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Upton Park

Avram Grant smiled as he revealed West Ham United's "Save Our Season" game was actually a slick marketing ploy all along - not too hard to detect as it is managers who need rescuing in freezing late November rather than entire campaigns.

And if this was an elaborate, if transparent, piece of stage management by West Ham, Wigan Athletic were happy to go along with it by playing in the manner of hand-picked opposition.

If Grant, and Upton Park's worried powerbrokers David Gold and David Sullivan, had compiled a wish-list of teams they wanted to face on such a heavily-billed occasion, a weakened and woeful Wigan would have been very near the top.

Of course, it is a total nonsense to suggest West Ham's season - not to mention Grant's long-term tenure - has been secured by , and if they had lost the manager might have had more difficulty passing off the powerful and ridiculously premature slogan as a mere marketing tool.

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White Hart Lane

Xavier Hochstrasser was a dim and distant memory as Tottenham's impressive progress in the Champions League took them into the last 16 with time to spare.

Remember the name? in a qualifier that threatened to make a mockery of Spurs' hopes of making an impact on Europe's biggest stage after a 49-year absence.

Spurs recovered to lose 3-2 in what manager - and so it proved as they regrouped over two legs to escape an ignominious early exit and reach the group phase.

Events in Switzerland seemed an age away as White Hart Lane celebrated the latest demonstration of Tottenham's growing maturity in the Champions League with a convincing dismissal of Werder Bremen.

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Only weeks after his appointment as Bolton Wanderers manager, Owen Coyle fixed his gaze on a banner at The Reebok Stadium that read: "He's Not The Messiah, He's A Very Naughty Boy."

The message, taken from "Monty Python's Life Of Brian", was not the work of Bolton fans unimpressed by Gary Megson's successor. It was brandished by Burnley supporters still nursing an acute sense of betrayal that .

Coyle's status at Turf Moor was cemented by taking Burnley into the Premier League then polishing the town's pride even further with victories against giants such as Manchester United on a thunderous night at the famous old ground.

It was not just the pain of Coyle's loss that , it was the knowledge that their fierce rivals and near neighbours had lured away one of the game's most promising young managers.

Coyle has in turn become Bolton's footballing Messiah, taking them from the lower reaches of the Premier League to fifth place after an impressive start to the season.

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The Emirates

Arsene Wenger's argument, like his team's defence, was all over the place - but the manner in which Tottenham Hotspur ended a 17-year wait for a win at Arsenal defied logic.

Wenger sought a refuge familiar with beaten managers when he said: "If you look at the statistics and numbers it is very difficult to understand how we lost this game."

Not that difficult actually. The most important statistic of all stated that , but in Wenger's defence it was a day that scrambled even the most rational senses.

After 45 minutes, while Wenger groped for reasons behind a collapse that casts a shadow over Arsenal's aspirations would have been laughed out of the Emirates Stadium and all the way down Holloway Road.

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Wembley

England and France returned from the World Cup as the sick men of European football - but Wembley was left in no doubt which patient is further along the road to recovery.

Fabio Capello's night started with a Steve McClaren-style fashion disaster as the Italian took to the touchline with a baseball cap perched awkwardly on his head. It ended with .

Sandwiched in between was a defeat by France that was far more emphatic than a 2-1 scoreline suggests, .

Capello, understandably given England's list of absentees, decided to take a glimpse into the future. On this evidence, the future looks no brighter than the past.

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When Fabio Capello sat in a room in Rustenburg surrounded by the wreckage of England's World Cup campaign, the cry for youth to be given its chance reached a crescendo.

The established order had failed again - quite spectacularly even by their standards in South Africa - and Capello reeled off a hastily-assembled list of the younger generation who would now come into contention.

Some were not even young, such as Owen Hargreaves and Bobby Zamora, while two names not mentioned were Newcastle United striker Andy Carroll and Sunderland's Jordan Henderson, so it is a credit to the rapid development of these rising stars of the north-east that they will .

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Goodison Park

Arsenal's team bus looked a happy place to be as it pulled away down Goodison Road. Sunderland were to make the journey back to London happier with every passing mile.

Arsene Wenger had not quite described Arsenal as winning ugly at Everton - but it was as close to ugly as it gets for the Gunners and this unabashed advocate of the beautiful game could not disguise his delight at the .

Arsenal's weekend had already been a fruitful one even before the road back to London was smoothed further by .

By the time Wenger and Arsenal's players returned to the capital they had not only leapfrogged Manchester United into second place in the Premier League, but saw the gap between themselves and leaders Chelsea narrow to only two points.

Wenger needs no encouragement to talk up an Arsenal title challenge, even in his darkest moments, but there was cause for guarded optimism after a .

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Eastlands

The faces of flashed around Eastlands as Manchester City and Manchester United spent 90 minutes doing Britain's two heavyweights a favour.

No matter how much derision is heaped upon Haye and Harrison ahead of Saturday's WBA title fight at the MEN Arena - and there is plenty of it - they will have to try very hard to come up with anything as punchless and unspectacular as this . Indeed, if the pair needed something to make them look good ahead of Manchester's second big sporting collision of the week, this game provided it.

The old boxing adage states that the challenger must come out and show enough to claim the crown from the champion. He will not be given the titles, he has to take them.

In this football context, Manchester City - and in particular coach Roberto Mancini - showed nowhere near enough boldness and ambition to back .

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Anfield

Roy Hodgson - with tongue firmly in cheek - claimed his Liverpool career had gone downhill from the day he arrived to sign his contract.

Hodgson was asked about the ups and downs of his turbulent early months at Anfield following and replied: "What ups are you talking about?"

He was indulging in some deliberately downbeat irony, and perhaps a swipe at critics who justifiably put Hodgson's management under scrutiny when Liverpool slid into the Premier League relegation zone, after what was easily his most satisfying day in charge.

If the downhill slide was at its most dangerous in the spell between the home loss to Blackpool and after the Merseyside derby defeat at Everton in front of new owner John W. Henry, .

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When Luis Figo got wearily to his feet at the final whistle and made the short walk to congratulate Harry Redknapp, there was only one name on his lips.

The legendary Figo, now on Inter Milan's staff after a stellar career that also took in Barcelona and Real Madrid, recognises special moments and special talents when he witnesses them.

And Gareth Bale's electrifying display in against Champions League holders Inter Milan will probably have fulfilled all Figo's criteria for world class.

"Bale is just amazing, amazing. He has killed us twice," Figo told Redknapp at the end of a thrilling game that will stand comparison with many of the club's famous "Glory Glory" nights and any in White Hart Lane's modern era.

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When Roberto Mancini casts off his black overcoat, things must be bad. When the Italian's trademark sky blue and white scarf goes the same way, it almost signals a crisis.

Mancini and Manchester City may not be at the tipping point just yet but was a public sign of the stresses and strains pulling on everyone at Eastlands.

City were touted as genuine Premier League title contenders after overpowering Chelsea recently but defeats against Arsenal and, far more worryingly because of the circumstances, Wolves have opened up cracks in the facade.

Mark Hughes was sacked last season for, as chief executive Garry Cook so memorably put it, a dipping "trajectory of results", so Mancini needs to repair the damage swiftly.

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