First of all, the new kit. Why the hell do we need a new kit? Times are hard, cash is strapped but never mind let's get a million schoolboys (and girls) across the country to give their mums a right flippin' earache 'cos their England shirts are 'so last year'.
Fortunately the new design, with some input from Capello apparently, is no problem to fake. Buy your kid an average white collared T-shirt, stick some badges on it and even the savviest fashionista brat might struggle to tell the difference.
Trouble is I quite like the new style. If they could only stop making stuff in a material that I can only describe as InstantHum polyester that'd really help
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It's very encouraging to see a new approach to young footballers who haven't quite been able to cut it. If a lad can kick a ball, chances are he can tonk a six, serve an ace and chuck a javelin 70 feet.
In fact there's usually one kid who can do all four pretty much simultaneously. There was at our school and it didn't matter that the lad could hardly write a sentence - that wasn't what we aspired to anyway (although one day I hope to achieve it). It didn't seem to harm his chances with the lasses either.
There used to be a few individuals who played footy and cricket - Phil Neale springs to mind (not the Liverpool right-back) and Phil Neville was apparently a very handy cricketer.
I myself was on the slagheap at 16 - I was thrown on it after I 'Bendtnered' one over the bar from five yards out in the last minute. But I was one of them kids who lived and breathed football. In fact, until Debbie Harry came along nothing else mattered.
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I'm reminded of 2005. Remember when Liverpool fans, officials, in fact just about everyone was saying that Liverpool should get back into the Champions League if they win it, regardless of league position. And the rest of Europe was saying 'Hold on a minute, you're 5th in the league, you've been playing the sort of football that would shame a boys club, and you are seriously saying you might win the biggest tournament on the continent?' To coin a phrase 'calm down, will ya? Calm down!'
That was in the days before Waldorf and Stadler took over, in the days when Rafa had no beard and little prospects, having succeeded the somewhat wild-eyed Houllier and realised what a hotch-potch he'd inherited.
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The title race is on again! Hiddink's said it, Gerrard hasn't not said it, hellfire even the seen-it done-it pundits are saying it.
But there's a difference between the race being over - as would have been the case had United beaten Liverpool - and 'on', as it would be if Liverpool and Chelsea hadn't been choking at home against worthy no-hopers. It's not over, it's just delayed the inevitable.
Which is not to say that the humiliation at OT wasn't eye-popping. It's not often the Blue Bell is full of Koppites, but there were even a few fake taches and curly wigs doing the rounds on Saturday and we enjoyed what we saw, even if we had to leave early so we could dine out on our fingernails at the Riverside.
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Well that was one of the more forgettable weekends this Teessider has experienced. Another decent first half showing was turned over by a man who looks increasingly like a chimney sweep's brush in a football kit.
Marouane Fellaini's hair is of such proportions that it's only a matter of time before the ball gets lost in it forever. They'll have to send in a team of tracker Amazonian Indians with machetes in order to recover the blinking thing.
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You can tell things are hotting up when players all over the country are going a bit doolally. (There's bound to be a player called Doolally somewhere who Wigan have got their eye on, isn't there?)
We've got Cashley in deep doo-doo (now that is a footballer) over his use of language to the police on Wednesday night. You think they could've sorted it between them peaceably - they're all boys in blue, aren't they?
He's been all contrite since but that's nowt compared to the flak he's going to get from his wife when she gets off that mountain. There's nothing quite so piercing as a Geordie lass going off on one. Girl aloud indeed, eh?
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Apparently a major domestic trophy was won on Sunday. Me, I didn't notice.
I was too busy wanting to kiss Xabi Alonso's thigh for his delightful deflection - and to wrap me consoling arm around Rafa Benitez and reassure him that although the title's gone for another year, at least Parry won't be hiring any duffers in the close-season.
And now at last the beard's coming off! (Mine not the Liverpool prima donna's). I know I said 30 points was the target but frankly I'm itchier than a hyper-allergic chicken pox-sufferer in a hessian jumpsuit.
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I'm Derek Robson. People call me Robbo. Legend has it I was raised in the furnace and smog of Teesside. Some might say I took the hard road. I like to tell folk I had trials for Middlesbrough, for Hartlepool and for burglary (not guilty). I've always loved sport. My job is to say it as I see it - whether it's in the bar of the Blue Bell or on this blog. You won't find me calling a spade a soil-redistribution implement. 
