Review of the week

Hornets boss Aidy Boothroyd went one step further and said the moment the ref signalled a goal was 'like a UFO had just landed'. Certainly the lino appeared to be in a parallel universe at the time. His flustered explanation was that it had been an 'optical illusion' - either that or he'd got his Reading glasses on.

Meanwhile at Anfield, Stevie G had been wheeling around celebrating his 100th Liverpool goal for what seemed like an eternity before the referee's whistle stopped him in his tracks. We're still not sure why the free-kick was disallowed but suffice to say our officials have been doing more back-pedalling than a drunk on a unicycle.

As for the League Cup... Tom Hanks, Ozzy Osbourne, Nigel Kennedy, Prince William - your boys took a hell of a beating. Sorry Villa fans - childish I know, it's just that when QPR are involved in giant-killings it usually involves losing to Vauxhall Motors, so it's nice to have the boot on the other foot for a change.

Although if we keep getting results like that, the big cheeses will soon be charging us £100 a pop if 'Derby-gate' is anything to go by.

Rangers were pipped to back page glory by Brighton, who produced the result of the round by knocking out The World's Richest Club. Put into context, the amount it cost to assemble the Seagulls' entire side would just about cover Robinho's monthly wage. If Carling did cup shocks...

Elsewhere in the competition, Spurs won the battle of the crisis clubs with a 2-1 win at St James' Park.

After the 0-0 draw against Wigan had left Spurs rooted to the bottom of the table, their likeable manager was fooling nobody when he declared: "I am delighted to be here at Tottenham. I'm having a marvellous experience." So it was nice to see him enjoying at least Juande in paradise.

Ramos will have been delighted to see Roman Pavlyuvchenko break his goal-scoring duck for Spurs. When Wigan boss Steve Bruce said he'd seen the Russian striker peering into an English phrasebook before Saturday's game, everyone assumed he'd been searching for the correct way to say: "Cab to Heathrow please, guv."
But on the evidence of his celebration on Wednesday night, maybe Pav really was looking for the 'Come on lads we can turn this around' section.

Tottenham fans amused themselves at St James' by cruelly repeating the 'One Mike Ashley' chant adopted by the West Ham faithful a few days earlier.

The Geordies had started the ball rolling by unfurling a banner at Upton Park proclaiming 'Cockney Mafia Out'. You can't fault them for passion but geography is clearly not their strong point. Last time I checked, Ashley's home town of Burnham in Bucks could not pick up the sound of Bow Bells, even on a clear day with the wind behind them.

And so, finally, to the Wear-Tees derby, where Stewart Downing's Jonny Wilkinson impression opened the door for Sunderland to take the honours.

Boro boss Gareth Southgate admitted: "The game hinged on the penalty. Now's not the time to decide whether Stewart takes the next one." Don't know about you, but if I was a Boro fan I wouldn't want Southgate having anything to do with penalties. And the only advice he should be giving to Downing is how he can go about getting a Pizza Hut contract.

Southgate's opposite number, Roy Keane, was still not happy despite the win and was positively fuming after Sunderland's Cup win over Northampton which, to put it politely, he considered to be a load of old Cobblers.

But even that was not his worst moment in charge at the Stadium of Light. Keano revealed this week that particular dishonour came in his first season when he caught his players listening to Abba, before capitulating to the Tractor Boys.

"What annoyed me about that Ipswich game was that not one of the players had the balls to say 'Hey we're not listening to this rubbish'," he said.
"I think a few of the players liked Abba, that was the bloody problem. There was two of them dancing in the corner -- they didn't want to go out and play, they wanted to listen to Abba."

And The Sun's headline for this particular story? 'Dancing Keane'. Genius..