defence quivering every time the ball was launched up to him and was his own team's get out ball every time they found themselves in trouble. The disaproving jeers inevitably sounded out those willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he probably didn't intend to set up Defoe's equaliser.

This isn't the first time Cole has had to contend with hatred and vitriol from his own fans. Until he hit a rich vein of form last season that saw him called up to Fabio Capello's England squad, the Hammers fans were on his back like a pack of wild monkeys.

But fans are fickle for the most part. Of course, if you're going to pay the inflated prices to watch a live Premier League game, you can argue that you can sound off however you see fit. And you can, it's just I never really see the percentages in booing one of your own players. Heckling them seems to me an admission that you think they are trying to play bad and disappoint you on purpose.

It is toe-curdling to hear even opposition fans make a young striker feel as welcome as a ginger stepchild for one inadvertent mistake, after giving his team the lead and looking their main goal threat throughout.

Hero to zero in London's east-end in one afternoon. It's enough to make you ask for a transfer, isn't it?

I don't want to be a spoilsport or rain on anyone's parade, because at the end of the day I love an underdog just as much as the next guy.  As point of fact, I check the results quite often fueled solely by schadenfreude; I enjoy seeing losses by the big spending clubs with a perennial stronghold on the top of the table. 

Few things in football make me happier than watching crazed fans of otherwise hapless clubs celebrate the unlikeliest of victories in a weekly match as if they'd just won the Champions League final.  

However, having said that, I do think it's only healthy to pop a couple pills of reality every now and again and own up to the state of the onion: Burnley fans, enjoy it while it lasts, because success such as yours is incredibly fleeting.

It seems like only yesterday that Hull City fans were ecstatic with a solid early season run and then emphatic that their club was a sure thing for top tier glory.  After all, up until week 9 of the 2008/09 Premier League campaign the Tigers were joint top of the table - goal differential notwithstanding - and had only suffered one defeat to date (an absolute 5-0 drubbing to Wigan in week 3 - perhaps someone should have read all that writing on the wall?). 

But the Premier League season is a long one, and Hull City simply couldn't hold on.  They tumbled through loss after humiliating loss, netting only two points over the last 10 weeks of the season, just narrowly missing out on relegation on account of Newcastle's inability to find the back of the net in their final match.

And as for the other end of the spectrum, as the saying goes 'the cream always rises to the top'.
 
But what if it didn't?  What if the sleeping giants cum superpowers took too long to get their act together and someone like Burnley (the Hull City of 2009/10) was able to hang on just long enough to break through? 

Or, even more extreme, what about playoffs?  I know such a preposterous notion has been posed many times before, and I understand why all the Chelsea and Liverpool and United supporters instantly get their backs up over it.  And how dare I even consider messing with the institution that is the Premier League.

American Football employs a playoff system and it enjoys tremendous balance of competition from top to bottom (albeit each season inevitably features some squad that seems to equate finding the end zone on par with solving cold fusion; 2008 Detroit Lions).  The playoffs allow middle of the pack squads such as the NY Giants to put together a dream run and steal an all but certain Championship away from league Goliaths the New England Patriots.

Sure, Americans love to sensationalize things and in a way, the playoffs are the American Dream brought to sport, where any team can have their day in the sun and be rewarded with glory.  But is it really so bizarre to think that such a system couldn't transfer to football?

The fact is, the divide in football between top tier clubs and the middle of the pack is growing like never before with embarrassing amounts of money being spent on superstars (and even on some mediocre players; I mean how much is Lescott really worth?).

There is a vicious, and well known, circle in sports: Championships attracts fans attracts money/investors attracts players attracts victories and so on.

The Burnleys and Hull Citys of the world likely won't benefit directly from a playoff system - they won't find themselves in the top 6 or 8 to qualify for a playoff spot.  But giving the middle of the pack that shot at glory, and then letting the vicious circle kick in, could lead to slightly more parity across the board, indirectly decreasing the mass schism between top and bottom of the table. 

What if, for example, Fulham or Villa were to march away with the League title after putting together the game of their lives in a final against Liverpool?  Would that be such a bad thing?

What if?

Conclusion's are easy to jump to in football and it is remarkable how in one game a team can lurch from a crisis to the top of the world.

Take Arsenal - tipped for a struggle to make the Champions League before the season, but after putting six past a poor Everton side they were suddenly being touted as potential champions. What changed in the space of 90 minutes?

The same can be said about Manchester United. After a regulation, if unimpressive, 1-0 opening day victory against Birmingham they stumbled to defeat at new boys Burnley last Wednesday. Plenty of possession, no penetration. Stark evidence, people said, that the champions will not be able to cope without Cristiano Ronaldo. Where would the goals come from now that the Portuguese winger was gone? How would United possibly challenge for the title?

