Here’s 5 things we learned that we have never learned previously, but don’t check any of the previous reviews as that might compromise our special relationship:

1. Rashford is the only acceptable proof of God’s existence.

2. That keeper is the only person in the world who is worse at his job than Brett.

3. Legit fell into a coma.

4. I got better.

5. I actually spent the entire first half trying to get the game on an old laptop. It was the best half.

6. Think UEFA insist on the game being on a football pitch tbh.

7. Please ignore No.2.

 @Benglorious)

After the weekend’s disappointing game against Liverpool in the mediocrity of a competition that is the Premier League, tonight is a welcome return to the unrivalled magnificence of the UEFA Champions League European Cup Sponsored By Gazprom. Mourinho rested a good number of his squad ahead of this match, with many of them seen playing on their Sony Playstations or kicking back with an ice-cold Heineken, Pepsi, Pepsi Max or Gatorade as their team mates played out a stalemate with their Scouse neighbours in Saturday’s early kick-off.

Benfica will be an entirely different proposition tonight, especially with the amount of goals they’ve been leaking in Europe this season. If only their defence was as reliable as the new Nissan Qashqai, available on-the-road from £19,080. As long as United don’t get complacent, they should easily take another step towards the knockout stages of this, quite frankly, incredible tournament. Just incredible.

Prediction: Win, lose or draw, the real winner, loser or drawer tonight is football, as UEFA continue to raise the bar in terms of tournament organisation. They deserve a lot of credit, which Mastercard can provide with an introductory rate of 0%* APR for 21 months* on balance transfers and purchases*. Lukaku to reluctantly take the lightsaber from Rey who ends up killing him. OR DOES SHE? Let’s find out. 0-0 United.

m

sent from my Sony Xperia XZ Premium

m

 (@tom_mcghee)

Arsenal/Solidarity etc.

Prediction: Benno to be the worst Ben and I deffos typed this before Brett. Fans to cry regardless of result. 0-0 United. Or Benfica.

m

m

(@bifurcated_utd)

We conducted 3 experiments under strict laboratory conditions to see which Ben was the bestest: Benfica, or our Benno.

Experiment number 1 – Filming a dog.

Conclusion: our Ben has filmed a dog more than Benfica.

Experiment number 2 – Living near Colchester.

Conclusion: our Ben lives nearer to Colchester than Benfica.

Experiment number 3 – No other interesting things.

Conclusion: our Ben has no other interesting things, Benfica probably does.

Summary: our Ben > Benfica

It’s not very often that you find a worse Ben than ours, but here we are…

Prediction: 0-0 United.

 Benno (@Benglorious)

It’s finally the last game of the season. I for one couldn’t be happier that United haven’t got even one more game after today’s clash with Bournemouth, as I’m completely spent after writing in-depth previews for the three hundred or so other matches we’ve played this season. I’m really looking forward to the European Championships, purely because we’re not allowed to write about national teams after that incident in the UEFA headquarters with all the fire and farm animals.

Opposition Summary: Bournemouth are famous for being in a town where old people go to die. They play in black and red shirts like AC Milan but they don’t even speak Italian. Our lawyers will be looking into whether we can make any money off this incident of fraud as soon as they’ve finished their GCSE’s.

Prediction: With the title within reach for United and relegation looming for the Cherries, this is a must-win for both teams. However, the FA have ridiculously ruled that only one team can be declared a winner in any one match so I guess this one will have to be settled in court. 0-0 United.

 Tom (@tom_mcghee)

Birthplace of Jason Bourne, deathplace of everyone, Bournemouth are rubbish and should therefore easily turn us over. After which Louis will claim we are still in the race for the title. Apparently we can still get CL and 4th but it involves maths and what the fuck has maths ever done for anybody?

Starting to warm to Vangle to be honest, really admire his inability to accept any responsibility for his team selections, tactics or even players he’s bought. Should probably go into Politics.

I’m glad we torched the place with animals on fire.

