Everton have revealed record profits of more than £28million for the 2013/14 season.

Martin O’Neill is relishing the prospect of a return to Celtic Park in November.

As Liverpool host Arsenal at Anfield today, Luis Suarez could well feel the hand of history on his shoulder, this being the rivalry which boasts more hat-tricks than any other in Premier League history.

The view of the game from the inside and from the outside doesn’t always tally, the professional perspective frequently at odds with that of the stands or the press box.

It’s not a sentiment normally afforded serial winners, but there’ll be a lot of sympathy for the Red Devils this morning.

WHEN people said that, sooner or later, Roberto Mancini would have to get to grips with Mario Balotelli, I’m sure this isn’t quite what they had in mind.

The night Chelsea defeated Barcelona in the Champions’ League semi-final second leg, Jim McGuinness watched on TV from his home in Creeslough with a grin on his face as Roberto Di Matteo’s unorthodox tactics unfolded.

Bookmaker Paddy Power’s advertising antics during this summer’s Euro 2012 football tournament were today rewarded with a 21% hike in half-year profits.

SO what was your first thought when you heard the news that David Villa had broken his leg in Yokahama? Poor chap, what an awful blow and, at first, it all looked so innocuous too?

IT WAS Spurs legend Danny Blanchflower who coined the phrase “the glory game”, the title later used — somewhat ironically — for Hunter Davies’ groundbreaking book about a season at White Hart Lane in the early 1970s.

NOTHING quite illustrates Alex Ferguson’s extraordinary longevity better than the juxtaposition of images from Manchester and Dallas on Sunday.

STEVIE who?

AIDEN McGEADY is out of the Ireland squad for Wednesday’s glamour friendly against Argentina as the Celtic player continues to sort out his club future.

WOLVES might be five points and four places clear of the drop zone, but Kevin Doyle knows from bitter experience that you can’t afford any hint of complacency in a Premiership run-in.

TWO things we learned from last night’s action in the Nou Camp: don’t score first against Barcelona ‘cos you’ll only annoy them and, if Best was the most perfect name in football, Messi must be the most inapt.

HE WAS one of the heroes in red in the Camp Nou in Barcelona on the unforgettable night of May 24, 1999 when Manchester United staged football’s most famous late, late show to lift the European Cup.

IF YOU don’t want to know the results of the Champions’ League quarter-finals, look away now...

IT’S one thing for Fabio Capello to lose Wayne Bridge. But his bigger worry should be that he has lost John Terry as well.

AS Fergie might have said, and as Arsenal as well as Ireland now know to their cost: ye cannae win anything with Hanssons.

AS ONLY Sky can, they blasted yesterday’s big match coverage to, well, the sky.

RONNIE WHELAN believes FIFA were right not to impose any kind of sanction on Thierry Henry and says that the French striker’s notorious handball in the World Cup play-off against Ireland in Paris was just part and parcel of the game.

The case against a man accused of breaking into England footballer Steven Gerrard’s home was adjourned today.

UEFA president Michel Platini fully supports FIFA’s decision to seed the European teams that will contest four World Cup play-offs next month, it has emerged.

THE financial climate may have changed in the Premier League, thanks to the extraordinary events at Manchester City this summer, but one immutable fact remains, according to Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez.

CARLOS TEVEZ believes the vitriolic reception he received from Manchester United supporters at Old Trafford last week justified his decision to leave the club for rivals Manchester City.

LITTLE-KNOWN Greek assistant manager Leonidas Demetrakopoulos will take charge of Cyprus against the Republic of Ireland in Nicosia tomorrow night.

FAI chief executive John Delaney has confirmed that the FAI will still be running the forthcoming Cork City v Glasgow Celtic friendly game, even though the club has already paid its debt to the Revenue Commissioners.

IT looks like there’s quite a mutual appreciation society brewing between Celtic manager Tony Mowbray and his Republic of Ireland winger Aiden McGeady.

ON A rollercoaster of a night at Dalymount Park, the League of Ireland kingpins were just three minutes away from going through to the next round of the Champions’ League when, having kept Red Bull Salzburg comprehensively under wraps for the vast majority of this second leg game, a moment of human error undid all their good work both in Dublin and Salzburg.

AS another former Manchester United legend might put it, impressionistically: all credit to the boy Ronaldo, like.

BOHEMIANS manager Pat Fenlon admits that his side go into tonight’s Champions’ League qualifier against Red Bull Salzburg as “massive underdogs” but still believes there are good reasons for thinking the League of Ireland champions and cup-holders can keep the tie alive for the return leg in Dalymount Park.

THE corpse of Manchester United’s European dream is still warm but already the post-mortem is well under way. And there could be further casualties resulting from Wednesday’s night’s crushing loss to Barcelona in Rome, as fresh doubts are raised about the Old Trafford futures of Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez.

HAVING paid the ultimate penalty in Moscow last year, John Terry might beg to differ with the conventional football wisdom which holds that the penultimate carries more pressure.

NOT quite the feast in Old Trafford after the famine in Barcelona, but only the gods of football — and Arsenal’s goalkeeper — will really know how last night’s second Champions’ League semi-final didn’t send the scoreboard into overdrive.

AN IMPORTANT part of the work of a responsible, professional journalist such as myself is research. Or, as we like to call it in the trade: Talking To A Local Taxi Driver On The Day Of The Game.

THERE was a lot riding on the European Championships this summer even if — indeed, especially because — the build-up in this neck of the woods had been comparatively low key.

GOALS change games but not necessarily seasons.

UEFA are set to agree to expand the European Championships from 16 to 24 teams, according to Franz Beckenbauer.

THERE WAS no doubt about the biggest sensation of the week – Colm Murray’s discovery that in China they use chopsticks. But Drogheda United ran the RTÉ man close.

FIRST the good news: Drogheda United did themselves and the eircom League proud with a battling performance in their 1-2 defeat by Dynamo Kiev at Dalymount Park on Tuesday night.

BOHEMIANS will be aiming to overtake St Patrick’s Athletic at the top of the eircom Premier Division when they take on UCD at Dalymount Park tonight (all kick-offs 7.45pm unless otherwise stated).