Molineux memories

There is a calming domestic languor about new year sport. Pleasant. Like things used t’be. Olde tyme talk is of minnows and giant-slayers and the ‘magic’ of the Cup, and this weekend’s FA Cup third-round matches are bound to provide — as they have been doing for a century and beyond — a few memorable little asterisks on provincial calendars. Like it or lump it, the big-time Premiership dandies have to revert to their muddy roots. The European swanks of Italy and Spain have shut up shop for the January snows, but their handful of strutting English counterparts have to knuckle down, get their knees dirty in parochial challenge, and give no thought to further Continental adventures till the knockout rounds of the Champions’ League begin again next month. By which time, a great deal can happen to form, flow and fitness. The expensively assembled strutters of Chelsea qualified for the Champions’ League — they play the favourites Barcelona in the last week of February — with a minimum of fuss, their London rivals Arsenal with (as ever abroad) a maximum of fuss.