They have been showing the most pointless, uninteresting matches all season. But just as the UEFA Cup starts to get vaguely interesting, ITV snatch it from right under Channel 5's noses!

Now I'm not sure of the politics behind this - and nor would I want to be - but whatever agreement C5 signed up for at the start of the season, the man who scribbled on the dotted line should be shot.

The Tottenham match was great to watch, but mainly because their Portugese opponents took a 'sod it' approach, and went for it from the start. It was only Berbatov's brilliance that got Tottenham through.

Myself and a colleague stuck on a late shift the following night (I was on a late shift, he was on an all-day shift in order to get to the Cheltenham Gold Cup) were joking about how funny it would be if Newcastle crashed out. And right on queue this AZ side took the lead.

Those two matches alone had far more excitement than the previous however many games C5 showed - still, the good news is that at least we didn't have to listen to the drab tones of John Barnes all night....