James Beattie Southampton and England striker

Strikers up and down the country should be rubbing their hands with glee, because it looks like open season has started in front of goal.

Ruud van Nistelrooy's winning goal at Old Trafford last week has opened up a real can of worms.

Van Nistelrooy's goal sparked angry scenes

Now, this isn't a pop at Ruud or a witch hunt against Manchester United. I'm not even having a pop at the officials on the day, because they have their instructions on the new offside interpretations.

But if this is supposed to be a way of tidying up the offside law, it's way off the mark.

Van Nistelrooy is a canny striker who plays right up to the limit of the law. Nothing wrong with that, and everybody should do it.

He's cottoned on pretty quickly to this interpretation and he will test officials to the hilt.

But if any striker stands where he did when the ball comes in, I don't think there's any way he can be ruled inactive, not interfering with play, or however you want to term it.

You can't tell me that had the initial cross reached Van Nistelrooy, he would have left it alone.

Sorry, but any striker six yards from goal doesn't think "wait a minute, if I touch this I'm interfering with play, so I'll join in with the next phase of play".

For a start, you don't have time to make evaluations like that. Secondly, it's instinct, you stick it in the net. No striker worth his salt would leave such a cross.

RUUD'S CONTROVERSIAL GOAL Ruud van Nistelrooy scored the winner as Manchester United beat Southampton 3-2 on Saturday at Old Trafford. The goal left Saints manager Gordon Strachan fuming because he thought the Dutchman was offside and interfering with play. Even though Van Nistelrooy took up an offside position, the ball didn't reach him as it was crossed, so he wasn't interfering with play. Unluckily for the Saints, when the ball did break to him the second time, he scored. Academy: The rule explained

You can't help putting the ball away, it's almost the same feeling as when you see a wet paint sign, you have to touch it.

So this weekend, the first since Ruud's goal, it will be interesting to see what strikers up and down the country do.

As our boss Gordon Strachan said, what's to stop anyone standing on the edge of the opposition penalty area? If all he's got to do is show that he's not interfering with play, why not take out a deckchair and read a book until the second phase of play catches up with him?

The problem will come, of course, when the flag goes up and a goal is disallowed against somebody who scores and was offside earlier in the move. And that will happen, because this new interpretation is a minefield of inconsistent decisions.

The job of referees and assistants is difficult enough as it is, but their lot has not been improved by this.

I normally speak to Dean Richards at least once a week but haven't had a chance to catch up with him yet.

Dean was in the Tottenham team that lost against Manchester City in the FA Cup despite leading 3-0 against 10 men.

They say lightning doesn't strike twice, but you wouldn't want to stand next to him in a thunderstorm.

I won't bring up the subject of Spurs' defeat unless he wants to talk about - the memory of being on the receiving end at Tranmere is too painful!

All I can say to Korean dog owners is 'lock up your Labradors' On Southampton's Chris Marsden's switch to the Orient

You only want that sort of thing to happen once in your career, but Deano played for Southampton that night at Prenton Park, where we surrendered a 3-0 lead.

Momentum is a strange thing in football. At 3-0, you think the game is dead, even at 3-1, you're still in control. But if it goes to 3-2, a tremor sets in that's hard to stop.

We said goodbye to Chris Marsden this week. He's off to play in South Korea, and good luck to him.

You can never say never in football, but Korea isn't the sort of place I could see myself playing. But Chris is ready to give it a go.

It must be difficult enough playing somewhere else in Europe, but if you went to France, Germany, Italy or Spain, you could at least pick up the language relatively quickly. Out in Korea he'll have to tackle a completely alien alphabet for starters.

We took him out for a meal to send him off and, in the absence of any Korean restaurants in Hampshire, the nearest we could come up with was Chinese.

There wasn't any dog on the menu, which was probably just as well. I've seen Marsden eat, and all I can say to the dog owners of Busan is, "lock up your Labradors".