BILLY BUNTER

Weblog: The football punter

Anfield meeting leaves me snookered

All the row about the FA Cup final kicking off at teatime passed me by - to be honest it suited me. I could watch in peace while Mrs B was too busy in the kitchen to order me to mow the lawn or clear out the shed.

We know football is a changing world - Division One is called the Premier League now, there's a Champions League, you even get three points for a win - and now the time has come when the FA Cup is overshadowed by the Premier League.

So let's move on to the next debate – Liverpool and Chelsea meet again in the Premier League , but is either team really that bothered about winning? I reckon Chelsea will be quite happy to let Liverpool triumph and then just laugh at them when they try to claim it's some kind of Cup final payback.

However, are the Reds really going to fall for that and make a big effort to raise their game?

There'll be bags of goals, won't there? With both teams pretty much switched off for the season, the defences will go to sleep. Or will they be so uninterested that they just play the ball around without creating much of a threat?

Maybe the traditionalist moaners are right. We shouldn't have any games after the Cup final, not because that should be the showpiece finale to the season, but because it's impossible to find a bet on any games played afterwards.

But now the 17-day snooker feast is over I can't even switch over to the Crucible and that means I'm left with having a bet on this Anfield contest or watching Britain's Got Talent

That's settled then - I'll go go for no goalscorer and 4-4 on the correct score. It's hard to see anything in between.