The Times’ football luminary Patrick Barclay has a piece in today’s edition (well it’s on the website so I assume it’s in the paper) about outlawing shirt-pulling, or grappling as he calls it – you can read it here.

He makes a point that we have made a couple of times before – that to eradicate the cheats, you need to clamp down on the small offences. He suggests a sanction for shirt-pulling equal to that of a handball – a fine idea.

You can read our view on the issue here – and we also talk about it here and here.

Nice to see our work is being plagiarised by one of the broadsheet dailies…

1. Harry Redknapp has clearly had an immense effect at Spurs, that is clear for all to see. But, if you aggregate his points from his time at Portsmouth and his points since joining Spurs, he would be on 24 – third place, and above both Arsenal and Man Utd. A great achievement.

2. Aston Villa missed a second consecutive opportunity to break into the top 4; losing to Newcastle denied them last time, and a home defeat to Middlesbrough denied them the chance to overtake Arsenal yesterday. With fixtures against Arsenal and then Man Utd coming up, they may have missed their chance for good.

3. A long trip up north, Blackburn’ roughshod tactics, torrential monsoon rain, and a tremendous goalkeeping display from Paul Robinson were not enough to even make Chelsea break stride. They are a thoroughbread, jockeyed by the ever-excellent Frank Lampard, and who would back against them winning back the Premiership title.

4. Another inspired goalkeeping display came from Jussi Jaaskelainen. He is a genuine pro, a great goalkeeper who in all probability could have played for, if not a Champions League side, one challenging for the top 6. But he has remained loyal to his beloved Bolton and now has 400 appearences for them. How refreshing.

5. West Brom became the 5th different side to prop up the Premiership this season. As the Top 4 now comprises the Big 4, how long will it be until the bottom 4 is devoid of suprises like Spurs and Newcastle?