Football fans with weak hearts should read no further. The next few weeks are going to threaten corroded cardiac muscles around the world as Arsenal attempt to stay on course for the elusive Treble. As the well-read will know, Arsenal were held 1-1 by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

This week’s burning question: Who said ”Manchester United will never die. People who are saying United are finished are wrong. United is a massive club and always will be”? Hmmm. Sir Alex Ferguson? Sir Bobby Charlton? The never-to-be-knighted Roy Keane? Answer: none of the above.

There was a time long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, when a Russian linesman was the star of English football. After Manchester United’s shock failure against Porto in the last 16 of the Champions League on Tuesday, English support for assistant referees from the land of Vlad and vodka is flagging.

So now it’s official. Arsenal are better than Manchester United. Certainly the current Premiership table suggests as much. There’s that huge nine-point gap between the Gunners and the chasing hopefuls, United and Chelsea. Arsenal are unbeaten, United and Chelsea have lost five.

It’s a big, big week in Europe coming up. Especially for Manchester United and Chelsea. Arsenal? Most people reckon they’ve got the Premiership sewn up already, but down Highbury way there is an awful lot riding on this week’s Champions League last-16, second-leg games too.

So what do we think? Are Manchester United finally on the slippery slope? Is Alex Ferguson now ready for the pipe and slippers? Is Roy Keane losing it in more ways than one? So many Anyone But Uniteds (ABUs) have prayed for these things for so long, ever since the Old Trafford club began dominating the Premiership in 1992.

So 92 teams from four divisions enter the League Cup and what happens? Middlesbrough and Bolton Wanderers will scrap it out in the final when the season’s first silverware is decided at Cardiff’s Millennium stadium on Sunday. Boro and Bolton? It’s not quite what we might have expected when Arsenal and Aston Villa got to the last four.

I’ve said all season the Gunners are one Thierry Henry injury away from crisis every week. Now that Arsène Wenger has made his canny dip into the coffers at Highbury, that fear has receded a little. And of course it’s Chelsea again at lunchtime on Saturday after this week’s friendly internationals.

At Real Madrid they like to make a major signing every year. They call their new superstars galacticos. Real coach Carlos Queiroz, formerly of Portugal, South Africa and number two at Manchester United, is starting to search for his latest money-is-no-object galactico.

Sam Allardyce is never backwards in coming forwards. He takes it on the chin so often you wonder if it has had a lasting affect. There are those who feel he looks like one of the Hungry Hippos in the infant board game, others who feel the need to nominate him for www.uglyfootballers.com (yes, it’s really out there).