The bookmakers were dreading the match at Portsmouth yesterday.
Before the start of the season, BSkyB saw this as the ideal Abu Dhabi derby, with Manchester City, who dumped honorary life president Thaksin Shinawatra after the fraud and corruption and mass murder and things, visiting Pompey ################ ###############################################################################
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The way the BSkyB narrative was concocted, this was a Portsmouth on the up, bolstered by new signings and financial security against the richest team in the world - a perfect representation of all that Our Great Leader is told is good about the English Premier League.
It didn't turn out that way.
After their first two matches, it was obvious that Portsmouth were very poor.
It was also obvious that Abu Dhabi United are gelling well.
Following the "ultimate betrayal" that Alexandre Gaydamak performed on behalf of his father with regard to Peter Storrie and his Arab consortium, the atmosphere in the boardroom was combative.
Will Storrie get a role?
Will they pay him a fortune for club-harming?
Will the club continue to be a gambling stable?
What happens if the police bust him?
Meanwhile, as John Colquhoun desperately searches around for a club to take David James, as without his England place, he is a much less useful asset to the whole Colquhoun Experience, the club has been leaking players with regularity.
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The match was a potential one way market with an inevitable winner.
And the market was indicative of the problem.
Without the uproar that has butterflied from Redknapp's financial incompetence, the opening price should have been Portsmouth about 0.25 of a goal favourite.
The market actually opened with Abu Dhabi United having a 1.1 goal supremacy!
Even paying over the odds at such a short price, the global gamble on City was marked.
Despite standard BSkyB decelerators eg making Manchester City travel to London for a Mickey Mouse Cup game two and a half days before the trip to Pompey, and making the match the earliest offering to reduce the Sunday-morning-hangover mug money while also limiting the gap since City's previous outing, the money kept lumping on the better of the two Abu Dhabi teams.
By Saturday morning, we were at, in military terms, "bikini black".
Serious action was needed to limit the financial drubbing at what turned out to be the biggest betting match of the weekend in England - bigger than the Big 4 Man Utd versus Arsenal nonsense even.
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Many betting professionals are threatened when the Premier League occasions to change the refereeing appointments for no publicly disclosed reason.
The last three seasons have seen 16, 12 and 20 alterations in match referee and many more for the junior official posts.
This season is proving even more volatile with four referee changes already.
Three of them at the weekend...
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All the referees that were to referee did so, they were just moved around for maximum effect.
So, Howard Webb was moved from Stoke City v Sunderland to the Abu Dhabi derby.
The incompetent Jones was moved from Tottenham to Stoke, while Peter Walton, who was on the Portsmouth match, ended up at Tottenham.
The releasing of this information coincided with a whispering campaign that the Pompey match was being fixed.
Throughout Asia, the rumour spread like one of those fires near Athens deliberately started by property investors - the policeman was on duty.
The markets reacted.
On Sunday morning, there was a very extensive one-way gamble on Portsmouth in all market types.
Sunday was also characterised by numerous denial of service attacks on certain Asian and European bookmakers which further complicated the stance-taking and hedging.
Which, of course, was very good news for all insiders and professionals as we were able to fill our boots some more at an advantageous price leading up to the kick off.
The rest is history
As Portsmouth trundled out with two loan players, a reserve goalkeeper and three players who had to be rushed squad numbers ahead of the game, with a strange man-child wearing the legend 'Sulaiman 77' across his branded body in charge, it was totally clear that the appointment of Webb could not alter the hyperreality.
But it did balance the books somewhat and reduced liabilities, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we are at in ScudamoreWorld.
The image of Arsène Wenger at the Theatre of Dreams, after his team had been kicked off the park by Manchester United (United committed more fouls than any other Premier League side this season in any one game, and yet received three bookings to Arsenal's six), having been sent to the stands by Harry Redknapp's chum, Mike Dean, will stick long in the memory.
Wenger stood there, arms outstretched, both pleading but also offering a damning indictment on the 'sport' in body language alone.
It offered the perfect image of the Real state of the Premier League brand.
They should use it alongside Sulaiman 77 for future BSkyB marketing messages.
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