ALWAYS enjoyable to see Arsenal beat Manchester United, whatever the day, whatever the situation. It says a lot about someone’s character – even at a young age – to not support one of their local teams, and instead opt for a place 200 miles away just because they are winning. These terrible glory boys of my youth are now in their 40s – never going to games and watching from their armchairs, not at Cantona, Beckham and Giggs, but Antony coming on as substitute. They should have been made to move to Manchester years ago, but we’re not certain they’d know how to get there.

• IPSWICH Town says it regrets the decision of captain Sam Morsy not to wear the rainbow armband over the weekend – on religious grounds. Without wanting to set off an earthquake, it’s been pointed out that he’s worn betting adverts across his shirt in the past, which presumably would be against certain codes too.

Let’s leave Ipswich and Morsy to talk that one through, but the case led to criticism from familiar quarters that Stonewall’s armbands were being used at all. Woke nonsense, was the familiar cry. In a sport clearly still too laddy to talk freely about homosexuality – anybody who does is a real rarity and immediately called “brave” – maybe the gesture, however clunky, is worth making.

• THERE is no better way to show you are bothered than trying at length to insist that you are not in fact bothered. So Pep Guardiola, as he raised six fingers at the jeering Liverpool crowd on Sunday looked more bothered than he’s ever looked. He launched into some moral lecture about how he didn’t expect to be heckled at a place like Anfield – essentially calling Liverpool classy and classless at the same time, a classic passive aggressive move. It looks like he finds it very hard to take a joke but City’s run of form – ruined by Forest this week – has been a feelgood national mood warmer.

• THE aches and pains of actually playing football last week have worn off but the New Journal clashes against the Labour council always live long in the memory. The astroturf never forgets.