So, Man Utd are through to a second successive Champions League final. But poor Darren Fletcher will not be there after a refereeing error saw him receive a red card for what was an excellent tackle on Cesc Fabregas.

How the referee did not see the deviation of the ball after Fletcher's intervention only he will know.

Over the weekend, the BBC gave football fans the length and breadth of the world the news that they'd waited years to hear. Finally, after 13 years of clueless ramblings, smug arrogance and a frighteningly poor knowledge of the game he professes to love, Tim Lovejoy is to be booted off as a regular presenter of 5 Live's 6-0-6 football phone in show.

People are surprised and angry he got fined? What was it he said again?

"We don't want to play like Colorado or New England, which most of the season sat with eight or nine guys behind the ball. How many people go to watch Colorado or New England play? That's a problem for our league.

If they're taller than him, they're old enough! In the days before the Britannia Stadium became Fortress Britannia, home of the mighty Stoke City, it was the preferred stomping ground of Michael Owen. Rounding up his favourite has-been goalkeeper and a young boy, Little Mickey would display his goalscoring skills (and arrogance) to an empty stadium.

It's as bad, if not worse, than originally thought. Here's the most up-to-date injury news:

Gallas out for season (knee)
Almunia out 3 weeks (ankle)
Clichy out 2 weeks (back)
van Persie possibly fit for Saturday (groin)
Eduardo possibly fit for Saturday (groin)
Rosicky "not close to coming back" (hamstring)

That is ummm.

Since Thierry Henry's handball on Wednesday, the former Arsenal striker's reaction has gone from arrogance, to indifference to being contrite. From where I sit, this simply proves that Henry is a Public Relations driven phony. He's cultivated an image for over a decade in conjunction with his handlers and now sees the possibility it can all come undone.

Sir Alex Ferguson's rapidly deteriorating relationship with Rafael Benitez has hit a new low, with the Manchester United manager accusing his Liverpool rival of 'arrogance' and lambasting his ‘contempt' towards Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce.

Sir Alex set sights on biggest of prizes!

MANCHESTER UNITED are set to launch a £35million bid for Franck Ribery.
But the Premier League champions will wait two weeks before weighing in so that a clause in Ribery's Bayern Munich contract is active.

The French winger is due a loyalty bonus on August 14, after which he is expected to request a transfer.

View from the crowd...
There was a lot of trash talking in the month or so in the run up to this game by fans, and owners of both teams but in the end the game was decided on the pitch.
If there was a defining moment in this game it was the first Seattle goal and Josh Wick's losing his cool once again after it.

There's something afoot in the court of Chelsea. After a start to the season that carried on the way that last season ended (high octane football mixed with the arrogance of the club that knows that it is amongst the best in Europe), they have started to look just a little bit ropey of late.

I can't deny it. I hate Chelsea. I hate John Terry, I hate Frank Lampard and I even hate Chelsea from Eastenders. In truth? Chelsea make me sick.
I guess people will say I'm just jealous. Well I'm not. It's obvious that Chelsea have had more success than Arsenal in recent times. Of course I don't like that.

Sir Alex Ferguson launched a scathing diatribe against Rafael Benitez yesterday, citing his "deplorably arrogant, twitching goatee" as an example of his "utter contempt for the aesthetic sensibilities of the League Manager's Association (LMA)".

According to Fergie, Rafa's "dubiously manicured facial accouterment" epitomises his appalling disrespect for "struggling clean-shaven managers like Gareth Southgate, who have not been as providentially endowed with hirsuteness".

One of these days, watching Tottenham will be the death of me. They'll score early and dominate, but then instead of scoring a second against submissive fatted calves bred specifically for the slaughter, they'll spend the final hour earnestly faffing. I shall chew my nails, squirm and curse; and then swear and kick people; and finally become so wound up by the faffing that my heart will pop and I'll keel over.

Real classy from Chelsea. It probably started with Mourinho, instilling arrogance in them, but after the final whistle they just morphed into four year-olds in need of that Supernanny lass. John Terry probably has a right as captain to have a quick word with the ref, but not to scream in his face and finger-jab.

