YOU know, it’s all too easy for cynics to mock this World Club Cup.

How will we cope without the entertainment provided by the greatest living Irishman we’ve become so attached to?

ON those rare occasions when the world seems to turn its gaze towards Manchester, we Mancs will seem to be wholly unconcerned.

I’M writing before kick-off in Spain but for once I can genuinely be insouciant enough to suggest that it doesn’t really matter how we did last night; all eyes have been on next Sunday since full-time in Brum.

ONE of Sir Alex’s favourite deflection-mode gripes, which he tends to wheel out when we have just lost, is that the fixture list is somehow mysteriously nobbled against us every year.

I HATE to say I told you so — and there’s my first fib of the day — but you might recall I did warn last week that the general writing-off by both media and fans of Arsenal this season was an absolute absurdity.

WRITING this yesterday afternoon, I – like everyone else on the planet – am twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the first exit polls to come in from the States.

I HAVE always loved going to Goodison, despite its situation amidst the Scouse swamp and the obvious dangers for us Reds of being amongst the heathens.

SO, how was it last night? I’m writing this on a Tuesday lunchtime, chuckling at all the mobile phone pix coming into the RedIssue website of various Celts acting the giddy goat around town, which often involves leaving various bodily deposits behind hedges or, in some particularly alcoholic cases, bang in the centre of Piccadilly Gardens.

WATCHING Ingerlund’s footballers blunder about unconvincingly for much of their match last Saturday, one wondered whether their minds were elsewhere – on their bank accounts and investments, for example.