Gottlob

It's not real for heaven's sake. Mourinho was in an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles from a few seasons' ago: the man on his right isn't our man, but a generic Islamic terrorist. The long hands belong to Henrietta 'Hetty' Lange, brilliantly portrayed by Linda Hunt, the NCIS Office of Special Projects operations manager.

Is it even the law though? As far as I understood, the handball law states that handball has to be deliberate. Other things like the distance the ball travels and the position of the arms are meant to be considered only in so far as they help to determine intent. UEFA seem to have decided to pay particular attention to the position of the arms, so that in their interpretation of the rules any time a ball strikes a slightly raised arm, a penalty is given. That's a stupid and unjustified interpretation. The actual law as it stands - before the ludicrous changes meant to come into effect next season - is fine, it's the only possible handball law that's valid, it just needs a common sense interpretation.

I'd hate to be one of those fans who had to travel by train or taxi from Georgia for this.

This article and others suggest that the winners and losers get forty medals each, to hand out to players and coaching staff at their discretion: http://www.espn.co.uk/football/uefa-champions-league/2/blog/post/3452273/could-philippe-coutinho-get-a-medal-if-liverpool-win-the-champions-league

I know UEFA supposedly have their own interpretation of the rules, but they're not entitled to it: handball has to be deliberate, with the position of the arms merely a guide towards determining intent, and there's no way in the world especially given the context that anyone can conclude Sissoko handled the ball deliberately. Perhaps the lack of quality isn't a surprise. I understand the Premier League was the first of the major leagues to finish, but three weeks later, this feels like a hangover more than a climax.

If you don't have £350 million or whatever the supposed price is now, isn't it better if people think you might possibly have £350 million than if they don't think about you at all?

Time to start putting pressure on the Bin Zayed Group to come clean about their role in all of this. I won't be investing in any of their real estate, luxury boat, or distance learning products until I know just where we're at. I don't demand that they buy the club, I just demand a Bin Zayed Group that tries.

There seems to be a few Sheikh Khalid bin Zayed Al Nahyan's banging about, but this guy's a Khaled and a Nehayan. Is it possible that it's just Lee Charnley in disguise?

I don't think national holiday applies to international sheikh businessmen, or to the 80% indentured servants who make up the UAE's workforce.

If he flogs the gays, I'm on the pitch.

Cousins, Ian. Tom Cruise is rich and famous and good looking, whereas William Mapother needs some serious work done. And have you heard of the third Roosevelt president?

Compared to Sheikh Mansour, this Sheikh Khaled is the Jason Schwartzman to his Sofia Coppola, the William Mapother to his Tom Cruise, he's Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's forgotten seventh cousin, I read that he's 61 but that his father's 62!

This man shits in the mouth of Hugh Manrights and doesn't punish himself for the lewdness of it.

I'd rather sell Longstaff for £25 million without McTominay than for £30 million with.

Yeah but he's better than Vasco Regini ffs!

Out: Hayden - £12m - Crystal Palace Gayle - Minus £5m plus Rondon - West Brom Muto - £750k - Nagoya Grampus Shelvey - £10m - Burnley Joselu - £250k - Melbourne Victory In: Cristian Pavon - £35m - Boca Juniors Rondon - £5m plus Gayle - West Brom Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting - £6m - Paris Saint-Germain Vasco Regini - loan deal - Sampdoria Sebastian Rode - £5.5m - Borussia Dortmund

This is why it's important to have diverse interests, so we can forget about the football now at least until next season, and move onto something enjoyable instead. I'm more aggrieved with tonight's result because it would have been nice for Ajax's youngsters and for a relatively unfancied league and club to reach the final, while beyond Moura and one or two other players, I have no fondness for Spurs. They also didn't play with the intensity of Liverpool last night: it felt like Moura conjured their goals and that Ajax had the chances to kill off the tie, though it's obviously a great comeback especially given Tottenham's injuries.

