Pop! Bam! Pow!

Not a whole lot going on this week, and what little there is, really isn't much to do with the beautiful game. Let's start with the FA Cup quarter-final replays from Monday, where Man United beat Middlesbrough 1-0 with a penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo. Of course it had to be him, because what we really needed was another installment in the endless "Diver, or just kind of a brat?" debate.

From my perspective, Woodgate clipped him from behind. There's not much contact, but it's probably enough to earn you a free kick anywhere else on the pitch, so yeah, it's a penalty. Can we move on now? (Answer: No. Especially not if you're James Morrison, who decided to take his frustration out by chopping down Ronaldo at the end of the game, and got sent off for his trouble. That's one less name on my List Of Players I Randomly Like.)

In the Chelsea-Tottenham replay, meanwhile, the forces of evil triumphed 2-0 with goals from Andriy Shevchenko and Shaun Wright-Phillips. If I was Jose Mourinho (horrible thought), I'd be doing my best to convince Sheva that every game was a cup tie, because that seems to be the only way he'll perform. It's a bit odd.

As for the Spurs fan attacking Frank Lampard, it's already been discussed to death, I know, but...well, I thought it was funny. Yeah, you don't want crazed fans running on to the pitch, blah blah blah, but god knows the sight of Lampard strutting around with his shirt off (seriously, why does he always do that?) was enough to make me want to smack him.

My own team actually got into a bit of a fight with our opponents the other day. Largely due to this one guy from the other team who totally lost it and had to be pulled off our player by two or three other people...which then everybody else got dragged into, à la Chelsea v. Arsenal in the Carling Cup. Except without Emmanuel Eboue being a cunt. But it was interesting to feel how easily all the adrenaline that gets built up during a game -- even a supposedly recreational one -- can boil over into aggression like that. I would've quite happily hit someone in the heat of the moment. Probably best that it didn't come to that, though, because I have a nasty suspicion that I punch like a girl.