Manchester United, Chelsea and Spurs should be embarrassed, as should hand-holding English broadcasters

It is unfair for Premier League clubs to compete in European competition against such financially inferior teams. Manchester United should be ashamed.

On Thursday night we had three of the English clubs who have feasted on the bones of football and are still rubbish playing in the Europa League and Conference League against financially inferior clubs. And not by just a bit, either.

Spurs and Manchester United’s resources dwarf those of Bodo/Glimt and Athletic Bilbao and if having money means anything, both are in one-sided ties and they should walk them without praise. Bodo/Glimt’s best valued player is worth €6m; Spurs have 26 worth the same amount or more in their squad! Tottenham’s stadium capacity is higher than the town of Bodo’s population.

Athletic are better off but still have just three players valued over €40m, all of whom United will probably try and fail to sign this summer because they aren’t attractive enough for players like Nico Williams. Ruben Amorim has nine players valued over €40m and four more over €30m.

Todd’s Insane Clown Posse is even more of a circus act, playing Sweden’s Djurgarden, who don’t have a player valued at more than €2m in their squad. Chelsea have 27. It’s ludicrous.

The vast inequalities of wealth, even at the semi-final stage of the competitions, totally invalidates them as a contest and would justify Premier League teams being excluded for reasons of fairness. Yet is it mentioned as an issue even once? No. You’d think these were even ties. Staggering.

I have to call it dishonesty from TNT. And when one of them scores it’s treated like a goal against an equal or better. The English exceptionalism is relentless to the point that in each game the European team is almost verbally bullied and patronised. But should any of the English teams win their tournament, it’ll be barely any achievement at all, in the same way Spurs beating Port Vale to win the FA Cup wouldn’t be much to shout about. That isn’t an opinion, that’s just counting.

In the awful morally and sportingly shrivelled world of Premier League sides, it’s more of an embarrassment to everyone that they’re even allowed to be involved at all as the proverbial bull in a china shop. European football would appreciate them being excluded, I’m sure.

It’s all very tiresome. The bias, the inequality, the sh*te and absolutely unbearable co-comms for all games. I’m not being overly critical or precious, am I? The basic disingenuous nature of how these games are presented – I really, really f**king hated it. I love watching football most days but not this farcical spectacle.

I did enjoy Real Betis v Fiorentina instead. A genuine, more even contest with Antony now free of the Manchester United voodoo with another superb winning goal

Last Saturday’s football begins with a decidedly not anticipated Chelsea v Everton game, which brings no-one any joy. TNT are off and running at 11am for a 12.30 kick off from outside the ground. Still sticking with flashing pointless tweets on-screen like it’s 2008. Because the game alone won’t hold the attention, they have to talk about everything else from Liverpool to Jamie Vardy, Chelsea’s women’s team and more. There’s a constant self-awareness that it might be lapsing into tedium and almost everything they do is fluff. Their advert for Serie A accidentally has the effect of putting the Premier League coverage in the shade. They all do their best but it’s a lot of time to fill. Just show the damn football. How about that?

Chelsea won a poor game to wide-scale disinterest. The ‘tension’ of which European competition Chelsea might qualify for failed to stir the neutral’s blood – or even the fans’ blood it seemed. They do appear joyless right now.

I mute it and listen to 5 Live, whose Saturday programme stimulates the parts others can’t reach with an excellent discussion about managers not liking vocal senior players because they are scared of them. And a discussion about Chelsea being rigid, uncreative and overcoached. It’s like a degree discussion compared to what we used to call CSE level on TV. 5 Live on a Saturday is like sitting down with a big book of football when you’re a kid, full of knowledge and learning, every chapter fascinating.

Celtic won a 55th title at Dundee United on Sky but only Celtic fans, of which there are loads, really care. Everyone isn’t bored of it, as is often said, so much as the feeling of the inevitability of it is somewhat irrelevant to our football lives. You basically ignore the first two in the league. They don’t count, somehow, to anyone outside those fans. It’s odd. More fun to assume third is first. I don’t know what the solution is but it’s going to be like this forever unless something is done as Celtic get ever richer.

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Maybe no-one cares but the Premiership does feel dysfunctional and that rather lets the game down. The irony is the rest of Scottish football is a superb contest with the best attended per capita crowds in Europe to prove it. The highlights on BBC Scotland all but said that the battle for third between Aberdeen and Hibs is the most exciting aspect of the league with three teams within three points of each other. I do like Michael Stewart’s work. He’s got a good attitude and likes to find humour if he can.

Barry Ferguson always looks angry, with the cold, black eyes of an assassin and he basically blames the players for their poor attitude as Rangers draw with St. Mirren. If you like good, honest football from the heart of multiple communities, do give the Scottish highlights a chance. It’s the hipsters favourite.

The cup semi-final between Palace (when did they stop being the Glaziers and become The Eagles?) and Villa was from Wembley, much to everyone’s chagrin. Not that the FA gives a damn that it gifted an advantage to Palace. The coverage in the box is especially light-hearted, which is nice. I think they’ll miss Gary Lineker when he’s gone. Shearer is on co-comms as he often is these days. He does the job well and I do think there’s something sonically attractive about a Geordie accent. The match was a free-flowing affair with three great goals from Palace in a game that Villa never for a moment looked good enough to win. Great spot to see the Palace fan with an arm in a sling applauding by slapping his head.

