Choosing to watch a football match on ITV requires making a certain sacrifice.  Yes, you get to watch a game without having to line Rupert Murdoch’s pockets, but don’t think for a minute that you avoid the type of ear-grindingly banal commentary and studio punditry found on Sky.  Far from it.

Now, to be perfectly clear, I quite like Jim Beglin’s contributions. He doesn’t get too carried away by the sound of his own voice, and generally offers some well considered insight into the play. I only wish that the wonder that is digital TV could provide a way of switching off Peter Drury’s hyperbolic stereotyping.

Whenever Fulham strung three passes together, they were “disciplined” or “organised”. In the second half, when Spurs finally managed the same, they were “beautiful”.  Fulham didn’t manage anything approaching beauty, even in a first half where Spurs decided that closing down was something that should only happen to shops during a recession and certainly not to the opposition’s midfield.

And, yes Peter, I am aware that Spurs managed to change the game in the second half by running about a bit harder. And I know that Spurs have won the FA Cup a few times in the past, that the FA Cup “loves them”, even if it has decided to see other people for the past 19 years.  And I do remember that Harry Redknapp used to manage Portsmouth who await Spurs in the semi-final. Please stop telling me these things again and again, and concentrate instead on telling me which player has got the ball.

Perhaps this is the answer.  If the main commentator were allowed only to announce the name of the player currently in possession of the round bouncy thing, we would be spared all manner of indignities.  Imagine a world where you had absolutely no idea which highly-successful-club-from-Lancashire-but-not-Merseyside that Clive Tyldesley supports.

Incidentally, the references we will have to endure throughout April to “Pompey v Harry – Revenge of the Administrator” will omit to mention the number of times such a fixture has already occurred since 2008, including the one being played this coming weekend.

Meanwhile, in the studio, Darren “Dazza” Anderton chose to demonstrate Spurs’ 1st half failings through the abstract use of the word “errm”, Steve Ryder suggested that what sets Roy Hodgson apart from all other managers is that his team “plays to a plan”, and Robbie Earle probably mentioned someone called “Ju Venters”.

In amidst all of this was a decent enough game of football.  An Italian named Fabio watched an Englishman called Bobby score a goal and then wondered where Bobby is going for his holiday this summer.  David Bentley earned the man of the match award for his two crosses, one that the goalkeeper waved into the net and one that landed on Roman Pavlyuchenko’s foot.

Peter Crouch, I have decided, is the Premier League footballer who most reminds me of a racehorse.  Whenever he falls over I am, without fail, convinced that one of his legs will snap and he’ll have to be shot within a hastily-erected tarpaulin screen. I am not the only person to think this.

Finally, Roy Hodgson might well be a nice man and generally well-versed in all things football, but when things are going wrong on the pitch he often appears as if he is about to literally (© J. Redknapp) explode.  When things get really bad he often responds, I have observed, by punching himself on the leg.