To be honest I've never entirely bought the idea that Speed was sold behind Robson's back, because my memory is that we were showing interest in Butt well before Speed was sold to Bolton. I wouldn't doubt that Robson wanted Carrick as well, but Shepherd rarely looked beyond the big names when he did take an active interest in our transfer business. More broadly my sense of that time was of Robson hanging Robert and Viana out to dry after some poor performances, repeatedly moaning about Solano's commitments with Peru and of course eventually selling him, marginalising Lua Lua after he opted to play for DR Congo, and in their stead we got Ambrose, Bowyer, and Milner, who was never a good Premier League player as a right winger, while with Bellamy frequently injured, we were left with a Shearer/Ameobi partnership which never worked because their games were too similar. We didn't capitalise on our third-placed finish with Bowyer the only addition that summer, but we had spent considerably in the six months prior on Woodgate and Ambrose.

Players like Gavilan and Papavasiliou and even Maric never really got going, and I remember Gavilan and Maric at least showing glimpses of talent. Fumaca and his stepovers are infamous, but I only remember him making a handful of appearances, mostly off the bench. Maybe it was just the idea of Amdy Faye, who was alright at Portsmouth, but I also thought he started okay before rapidly deteriorating. I don't think it's fair to include youngsters who get given a chance - often because of a lack of squad depth - but fail to make the grade. The first names that spring to mind are those established players who really had no excuse for being awful, and yet they were worse than that. Top of the list are Butt and Smith. I thought Smith in particular never had a good spell for us, even in the Championship, when he simply sat in front of the defence heading balls back to the opposition before Danny Guthrie took his place. I hated Butt more though, and never liked nor rated him whether playing for us, England, or Manchester United. His standard forward pass was either a chipped ball to the opposition defence, or a blasted ball which would hit our forwards somewhere about the knees. I know it's grossly unfair to target Robson in any list of 'worst' Newcastle anything, but in the last year under him we went from a midfield of Robert, Speed, Dyer, and Solano, with Jenas and Viana in reserve, to a marginalised Robert barely hanging on to his place on the left, while the rest of the midfield was made up of Dyer, Jenas, and then Butt, Bowyer, Milner, and Darren Ambrose. After a few years back in England, he went native.

On a moral level or cosmically or whatever nobody deserves a beating for celebrating in the opposition end, but practically in our world they should at least have the decency to know what to expect. Football is a quarter the potential beauty of the sport, a quarter the ease and affordability of playing, and half tribalism and sheer unadulterated hatred. A day's worth of alcohol removes the first two quarters.

I thought that I had a memory of Andersson scoring a goal where he fell over and in the process knocked the ball over the keeper with his knee. I can't find it though, and the Liverpool 4-2 from December 1998 only has him scoring a decent goal after rounding the keeper.

Does anyone think that Rafa's affinity for Liverpool might affect how we line up and perform in this match? He won't want us to get thumped, but I don't think he'll be salivating at the prospect of a tactical masterclass which kills Liverpool's title hopes, and at this stage of the season there's plenty of reason to rotate. Why not give Perez a rest anyway, and it also seems like the sort of match which would allow Shelvey to sink or swim, if Rafa cares about that going forward.

The Leeds player slowed because two or three of the Villa players near the touchline were waving their arms and demanding he kick the ball out of play. He hesitated and rightly kept on playing. It wasn't some big masquerade to cheat Villa out of a goal.

Pathetic from Villa. They had no right to demand that Leeds stop playing for what looked like a fairly innocuous tumble in the middle of the pitch, and a handful of their players could have been sent off for their reaction to both goals.

I think I've posted this before, but for me - discounting those who barely played for us like Rush and Guivarc'h, and even Luuk de Jong who was only on loan for a handful of games, as well as youngsters like Robinson and Dalglish who for various reasons barely played and probably shouldn't have been given the opportunity - it comes down to Jon Dahl Tomasson, Andreas Andersson, Riviere, and Joselu. Of those four, my memories are that Andersson and Riviere at least ran about a bit, they were just absurdly incompetent in front of goal. Tomasson was played out of position owing to Shearer's injury and our lack of cover, and obviously he went on to have a stellar career, but what he did offer as a striker for us at that time was very much in the De Jong/Joselu mould: ineffective hold up play, ambling about to no particular purpose, and a shot that seemed wafted by the air it was so weak. I suppose given his age and experience and the number of games he's played for us, it's tempting to give Joselu the nod.