Stuck in orbit with fuzzy signals

Watching a real football match after a few days spent in the country, outside the orbit of Sky Sports, can be a strange experience. It's probably a bit like how the Beagle felt when it hit Mars.

Every time I passed through the TV room in my mother-in-law's house over the last five days, there was a game featuring Manchester United and some worthy opponent, usually of an overseas and starry aspect.

Goals were scored and saved dramatically as United always emerged triumphant.

The fact that these were computer-generated contests, conducted by my young friends Theodore and Alfredo somehow passed me by.

It took some time for this computer-generated feeling to wear off last night, while experiencing Arsenal's Premiership visit to Southampton's St Mary's Stadium. There seemed to be a certain inevitability about the sequence of events, and I am not talking about the progress of the game.

Sitting on some sort of tall stool in the pontificator's box was the unmistakable figure of Nigel Winterburn. The last bit of gossip I heard concerning Nige was that he was in talks with Rick Wakeman about putting on a prog-rock spectacular entitled "The Arsenal Back Four On Ice".

This must have been, for want of a better phrase, put on the back-burner, because Nige was evidently committed to this particular gig. Down on the touchline, so to speak, was Alan "Smudger" Smith, deep in conversation with the multi-skilled Rob Hawthorne.

Smith has proved himself a doughty contestant in the commentary wars, and he did so again last night.