Nick Green stole my takes.
As always, by "stole," I mean, "wrote it down before I did."
Here's how good Green's analysis is. We've been reading all week about how the US will deal with the incredible, intolerable heat of the Mexican summer. Huge factor, we were told.
So what does Nick do?

I wish I was writing this blog whilst sipping a cold one in Liège. My bank manager won't stand for it unfortunately. Good luck to all those citizens of the Gooner Republic who are. Watch out for that bière trappiste. It's lethal. No wander the Trappist monks who brew it have no troubles with their vow of silence.

"It showed an arrogance," Ferguson said. "It was naughty. It showed a cockiness that wasn't required at the time because they hadn't done anything. The season hadn't even started."

These comments by the manager about the Carlos Tevez poster have upset City fans. How dare Sir Alex Ferguson brand another team cocky and arrogant, when United have shown themselves to be both those things on numerous occasions under Fergie's reign.

Crocked Real Madrid star's pompous message of support to Portugal squad We know that arrogance isn't usually a trait you would associate with Cristiano Ronaldo but it seems his big head has got the better of him on this occasion. The self-appointed king/saviour/general of the Portuguese people/national team has felt the need to release a statement [.

Man City striker Carlos Tevez has bought a massive version of the famous Manchester poster. Tevez has paid £2000 the ‘Welcome to Manchester' poster which caused an uproar.
Tevez left Man United during the summer following a two-year loan, he then decided to turn down an offer from Old Trafford and join their City rivals Manchester City.

Mario Balotelli is an excellent football player, with such a talent that we are ready to forgive him a lot of things. Young player that dodged his destiny and thanks to human kindness escaped from misery certainly has no rights to be arrogant with anyone.

Playing under Mourinho is a chance to learn the basic rules of professional football, as Portuguese coach is resolved to subject the wild character to the needs of the team and make him swallow his pride but we are not sure this will be an easy task.

Rafael Benitez once called his team's Merseyside rivals, Everton, "a small club" but when you consider only three clubs (Liverpool, United and Arsenal) have won more English league titles, it's was a fairly ridiculous put-down.

Sir Alex Ferguson, who is less than impressed with the hounding he has received from the loopy FSW, has today criticised his rival manager ahead of our FA Cup clash against the fairly big club Everton.

Ever since the beginning of January the pair have been arguing. Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez kicked it all off when he made his outburst about the FA's leniency towards Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson when it comes to referees.
Since then, they have argued about a variety of different things including kick-off times following mid-week European games, United being "scared" of Liverpool and, of course, the title race.

Memo to Amy Lawrence: guess you didn't see Barcelona's 2-6 man-handling of Real Madrid today. The arrogance and ignorance of the English footie press never fails to amuse me.

Will it ever stop? Or will the end of the world have to come before these two managers stop their quarelling?!

Benitez v Ferguson. Rafa v Sir Alex. Battle of the titans? More like Battle of the ti....you get it I'm sure.

Sporting headlines thus far have ranged from:

9/01/09 - Benitez lays into rival Ferguson (you know, that statement); followed by 4/04/09 Pressure is on United - Benitez; followed by 7/04/09 Benitez reignites Ferguson rift; followed by 11/04/09 Ferguson stokes up Benitez rift; followed by 11/04/09 Benitez says Ferguson is nervous; followed by 17/04/09 Ferguson turns up the heat on Benitez, followed by, followed by, FOLLOWED BY.

Arsenal are considered one of Europe's top clubs, mainly because we have had some of Europe's top players at the club. Our reputation has created an air of falsehood. Scratch the surface and a completely different picture emerges.

Since Arsene's first season in 1997/98 we have reached two European Finals, losing to Galatasaray on penalties in the UEFA Cup and in 2006 we lost to Barcelona in the Champions League final.

My seething hatred for Nicolas Anelka (and his arrogant French head) is fully documented on this site with most of the "hatred" stemming from the fact that he's an overrated cheese eating surrender monkey who, on several occasions has sold his soul to any club that is willing to put up with his arrogance.

