Off, then, to the City Of Manchester Stadium for the first time in a wee while. I liked it there even before the money really started to roll in. They have wi-fi so simple even I can access it without tears; they provide a nearly edible breakfast for the lunchtime kick-off; the view's fantastic and the press box is built for adults rather than, say, dwarfs. They even do parking and Mars bars. What more could you want, other than mobile reception in the press and interview rooms? Well, for starters I'd like not to have been deafened by the northern hacks behind me bellowing Ali G (that sketch about a woman not being able to be Prime Minister because, apparently, women have periods and the consequent mood swing might make them launch a nuclear attack on Denmark or something; it's funny when Ali G does it) to each other during the game. Has Ali G only just reached Manchester?
In fact, nothing's really changed since Shinawatra's surreal day, although it's light years from the hell that was Maine Road, which had a press box built for dwarfs rather than, say, adults; a horrible press room; poisonous food and the likelihood of being mugged when you and your laptop braved the streets of Moss Side afterwards. Not that I was ever mugged, but I know those who were. Still, the atmosphere was always crackling.
On the field things are very different however. Kaka wouldn't come, but Craig Bellamy, Shay Given, Nigel De Jong and Wayne Bridge (of course Wayne Bridge would come) liked the colour of Mansour's money.
Against Middlesbrough, they looked the part, mostly, but the inevitable irony was that their best outfield player wasn't Robinho (a couple of moments of sheer genius, a lot of wandering about), or Bellamy, who played like a man reborn, but Stephen Ireland, who cost exactly nothing. There's a moral there somewhere.
Afterwards, Mark Hughes was in a hurry to leave and sick of the silly questions about Shay Given who had a good game, but not as good as his Middlesbrough counterpart Brad Jones. It all finished when some berk asked him "Was that the best goalkeeping debut you've ever seen Mark?", presumably with a few to getting a headline quote. Of course Hughes couldn't say the true answer ("no"), for fear of misrepresentation, so he settled on an "I don't know" and fled. Sometimes I feel for them, I really do.
And Middlesbrough? If your house was on fire you wouldn't want Marlon King and Afonso Alves to be the men with the hoses. They'd probably miss.