SO HOW DID we do last night? I can only hope that this time we managed to come home with more goals than stabbings on our account.

MY esteemed colleague Mr Azulay will doubtless explain alongside this column how his Wonder Boys can slay European Champions one day then allow themselves to be turned into chump pies at Wigan but the Rubicon is thus crossed: somehow, after a weekend during which we quite frankly embarrassed ourselves, suddenly the Title is now in our own hands, not theirs.

THERE was a mild kerfuffle when the entire England cricket team were given MBEs by The Queen for winning The Ashes last year; commentators sniffed along the lines of ‘they hadn’t quite earned it yet, baby’.