Florentino Perez has returned to Madrid as President and has immediately set about making up with United and Alex Ferguson.

Known for publicly courting Cristiano Ronaldo amongst others, Perez insists he does not want to make enemies with United. Perez told The Times;

"If I had to choose between the friendship with United and Ronaldo I would choose the friendship.

I found some of Florentino Perez's comments today regarding David Villa and the tension between Real Madrid and Valencia interesting.

While the man's arrogance knows no bounds, he's adept at building winning football clubs. At least his checkbook is.
The Madrid president said that while Villa's transfer was a question of time, there was no real antagonism between the two sides.

The year is 2003:

We were the best team in the league. We knew it. We played in a way that was almost disrespectful to the game. Arrogance epitomised by Henry and Pires week after week. They knew they were superior. Sol get's sent off v Man Utd and suddenly that confidence crumbled.

Grant Wahl's The Beckham Experiment is an incredible behind the scenes look at Beckham - the brand, MLS - the struggling US soccer league - and is a tale of footie adventure in the US recounted through Wahl's amazing unprecedented access to players, coaches, staff, and handlers.
Wahl is in the locker rooms, on the field, in the hotel room lobbies, at dinners, at parties- you name it - but his work is more than just an inside look at Beckham's brief stay in the US.

If you've been following me in the past week or so, or are a poster on BS or BTB, you might know that I was a tad infuriated with the team selection last Tuesday at RFK against Firpo. I thought that it was pure evidence that the team didn't take the tournament seriously, despite lip service to the contrary.

How do you feel Chelsea have performed in the transfer market this summer?

I wouldn't call what we've done in the transfer market this summer ‘performing' exactly. We were supposed to have had a ‘marquee' signing but unless Buck was on about the circus surrounding our captain, I haven't seen anything resembling an erection around Stamford Bridge yet.

I recently had the opportunity to speak to Ian Cheeseman, who commentates on City for Radio Manchester ahead of the launch of his new book 'Best Job in The World: From Football Specials To The Press Box'.
For anyone who has caught his commentary, it is evident how much of a huge City fan he is (describing himself as a City 'idiot'), but it was only after interviewing him did I get a feel for how deep his passion and commitment for the club is.

The following was sent to us by email from the DC United front office with the title: "D.C. United's next trophy has arrived at RFK."

United takes on Seattle Sounders FC at RFK Stadium next Wednesday, September
2 in the U.S. Open Cup final. Should United win, it would become the first
team to win the tournament back-to-back since MLS began.

Persela Lamongan are not one of Indonesia's glamour clubs. Far from it. I once described them in this here blog as the Middlesbrough of Indonesian football.
Yet over there in East Java a quiet revolution is taking place. Guided by former Indonesian assistant coach Widodo Cahya Putra the Las have been quietly making some very astute signings to prepare them for the new season.

Welcome to this week's edition of TGIF, where FTK takes a look at some of the stories that have energised Insiders on the site this week. International weeks are always frustrating because of the risk of injury to our key players. This week was no exception and without further ado, let's dive straight in.

Manchester City may have spent £120million on new players - but Sir Alex Ferguson will always regard Liverpool as Manchester United's true local rivals.
Not since 1968, when United won the European Cup and City finished top of the old Division One have Manchester's two giants met on anything like an equal footing.

England, the home of football, had refused to participate in the first World Cups of the 1930s due to disagreements on their qualification as part of the British championship (where they competed against Scotland, Wales and Ireland) as well as some arrogance that England was the "King of football" anyway.

The same way the U20 World Cup generated some analysis, the failure of the U17 deserves even more talk. First of all, being eliminated in group that had Mexico, Switzerland and Japan is a shame. There is simply no excuse.

This pathetic elimination was so bad that no projections for the future can be made.

A picture speaks a thousand word. A video speaks, well shows, depending on its length, anything between 10 and quadrillion images. So let's do this with video exhibits.

Exhibit I:

inference: Arrogance, good. Contempt, bad. Contempt for Big Walrus-faced manager, worse.