Sean Barnes and Richard Benstead lay the smackdown on the week’s sporting events…
This week sees the launch of a new weekly feature – ‘what we have learnt this week’ – and encompasses any interesting facts, opinions or random thoughts from the world of sport in the previous seven days. For this week only, the sole contributors are Sean and Richard. And while they will both continue to have sporting epiphanies on a regular basis, they still want your help and your contributions. So email anything – absolutely anything – that you think should be in this article next week to sport@durham21.co.uk and if it’s not utter tripe it will be included (please also state if you want your name attached to your comment or if you want to remain anonymous). Get thinking and submitting. Durham21 Needs You! Or something. Until then, enjoy what Sean and Richard came to realise in early March 2007……

- All FA Cup matches (and England games as well) should be played mid-week. Weekends without Premiership matches are dull. What is a man supposed to do with himself? Watch Plymouth v Watford? No thanks. No doubt it was still more exciting than rugby. Even though rugby may rule in Durham it is still utterly pointless and devoid of any skill. Really, what is the point?

- It was a good job the Sopranos was on; I needed to restock my testosterone levels after a thoroughly underwhelming weekend of sport. Capiche?

- I beg your pardon? The last eight days of football have been incredible for televised matches. I’ve seen West Ham 3-4 Spurs, Newcastle 4-2 AZ Alkmaar, Braga 2-3 Spurs, Barcelona 3-3 Real Madrid, Chelsea 3-3 Spurs. Most of them brilliant games. Sadly though, three of them did involve Spurs.

- What odds can I get on the roof of Wembley stadium collapsing, or some mysterious fire breaking out?

- Ben Foster should be England number one on current form. Pork Pie Robinson has become too complacent and either Foster or Carson should take the jersey. David James is probably the best English keeper at the minute but he’s too old to consider when we have such potential in our youth and he’s hardly excelled for England in the past. Saying that though, Foster has stood out behind the league’s ‘surprisingly not that bad actually’ defence (I assumed I was going to write the league’s worst defence, but a quick stat check says West Ham, Charlton, Wigan, Fulham and even Tottenham have conceded more or the same as them), having a lot to do. The art of being a good international keeper is being able to concentrate for 90 minutes despite having little to do, and then pulling off a spectacular save that proves you’re the country’s number one. That’s probably what has let David James down the most in the past. It’s just a shame Foster may not even be his club team’s number one next season.

- Chelsea play the most boring football in the Premiership. It will be a travesty if they win anything like The Quadruple this season. But to give them credit, even when Spurs went 3-1 up, you just knew Chelsea were going to get at least a draw out of it.

- Aaron Lennon has the pace and trickery to beat any defender in the world. If only he could kick a ball properly i.e. further than 10 yards.

- Soccer AM has gone downhill fast. Helen Chamberlain looks more like a thinner Jade Goody every day and this week’s guests were Kirk from Coronation Street, Will Greenwood, and some actor I’d never heard or seen before in my life. It is now about as funny as knob rot.

- Jose Mourinho is reported to have called ref Mike Riley a ‘filho da puta’ (a ‘son of a whore’). He claims that it is not meant to be offensive. For once I sympathise with you Jose. I’ve never understood why people get annoyed when I call them ‘a thick piece of shit’.

- Manchester United complaining of fixture congestion again, as if it’s something new: interestingly, last season Middlesbrough broke the record for most competitive games in a season, playing 64 games, even more than Liverpool played when they played in an extra competition (the World Club Championship). If Manchester United advance to the final of all the cups, they’ll have played 61 – close, but still behind the record. And if you’re going to win the treble…

- Had Stuart Pearce not developed this reputation of being a ‘top bloke’ he would have been sacked long ago. After this weekends 2-0 away defeat to Blackburn he said ‘one thing’s for sure I have got to go in and pick up 36 players to get ready for Chelsea’. 36 players!?! And you can’t find 11 who are capable of winning a match. Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio.

– The Kaiser Chiefs will spend their whole career arsing about with guitars but they will never (NEVER!) produce anything that is not tedious pop nonsense. This has nothing to do with sport and I haven’t just realised this over the past two days, but I want to get it off my hairy, muscular chest. The more I hear this ‘Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ahaa-ahaa-aaaa, do ya, do ya, do ya, do ya…etc etc’ the more I hate them and the more I hope Leeds get relegated. [Sean: there is nothing wrong with tedious pop nonsense. But anything that makes more people want Leeds relegated can only be a good thing]

- This has the potential to be a great feature and more people should contribute to it