It's very refreshing not to be talking about Chelsea or Man U for a bit.

Avram's not helping by bitching about referees like a downbeat Mourinho, and rumours of an £80m bid for Messi must, simply must, be fantasy - otherwise we're going to have to reinvent Fantasy Football Manager and everyone'll start with a bottomless pit of oily roubles.

But enough of them also-rans! Let's talk about the cup giants that are Portsmouth and Cardiff. They've got a lot in common, these cities. Two great ports, both play in blue and both have managers who could paddle down sewers and end up with diamonds in their wellies.

'Arry is a Hampshire hinstitution. I think what makes Redknapp so appealing is the fact that he looks like he hasn't got a clue what's going on.

He has that stunned, vacant expression of a man who shouldn't have gone for the whisky chaser with his ninth pint.

Of course he's anything but gormless. The squad he's put together is testimony to that. He can spot a gem like Muntari or Krancjar but he can wring the last drops of expertise from some old hands too.

It wasn't too long ago that we thought Sol Campbell was going to spend the rest of his days in a cave up a mountainside, and that David James was the poster boy for vampire goalkeepers everywhere (they see a cross and flap around frenetically or just disappear before your eyes).

There was a period, when he was working for Rupert Lowe, that you thought Arry's career was coming off the rails - especially when Sir Clive Woodward was drafted in for some unspecified role.

(How insulting was that to a football man, by the way? What does Woodward know about footy, really? It's like telling a postman of 30 years' experience that he's doing a great job and he's really delivering but we're going to send the best dustman we can find to go round with you, OK?)

There are rumours of Harry's departure circulating right now, of course. But I don't think Harry's the sort to do a midnight flit, shinning down drainpipes and scurrying off into the woods Tony Soprano-style with a shooter tucked into his belt.

Come to think of it, if he has to play Kanu and Baros upfront then he's going to be seriously lacking a shooter on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Harry has paid handsome tribute to another Southampton cast-off, Dave Jones. It's not a good final for the Saints really, is it?

Not only has Dave managed to drag a debt-ridden dog's dinner of a club up the Championship and into a Cup Final, he's also done it with the ugly vitriol of some ignoramuses still raining down on him from the terraces.

It's hard to think of a manager with more bottle (Cloughie, obviously, although we're talking a different sort of bottle there).

Jones's turnover of staff has been faster than a gas company's customer complaints switchboard, but he's cobbled together a solid squad that's kept the club alive.

Some credit should go to Peter Ridsdale here too, despite his previous efforts with Leeds (popular though that makes him with fans of Barnsley, Boro, Bradford etc).

I hope the final is exciting and open. We need an early Cardiff goal to bring Pompey forward, I reckon. Arry's team have been quite frankly pants in the last 10 games of the Premier League, so we need them to get it together.

If Baros does score, I'll be furious. He's just one of them that gets under my skin with his whingeing and tumbling and and pushing back his gelled, centre-parted barnet like a lass every 10 seconds! Grrrrr!

And I wouldn't mind if property-developer and one-time super-striker Robbie Fowler got on for a while for Cardiff.

If Hasselbaink doesn't start they'll need to stick them at either end of the bench. We could have the widest front two in Cup Final history. There'll be an alarm signal in the ground if Jimmy or Robbie start back-pedalling for a cross.

Prediction? Well I hope it’s going to be a cracker and I think it's set up for an old boy to make his mark. I'm going for 3-2 to Cardiff with a Fowler winner two minutes from time and a celebration that's so ecstatic they have to stop play while the groundsman re-does the lines around the penalty area.