JUST LIKE WATCHING JAMES BOND

Tony Francis in the Telegraph moans about how one-sided English matches are.

This is a warning. The element of surprise is fast disappearing from our national game. Unless authority faces up to it soon, football seasons will be as predictable as James Bond movies. We all know how they end, the only worthwhile bits are the visual effects - which, incidentally, were of the highest technical excellence at Villa Park, too.

Watching Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo flow through, past and behind defenders like mating sockeye in an Alaskan salmon stream almost, but not quite, made up for the banal storyline: richest and most powerful club in universe crushes small-town paupers 4-1. You couldn't buy the novel because nobody would publish it.

Yet we're expected to plunder our savings to applaud these lopsided events in the company of inebriates, or analyse them in newspapers and on television as though they had some cultural significance.

Aidy Boothroyd isn't one to moan, but he couldn't resist a quiet dig at the inequality of it all: "I don't know whether the answer is a European Super League or salary-capping. Something needs to be done." His, of course, is a voice in the wilderness. The sentiment would carry more valency coming from Sir Alex Ferguson but I guess he's too preoccupied with global domination to be bothered right now.

We can also write off Jose Mourinho. He's too busy bellyaching about all those extra players Roman Abramovich won't let him buy, while complaining that international weeks wreak havoc with his squad. Don't buy internationals then - it's easy.

There was a time when we used the David and Goliath cliché to describe Wrexham entertaining Arsenal at the Racecourse Ground. It speaks volumes for the top-heavy nature of English football that we now call it David versus Goliath when Watford are drawn against Manchester United - and they're in the same division.

I commiserated with both sets of supporters at Saturday's semi-final. The Watford lot slaking their thirsts at The Bartons Arms and their counterparts from the Theatre of Dreams who picnicked in Aston Park. Wasn't it boring watching a team who win nearly every week? "Yes, a bit," confessed some United fans, while explaining that they stave off the boredom by opening a book on the margin of victory.

Wasn't it tedious travelling around the country watching Watford fail to win and, more often than not, lose? "Yes, a bit," said the folk in yellow, while enthusing about the marvellous stadiums they'd been to and famous players they'd seen. Being trampled into the carpet is no more exciting than pushing against an open door. United have as big a problem as Watford. The English game is a duopoly masquerading as a competition, but keep it quiet or you'll wake Richard Scudamore and Brian Barwick, not to mention the minister for sport, if there is one out there.