Well, 90 minutes and five goals against Wigan later, it is time to draw more conclusions. The fact is that United still possess a very expensive, very dangerous strike force. There will always be games where the players don't click. The Burnley defeat, coming so early in the season, inevitably raised eyebrows. But one of the criticisms levelled at Ronaldo throughout his years in England was his failure to turn it on for the really big games. Now distance has blurred the critics' memories and he is being remembered as United's only big-game player.
 
United did not seem to miss Ronaldo at Wigan. Granted, there are few in the world with his potent combination of tricks, pace and finishing ability. But four different players hit the back of the net at the DW Stadium and Ronaldo's "replacement" Antonio Valencia was United's most effective player, setting up Wayne Rooney's first.

Proof of the pudding will not come after three or four games, but at the end of the season. Should United fail to retain their title, it is likely that Ronaldo's absence will be put down as the main factor. But it is not as black and white as that.

Teams go through transitional stages. A glance at United's Premier League history shows this. They won titles in 1993 and 1994 before a season of transition in 1995. Likewise titles in 1996 and 1997 before failure in 1998. The pattern goes on and on. History is against United this season - a Premier League would be their fourth in a row. Unprecedented and, in my opinion, unlikely.

Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, Old Trafford legends, are one year older. Their first choice centre-back partnership of Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, so solid last season, have been injury prone of late. Players who were once in the "one for the future" category - the likes of Nani and Anderson - are now expected to deliver while the team is also accommodating new signings in Valencia and Michael Owen and a new slightly different style of play.

In my opinion, United will not win the league this season, but it won't be down to Ronaldo's absence. It will be a case of failure in preparation for future success. For, as the cliche says, the team is more important than any one player.

You must be pretty happy if you're a Chelsea fan right now. The Blues have shot out of the blocks quicker than Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt; your captain and talisman, John Terry, has snubbed the millions of pounds on offer from Manchester City for the millions of pounds still on offer at Stamford Bridge and the team is gelling together like Cristiano Ronaldo's hair after a generous helping of the stuff in the morning.

I've watched both their opening Premier League fixtures and where I may have been alone in being impressed by their 2-1 win against Hull City, I'm suddenly joined on my one-man bandwagon by several more after their systematic dismantling of Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on Tuesday night.

3-1 doesn't necessarily sound like Sunderland got routed when you read it. However, I live in a wonderful world of moving images and even the word 'rout' sounds generous when describing the performance I saw on TV.

Despite conceding an early goal, Chelsea were sumptuous. The Sunderland midfielders, including Lee Cattermole who seems to have been put on the same pedestal as the likes of Frank Lampard and Michael Essien of late, couldn't get near the Blues' galaxy of stars.

They played short and simple and carved Sunderland open at will. The only real surprise was that they only scored three.

What's even more worrying (for every non-Chelsea fan) than their supreme ability is that they seem to be playing with a smile on their face -- a feeling you sense from the bottom up at the south-west London club.

There can be no denying the Chelsea philanthropist and owner Roman Abramovic fell out of love with the game and perhaps the club at one point over the past 18 months. Sacking Jose Mourinho started it, Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari compounded it and Guus Hiddink rescued it. Not only for the Russian oligarch, but the superstars who make up the Chelsea first-team too.

There must have been fears with yet another new coach arriving in Carlo Ancelotti in the summer that the Guus-gusto may have been short-lived, but on the early showing, the players have picked up the baton from last term and are looking to show the rest of the league a clean pair of heels.

Players we were led to believe were either unhappy or quite happy to seek pastures new have all of a sudden come together for the greater cause.

Even Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack -- whose egos and narcissism are only matched by their bulging bank balances -- embraced at one point during the Sunderland exhibition. The two arguing over who should take a free-kick towards the tailend of the 2007-08 season still lives fresh in the memory, but now they look like they've been best friends since school.

But already under Ancelotti, we've seen a coach who is looking to install a spirit and togetherness and a tactician who will look to utilise every ounce of talent at his disposal, rather than leave them rotting on the bench picking up a handsome salary for their troubles.

Deco, the Portuguese playmaker who started so brightly and faded so badly last season, seemed desperate to escape the Premier League over the summer, openly calling for Inter Milan to come and rescue him. On Tuesday night, the former Barcelona schemer started and scored against Sunderland, and was celebrated among the players as if he'd just scored them the winner in a Champions League final.

Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United all made mixed starts to the campaign and are all having to deal on some scale with the departures of some world class players.

Chelsea however, have retained the majority of the squad who have never finished worse than third since Abramovich assumed control of the club, and they look as if, for the time being at least, their gel is the long-lasting, immovable brand.