What a cracking Sunday afternoon’s entertainment we had laid on for our enjoyment a few days ago in the four Premiership matches. Fifteen goals, three teams coming back from 2-0 down, even though Everton still lost, and confidence boosting performances and results for Liverpool and West Ham to keep the doom-mongers from the door for a little longer. We even had the startling and unprecedented admission from Alex Ferguson that Liverpool were the better side and deserved to win at Anfield! Unfortunately, it didn’t take much longer for him to revert to type and criticize the referee’s performance, even though in my opinion Andre Marriner got all of the major decisions correct.

I don’t know if you are familiar with the “You are the ref” feature that started in Shoot magazine in the 70s and recently reappeared in the Observer, but it aims to provide refereeing conundrums and asks the reader to try and determine the correct decision according to the laws of the game. At times, it appeared fanciful with some of the more unlikely scenarios put forward for us to ponder on, but as time goes by, these scenarios appear less and less unlikely due to actual events on the pitch. Last season we had a goal awarded to Reading at Watford when the ball had clearly crossed the goal-line nowhere near the goal. Earlier this season we had Crystal Palace’s goal at Bristol City that was not given even though the ball clearly hit the back of the net, and now we have witnessed a beach ball scoring a goal at the Stadium of Light. I’m sure an earlier “You are the ref” had featured the question of a ball going into the net having hit a bird in mid-flight, with the answer being given that the goal should not s

Now that the World Cup line-up is almost complete, we can concentrate on League action again, and divert attention away from the perennial time-fillers that get the press worked up during the interminable international breaks, such as the question of whether Celtic and Rangers will be allowed to destroy Scottish football entirely by clambering over the dead bodies of more deserving English clubs and gaining entry into the Premiership. The “39th game” question also reared its ugly head again in the last couple of weeks just because the NBA managed to successfully stage a basketball game in the UK. So what? I don’t expect UK fans of US basketball to take precedence over their American counterparts any more than I wish to see English Premiership teams playing a regular season match in the Far East to cater for the sort of plastic fans who are creeping more and more disturbingly into the sport.

Yet more shocking defending in the premiership last weekend resulted in another 37 goals being added to the impressive total so far this season, but I suppose with Burnley and Hull having faced trips to sides featuring some of the best strikers in Europe, it was always inevitable that the goals would flow. Chelsea's defeat at Wigan has given renewed hope to Liverpool and Arsenal in particular, whose two early defeats each had led to them being written off as title challengers after just a few games, and it looks as though the battle to avoid relegation will be just as keenly fought as it was last season, with any number of clubs looking as though they might join Portsmouth in the Championship next year.