Captain America: Civil War (2016) SPOILERS ABOUND

So like its after AoU and the Avengers are invading Africa to catch Crossbones but he explodes himself and you’re like ‘wh-whut??’ and then Captain Americas wants to find Bucky who is like proper badass but then like he bombs the UN and kills the old king of Wakanda and this makes T’Challa proper mad yo. Tony wants to become establishment like the worst kind of capitalist pig-dog and the team is all like ‘ok’ and ‘no’ and then they escape and Captain Americas finds Bucky and then they find them and then they’re all like PEW PEW THWOK! POW! etc and then they find new information and Bucky is still badass but not a bomber but also prone to being Winter Soldiered by Zemo (lol, his first name is Helmut) Everyone fights for remainder of movie  and Black Panther and Spiderman are really great guys. That aside, pretty good.

Prediction: City lose to Swansea and at 1-0 with 5mins to go we concede 4 to completely ruin everything. Although this would suggest some kind of consistency so lets say 3-0 to us, Martial and Ashford to be rested in preparation for the 2018 season. Wayne to spontaneously combust at final whistle but in one last heroic act, he takes LVG with him. 

m

 Brett(@ttackattackattack)

In our defence those animals were highly flammable with their very un-PC fur coats.

Pretty sure us did a Jason Bourne joke last time, so I can’t do that innit. We’re funny. And since when has having done a a joke stopped us doing a a joke before? I don’t know. This is Paul.

With the season finale upon us: the Chan Chan Man up top cracks another wisecracking cracker of a wisecrack. Joey – in the middle – pulls out another pube to pretend he has emotions. And, meanwhile, Ross, here at the bottom – the one you’ve all been rooting for all along – stumbles upon his Rachel*

*Only Polish and under 5ft tall, and having not had sex with Brad Pitt, or spent the last six-and-a-half years trying to lose the Rachel from Friends tag, by playing roles that make her look like Rachel from Friends, doing Rachel from Friends, just without the Friends bit.

Prediction: Brett to mess it all up and end up in a meaningless sexual relationship with a monkey. Spending the rest of his life trying to lose his Brett from Bifurcated tag, by writing blogs that make him look like Brett from Bifurcated doing Brett from Bifurcated, just without the Bifurcated bit. 0-0 United.

I think it’s important for civilised society to try, where possible, to adopt that rationale. Yes, you have to investigate better ways of protecting people from the atrocities it faces at the hands of societal ills (The spotlight is on UEFA to deal with the situation), but you also have to show the perpetrators, a determination and strength that can more than match their abhorrent bigotry.

Racism is an entirely socially, politically, culturally constructed ill of society. We are all one race. The Human Race. There are no such thing as different races. Our ancestors are the same. The colour of our skin is a consequence of the environment we inhabit. Racism will never be eradicated as we place too much value on the superficial. We assume identities to fit in. We need to start seeing individuals for what they are; individuals.

When are we getting bark-chippings installed?

To the foot stomping outrage of some fans, there exists statistical evidence which points to the fact that United don’t concede less, or win more penalties at home than other clubs, so we can finally put the myth that refereeing decisions favour the big clubs to bed can’t we? The stats say so. Night, night, don’t let the bed bugs bite … *alarm clock*

From my own perspective what the endless, ‘yes they do’/’no they don’t’ repetitions in this particular line of discourse (discourse being a polite way of saying petulant bickering) fail to address, for the most part, is the actual problem (although I wouldn’t say that this failure is in any way exclusive to this debate in particular, unfortunately).

I have no doubt whatsoever that the ‘bigger clubs’ get preferential treatment, as, as a general rule, the bigger the club is perceived to be the more fans they will attract and have in attendance for their matches. Those fans in turn will make considerably more noise than those of the visiting ‘smaller club’ (or at least be in ownership of the potential to be louder, when called upon). Why would we imagine that in any given situation a borderline decision wouldn’t go in the favour of the majority, i.e. those who shout the loudest?  Before you start picking holes (holes I’ve left there intentionally of course) that’s not my entire argument, and not even the real argument, so nerr.