Then Super Sunday meant Daniel Sturridge looking like an R&B star. Do you watch Liverpool play some people in Spurs shirts or the FA Cup on ITV? I watched the former initially on Sky, as I always avoid City if I can and with Inter v Roma on my laptop, which meant I had to keep flipping over to the Women’s Champions League semi-final second legs. This is the trouble with opposing channels all broadcasting football simultaneously.

I should mention how good Steve Crossman is on the radio on Sundays. Cheerful, light but never dull and boring. Excellent Sunday fare.

Of course VAR had to walk in and take a dump on proceedings at Anfield, the lull from which didn’t stop Peter Drury going quiet then loudly bursting a tonsil when it was given as a goal, which sounded more ridiculous for its forced, contrived nature. I muted him in favour of Ian Dennis’ less on and off, more sane commentary on 5 Live. I just don’t like Drury’s shouting and silence style and find he intrusively ruins almost every moment of high drama. Liverpool’s second goal was an excellent example, a great goal diminished by the “and now you’ve got to believe them” comment bellowed at volume.

Eh? What do you even mean, man? You’d think it was the second coming, not just a goal. Totally over the top, exaggerated and really badly judged. Of course there’s the shouting of names loudly, even when the ball goes high over the bar. I think that’s self-conscious, just in case it’s going to be a moment Sky clip up and use in an advert. It results in an overreaction to a non-incident. When Salah scored, he said “sunshine and champagne” which just means nothing and had obviously been written down to use in advance and he duly got his linguistic crowbar out and forced it in.

When not performing like this, you’d barely know he was there. There’s no discourse, no friendliness. Also, in the 40 minutes I listened there wasn’t a single mention of the other big games happening, which seemed trite, petty and served us poorly. Only they did this.

The final Liverpool title-winning eulogy, though pre-written presumably with thought, was teeth-achingly cringey, with talk of ‘for their people, with their people’ and such cod sociology. Again, walking all over the occasion in an attempt at profundity.

Meanwhile, Scott McTominay is playing out of his skin and humiliating Manchester United for being unable to accommodate him, scoring twice against Torino on TNT in an excellent Napoli game.

For the Leeds game it strikes me how Michael Bridges gives off strong Waddler vibes and that Jobi McAnuff has the kind eyes of a well-meaning vicar. It’s a tricky task to talk up the game with dirty Leeds so much better than almost everyone. Bristol City are never in it as Leeds relentlessly steamroller them from the first minute and win 4-0 but they are good to watch.

Before the Arsenal game, I realised Arteta has a strong Captain Black dimension – not to say unlikeable Michael is a puppet, of course. Prime opts to have the same pundits as the other channels, like someone who hasn’t an original thought and just copies your homework. It’s odd. You’d think they’d want to have something uniquely theirs, but no. They appear to want to be the same as everyone else plus Clarence Seedorf. Alex Aljoe in a pale pink suit is the presentation star for the channel. She seems charismatic and can conduct interviews in Italian and Spanish as well as English, like a proper clever clogs. Sturridge appears to be wearing a suit made out of a duvet cover or a pair of curtains.

The build up is obviously very pro Arsenal, all 90 minutes of it. The human mirror ball bit was out of keeping with everything else, being ostentatiously and unusually weird. Sometimes, the whole thing looks a bit like a video game and not quite real. Maybe that reflects the nature of the occasion. Something to do with the digital picture and colour saturation.

After PSG’s early goal, I turned over to Sky for Burton v Wigan. It feels good to watch the game, surely just put on to draw at least some audience away. It’s pleasingly low key, the trees around the stadium newly in leaf. There’s a decent crowd, proof not everything revolves around the big Champions League game. Football remains ornery like that. The first half is poor, though, but I love the charm of lower-league games, as opposed to big football’s money-obsessed landscape, tribal idiocy, autocratic ownership, brand management VAR hysteria and oh so serious “If we don’t have the ball, we die” thinking.

It ends in a draw and going back to Prime I find everyone excusing Arsenal for losing, to such a degree you’d think they hadn’t lost at all and did you know, it’s only half time? There’s some hopeful slavering about Thomas Partey. Wayne Rooney at least is honest in showing doubt about Arsenal. But largely it’s the usual blah, blah, blah. Who really cares? When an English team is playing in Europe, the TV approach and style puts me off the whole thing and with the fact they’re playing an autocratic nation state-funded club doesn’t exactly dampen your underwear.

Laura Woods returned, I’d forgotten about her to be honest and what a warm, relaxed, chatty style she has. In fact, in contrast to the previous night, it’s all less one-eyed and blow-hardish and much better for that, proving my theory that it’s always worse when English clubs are involved, probably because they feel the need to cater in block capitals for the tourists who only watch English clubs. Everything is more reasoned and even sophisticated. Non-English football seems to force better, more intelligent responses out of almost everyone.

In one of the games of the decade, the football between Inter and Barcelona was absolutely pulsating, brilliant fun, which inevitably VAR ruined by calling a knee offside. Governing football by what we can’t actually see is an insanity.

Hansi Flick looks like he bosses a prison side. How some lesser managers have blagged five times as much wages from their idiot board for achieving almost nothing and yet still get defended by their fans is embarrassing. It was a fantastic draw. Say “100%” again, Rio. Go on, you know you want to.