When I was a lad, it was generally held that the most inappropriate behaviour imaginable was sex with the rabbi’s wife over the synagogue reading desk - at least until someone threw wee over the bloke leading the service. But then this week, Harry Redknapp decided it was his place to dispense instruction as to what constitutes acceptable behaviour.

Anyway, I’ll get to that presently, but let’s deal with the football first. Luckily I got stuck in traffic on my way home to watch the Blackburn game, so that by the time I got there I had a fair bit of juice saved up on Sky+, the double speed making the carelessly slow start less painful than for those watching in real time. Although the win was routine in the end, the incredibly poor quality of the set-pieces was even more annoying than usual – perhaps United should replace Micky Phelan with Quentin Tarantino.

Also this week we’ve seen another couple of promising shows from Obertan, encouragingly looking to play around defenders, and not just from the touchline. The upside of this upside is that it should facilitate the binning of Nani. He may never have had a proper run in the team, but neither has he earned one, and he’ll never be good enough to attain the level of performance required to obscure his cheating, truculence and perpetually indignant expression. As frustrating as a pair of rubber pants, I doubt there’d be a single person mithered if he left and plenty who’d happily give him a boot in the right direction.

Sunday’s game at Chelsea is a rare occasion on which it’s more important not to lose than it is to win, a fact I hope Fergie hasn’t noticed. The return of Fletchinho will give the midfield some ballast and urgency, and you can only trust that the temptation to supplement it with all of Anderson, Carrick, Giggs and Valencia is ignored. After a year waiting for Berbatov to supply brilliant goals at crucial moments, there’ve been two in the last few weeks, and having also made John Terry look silly on more than a couple of occasions, his selection is imperative.
Of course how very apt it is that in this week of remembrance, we mention Brave John Terry, champion of the armed forces:

“They love their football. They like to look up to us, but I would like to be in their shoes and do what they do…I would love to, of course. Put your life on the line for the country – I would love to”.

Now I’m not saying this isn’t true, but the available evidence certainly suggests that perhaps it might not be. Unless, of course, he tried to join up and the army decided it wasn’t really looking for the sort of recruits who disintegrate under pressure and cry when they miss a penalty.
Terry’s tears, of course, were the major redeeming beauty of a European Cup won Scouse-style; it’s rare, in any context, that you get to witness an event that causes someone a lifetime’s worth of torment, and even rarer when that event doesn’t hurt you as much as it hurts them.

After United’s win over City earlier in the season, Sky screened a cringeworthy “home with JT” spot, during which Terry admitted that he thinks about his missed penalty “30 or 40 times a day”. I guarantee he will have no trouble surpassing this target on Sunday.

Talking of City, I see that Ricky Hatton was parading in a Stoke shirt last weekend, finally exposing a myth that’s lasted longer than the Gallaghers’s. Not that you can blame them; where else would hype-seeking Mancunians turn, but to the gullible tenants of Eastlands?

City and their ill-gotten gains have made Liverpool’s miserable week marginally less amusing than it might otherwise have been; we’ll probably be relying on them to stop the Bitters sneaking the Champions League qualification that’ll help bribe some decent players.
But how not to laugh at the effrontery of Jamie Carragher in protesting a justly awarded red card, nor the muttering, twitching, sweating mess that is Benitez, illustrating exactly why cooks demand that waiters stay out of kitchens.

Talking of managers looking silly brings us back to good old ‘Arry, proving this week that history doesn’t just repeat itself as farce the second time around, but the third, fourth and fifth as well, all the way to infinity and beyond. Arsenal’s victory may have been bad for United, but there was still enjoyment to be had in how quickly Redknapp’s pre-match boasts were shown up for the nonsense we all knew they were anyway, his side taking yet another well-deserved thumping. And as ever, excuses were to the fore; yes Harry, but for the tiny details of bad defending, bad goalkeeping and bad concentration…you’d still have lost.

Anyway, I also promised a bit more on Redknapp’s guide to clean living, so here it is. In Broken Dreams, Tom Bower’s meticulously researched look at questionable business practice in English football, only one man is considered worthy enough to merit a chapter devoted solely to his achievements; can you guess who it is?

And yet Redknapp appears to view himself as some kind of moral crusader, regularly - and this week once again - mouthing off about the unacceptable behaviour of the scum who populate football grounds. So let’s break it down. Redknapp defected from Portsmouth to Southampton after promising he wouldn’t, then returned to Portsmouth, before dumping them the second a better job became available. Some people took exception to this behaviour.

It’s inconceivable that when he made those decisions, he didn’t consider the likely reaction, a con he accepted in exchange for the not inconsiderable pro of becoming an even more incredibly rich man than before. And in the same way he did as he pleased, regardless of what supporters thought, those supporters will reciprocate, in the only forum available to them.

When Luis Figo left Barcelona for Madrid - an act of treachery that dwarfs Redknapp’s - the first time he visited his old ground, a pig’s head was thrown at him. But rather than bleat about the unfairness of it all, he ignored it. He knew what he was getting himself into, and that what he did constituted tacit acceptance of the inevitable backlash.

And in any case, on whose behalf is Redknapp acting? Generally, he legitimises his whinging by presupposing the effect of the vitriol directed at him on other people’s children, even though he seems to be the only person who has a problem with it. But taking him at face value for a moment, the ability to freely swear and shout abuse is something that attracts young people to the match and is no worse than what gets said in the playground. Whether it’s becoming for a man to do so in front of his kids is a fair question to ask, but it’s certainly not for Redknapp to prescribe the answer.

Were I a player or a manager, the crowd could swear at me, insult my mother and laugh at my appearance as much as they like, and I’d never react, because I wouldn’t be in the least bit bothered (sorry Mum). They don’t know me, I don’t know them, who cares what we think of one another?

And what happens if the FA did actually take action? Would there be a list of what it’s ok to sing? And what about if songs deemed unacceptable were tempered with negatives or irony - so, for example, “the referee is not a w****r”. Would that be punishable too?

In life, lots of things get said that are unpleasant, at football matches and everywhere else. But restricting free speech requires a far better reason than “I don’t like it” or “it’s not very nice”.

The essential fact that so many players, managers and lawmakers seem unable to grasp is that football isn’t just about what happens on the pitch; it’s about the relationship between supporters of the same clubs and supporters of different clubs, to which results are just a sideshow; the game belongs to the fans, whatever Companies House records might say. The chanting of the crowd is central to what makes football special, and obnoxious songs – particularly those that are magnificently merited - are part of that charm. If I were a player or manager, it would be all I could do to stop myself spending all day every day convulsing with laughter at my insanely good fortune. Perhaps the likes of Redknapp should think about that the next time someone like me calls them a name.