If there's a better match this season than Saturday's at Villa Park, then I hope I'm around to see it.
Literally a match of two halves, Aston Villa v Arsenal was chockful of style and tenacity. Villa manager Martin O'Neill would have been understandably downcast at the 2-1 defeat but once he got it out of his system yesterday he will have grasped many a green shoot of optimism.
The mere fact that Villa hustled a majestic Arsenal out of their dazzling, slick, inter-passing was testament alone to O'Neill's powers of advocacy in the dressing-room at half time. His players grasped one of the most essential elements of footballing wisdom - that you can't play well if you haven't got the ball.
More than one Arsenal side under Arsene Wenger has passed the opposition to death for a pastime, month after month. The great Liverpool teams did it for 20 years. Nottingham Forest under Brian Clough won two European Cups in a row, treasuring possession and regarding a wasteful pass as an extravagance. Clough would substitute an errant player for such a transgression.
Villa's emerging young players will have learned much from Saturday's epic encounter. They will be expected to start with more dynamism than in recent matches, where they've got away with a sluggish approach before hitting their stride.
You can't do that against Arsenal. They simply lend you the ball, aware that they'll soon get it back and will then make you pay. Villa showed how to beat them in the second half, even though they came up short.
Villa have already shown their mettle by convincingly beating Chelsea and competing in significant parts of each match against Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal, before losing. All three were slightly flattered in coming away with the spoils. Such rude awakenings are part of the educative process if you have serious pretensions to qualify for Europe next season. More ruthlessness in central defence is needed - Row Z isn't always the worst option when you're being stretched - and another predator up-front is needed.
Jermain Defoe would appear an obvious contender for that role, the longer he stays out of the Tottenham Hotspur starting line-up. It's relevant that more than one manager, at international and club level, remains unconvinced about Defoe's worth but he's quick and a natural goalscorer.
Pace is a prerequisite in the upper echelons of the Premier League and Defoe's arrival wouldn't inhibit the other two Villa dashers up front. Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young would happily career up their respective wings and the goal threat of Defoe would create space for the others.
O'Neill's shopping list in the January transfer window will be carefully and thoroughly weighted. Villa may still be a work in progress but it's been a highly-encouraging 2007 so far.
They're close to becoming a very good side and a prominent place in that second tier, from fifth to eighth in the league, is a perfectly reasonable aim. And that's before O'Neill buys again.
As for the latest Arsenal team, they ought to be the one you want to see prosper, apart from your own team. They play a brand of sweet, athletic, subtle football that is breathtaking when all the right notes are struck.
The strictures about the lack of British players in their squad are understandable but misplaced. If you can't learn from the likes of Cesc Fabregas and Alexander Hleb, you don't deserve to be considered, whatever your nationality.
Hleb, so dominant on Saturday night, comes from Belarus, a country that's never qualified for a major tournament. Unlike England, a nation that only prospers in complacency and self-delusion.
Perhaps the identity of the Arsenal manager is more relevant to Hleb's progress than his passport. If England had the fortune to be coached by Wenger, there would be none of this regular breast-beating. He'd just win tournaments in style. What a utopian ideal that would be for an England supporter!
Why I give Murali the benefit of the doubt
The celebrations marking Muttiah Muralitharan's feat in becoming the greatest wicket-taker in Test history will not have led to street parties and fireworks in Australia.
You'd be hard-pressed to find an Aussie to disagree with the opinion that Murali is a chucker. They've banged on about that for a decade now. Even the umpires. I recall, early in 1999, Ross Emerson telling anyone who listened that he was going to call Murali for throwing next day in the match against England in Adelaide.
And he did. And yet you don't hear many Aussies talk about the bunch of chuckers who helped them beat England 4-0 in the Ashes series out there in 1958-59. There were the likes of Ian Meckiff and Keith Slater while fast bowler Gordon Rorke over-stepped the popping crease on a regular basis and got away with it.
It took the personal intervention of Sir Don Bradman to clean up the preponderance of illegal bowlers in Australia at that time - a stain that will always remain on a great cricketing nation.
It's understandable that Shane Warne is a touch miffed that his record has been taken from him by a bowler he feels is dodgy but there are other elements when you consider the respective merits of two remarkable spin bowlers.
Unlike Warne, Murali wasn't banned from international cricket for a year after taking an illegal substance - a mild sentence that infuriated the World Anti-Doping Authority, who insisted the mandatory ban was for two years.
For what it's worth, Murali is a delightful man.
Modest, ever-smiling, revered by his team-mates for his supportiveness of young players, he also put an enormous amount of time and emotion into organising relief for the victims of the south Asian tsunami three years ago.
As for the cricketing issue, he has been cleared after exhaustive laboratory tests at the University of Western Australia which revealed that the angle made by his bent bowling arm remained almost constant throughout the delivery.
The tests suggest that a freak of nature makes it appear Murali chucks it, that it's an optical illusion. The International Cricket Council then relaxed the amount of elbow flexion allowed, ruling that 15 degrees of movement is permissible. Previously, it was five per cent for slow bowlers and eight for fast bowlers.
So Murali is lucky that the regulations were adapted to accommodate his freakish bowling action.
Yet there's reason to believe that most bowlers chuck the odd delivery, especially the faster ones aiming for the really quick one and off-spinners giving it a rip.
Throughout history, bowlers at the highest level have been viewed suspiciously. Has anyone ever seen the footage of England and Nottinghamshire's Harold Larwood bowling in the Bodyline Series of 1932-33 in Australia?
I'm inclined to give Murali the benefit of the doubt, partly because it annoys the Australians so much. Also because he has taken his wickets at a faster and cheaper rate than Warne and won more Tests than any other bowler in history.
