Traditional Christmas time to FootballCynic would be a high scoring game on Boxing Day followed by another high scoring return game between the same teams a day or two later. Now, the players report for training on Christmas Day and are pampered in the usual way. Surely, it would be a far better test to see which of our overpaid stars in the Premiership could perform after turkey and all the trimmings, washed down with a few bottles of sherry and port.

However, the Americans have come up with the perfect Christmas decoration, which will surely catch on over here next year. A simple Google search of "Christmas football" makes this the number one hit (and we're not talking "There's No One Quite Like Grandma" here).