So the phone rings at Blagg Acres and it's the Editor of Soccernet; "Blagg, we want to whet the appetite of punters and get them to tune in to the live ESPN game on Saturday. 200 words by this afternoon. My desk 5pm. Get to it"

What can I say? This is the type of game I tend to ignore nowadays; a pointless - in all senses of the word - mismatch that makes me think wisfully of the 1970's when, despite the fact that when you left home to watch a match you were never sure what state you were going to come home in, there was at least some sense of a competition in the league. Now, there isn't so much a gap between those at the top of the Premier League and those at the bottom, it's more of a gaping chasm that makes the Grand Canyon look like a fissure.

To be fair, to those who ply their trade at the 'other end' , these matches normally generate some semblance of fight, determination and sheer bloody-mindedness on behalf of the underdog who tend to take a 'You may be bigger and better than us but we're not going to lay down for you' stance and, even though the result is usually the same, we can at least pretend for a while.

But with this current West Ham squad I can see nothing but a thrashing here. Honestly, if we come out of it with less than a 4-0 loss then I'll be - if not happy - at least, less inclined to kick the cat. (By the way, just joking there - don't get a Facebook page made up to find me).

I'd like to think West Ham could pull something out of the bag as we've done before against ManU, our record against the Mancs isn't as bad as some, but this team are all at sea currently and if the performance is anything like that shown against Oxford in mid-week then this could get very messy indeed.

My advice is tune in and watch it. There could be a lot of goals.

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