The ‘bigger clubs’ also, by their very nature, attract the ‘biggest managers’. Those managers with the biggest reputations, biggest egos, biggest celebrity and therefore the biggest opportunity to sway opinion with choice words. Again, why would we imagine that in any given situation a fifty-fifty wouldn’t go in favour of Sir Alex and Manchester United; knowing full well that if it didn’t then SAF would make damned sure the world knew about it?

"Excuse me! I refuse to speak to Bifurcated.co.uk ever again."

Despite a curious public perception, referees aren’t autonomous, they are employed and trained by the footballing authorities.  Referees are human beings like some of us, they’re someone’s son or daughter, their primary functions, wants and needs are similar to ours –  some of them even have feelings. Imagine being trapped in an enclosed space with twenty four people who had no respect for you or what you represent. In addition, at least 80% of those people will be completely impetuous arseholes with a propensity towards violent acts. Just to make things a little trickier, why not imagine that all your exit points from this uncomfortable space are being guarded by 50,000 people, who not only empathise entirely with the arseholes, but encourage them.

I asked myself this (tongue in cheek) question a while back for another article, the working title of which was, ‘Why is the game still entirely at the mercy of the whim of a select few, often unhinged, unquestionably unfit, pathological egotists often found in excruciatingly tight black shorts (a subtle attempt by the manufacturers to remove them from the gene pool)?’ Although not overtly apparent from that particular sentence perhaps, my conclusion was that I absolutely feel that referees are the fall guys for the inadequacies of the governing body’s outdated and unedifying maneuverings (with no intention of insinuating that I’ve stumbled across some new revelation, which again is part of the problem).

Football bosses have not empowered referees, or supplied them with the correct tools to deal with football and all it’s nuances and intricacies. They show no support before, during, or after events, even washing their hands of flash points entirely on occasion. They just leave them firefighting, at the mercy of whoever wants to take a shot. With such a shocking display of abandonment of their duty of care to their employees, I’m surprised more referees don’t strike or even sue.

"I'm not listening, I've just super-glued my hand to my head?"

There is a faction of the political left that have politely bastardized a Gerald Massey quote, which equates to, “Take the truth as authority, not the authority as truth”. When super-imposed over the problems we encounter weekly with effectively officiating the game from top down, or bottom up, it makes sense (as it does politically) and enables those charged with refereeing to be afforded a fighting chance. Currently the authority in football provides us with our ‘truth’. A decision is made based on their rules, with no flexibility to adjust when things occur beyond those rigid parameters. The conclusion (or ‘truth’) in this instance does not provide justice, and so to approach it differently; when you discover the truth about any given incident in football, whether that be during, after, two weeks after, or two years after, you respond appropriately, you allow the truth to lead the action that deals with the event (forming the authority).

It’s very simple. The grey areas that make the above seem like the unrealistic ramblings of a pleb,  are only grey because the laws aren’t strong enough in one sense, yet are entirely inflexible in an other. MAKE THE LAWS STRONG ENOUGH IN ONE SENSE, AND YET FLEXIBLE IN ANOTHER! Eradicate the grey by re-writing the rules which confuse and contradict. Replace the ones that don’t make practical sense. When they’re good and ready they could even consider making it even easier, and fairer, by introducing technology.

In the current footballing climate, if I were a referee, I know what I’d be telling the governing bodies to do with their whistle.

I’d like to ask all of you to watch the Yves Hinant, Eric Cardot and Lehericy Delphine 2009 documentary entitled, The Referees before entering into any ‘my gran could do better’  hackneyed grumblings in the future. It’s a true testament to just how difficult the job is (you can also have a good old titter at Howard Webb’s short-comings if that’s what you’re into).

There is also an alternative theory: Ssssshhh … It’s a conspiracy