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Evening all. By 10 ‘o’clock this evening, Manchester City could lead Chelsea by 13 points in the Premier League. It’s worth dwelling on that – 13 points. On 12 December last season, the then Premier League leaders Manchester United had put 13 points between themselves and Birmingham, who were 16th. It’s bigger than the gap between 8th-placed Stoke and rock-bottom Bolton, as big as the gap between Chelsea and West Brom. “It would be difficult for us from 13 points behind but not impossible,” said Andre-Villas Boas over the weekend. I have to disagree. Can anyone see Chelsea overturning a 13-point gap?

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Chelsea may have lost to Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool (the latter two coming at the Bridge) already this season, but they remain a dangerous animal. Villas-Boas has been like a cornered cat in the past week or so, fighting back on behalf of his side. Tonight his team have the chance to repay the favour.

Meanwhile City, European frustration aside, move serenely on. Yes Mario Balotelli refuses to keep his head down, yes the Tevez thing is still ongoing, yes they’re in the Europa League post-turkey-and-all-the-trimmings, but they feel like minor sideshows, twirling colourful umbrellas on a monumental silver steamroller. Will Chelsea get squashed this evening?

Premier League 2011-12Premier LeagueChelseaManchester CityJohn Ashdownguardian.co.uk

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Arsenal: Szczesny, Djourou, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Santos, Ramsey, Song, Arteta, Walcott, Van Persie, Gervinho.
Subs: Fabianski, Jenkinson, Vermaelen, Frimprong, Park, Rosicky, Arshavin.

Chelsea: Cech, Bosingwa, Ivanovic , Terry, Cole, Ramires, Mikel, Lampard, Sturridge, Torres, Mata
Subs: TOPICAL SATIRE ALERT!!! Blackman, Bertrand, the spectacularly useless Luiz, Romeu, Meireles, Malouda, Lukaku.

The acceptable sound of London:

Technically about the King’s Road (pronounced “King’s Raaahd”) but it does mention Piccadilly, so it’ll do. Written by Jim Dale from the Carry On movies, incidentally.

Team news: John Terry, from off of TV’s The News, returns to the Chelsea side, along with Fernando Torres, who has been missing for the last three league games due to suspension. Arsenal captain Robin van Persie is back, after starting last week’s win over Stoke on the bench.

Kick off: 12.45pm.

Having said all that: It’d be quite funny if this ends up eight men apiece after a massive brawl, a cartoon cloud with boots and fists sticking out of it. Newsrooms would be sent into a flat spin. Twitter would snap in two. The bottom half of the internet would catch fire. The world would keep turning.

The unacceptable face of London: This fiasco. It’d be nice to think, for so many reasons, that this weekend’s big showdown in the capital will pass off without any grim incident. Play the game nicely, gentlemen.

The acceptable face of London: The Bakerloo Line, 11am, this morning. A middle-aged couple get on at Waterloo. Both are smiling. Shall we get off at Piccadilly Circus, he says, and walk up Regent Street, or alight at Oxford Circus, and walk down the other way? She’s not sure. He knows a place they can eat down the Piccadilly Circus end, so it depends whether she’s peckish now or not. Maybe she’ll just have a cup of coffee for the minute. She kind of wants to get on with looking for a hat for some wedding or other. He’s after a pair of trousers. (Casual slacks, presumably he’s already kitted out for the big day, unless he’s not invited.) Anyway, they’re both smiling, out and about in the city for the day. They’re excited and happy. London: a force for good.

Premier LeagueChelseaArsenalScott Murrayguardian.co.uk

Pompey are not lovable but it is hard not to admire their Hollywood-like refusal to die

The FA Cup final is already a fascinating meeting of opposites: Portsmouth, a club who have pretended to be rich, against Chelsea, a club who remain almost unassailably so. Next to today’s blue-chip opponents Portsmouth have the look of a society imposter, some small-town insurgent in a borrowed tuxedo, the sole of one shoe flapping, shirt-front triangle flipping up, and an entire invented history very publicly unravelling as he prepares very quietly, to beat your brains in with an oar. Only one thing seems certain: partisans aside, it is surprisingly easy to want them to win it.

Not because Portsmouth are lovable. This is not in any sense a self-propelling crackpot modern fairytale. Perhaps you might even still feel the tug of something Hollywood in Portsmouth’s rag-tag widescreen reckoning up, picturing some Pompey-shirted Steve Guttenberg or Tom Hanks rising solemnly to his feet as the dressing room falls silent and saying, “Fellas, this isn’t about us. Hell, it’s about…” even as your hand skitters about in search of a toothpick or a kebab skewer to jab repeatedly into your own eye to drive back the auto-schmaltz tears.

The Portsmouth that will reach its full stop at Wembley has instead been a ludicrously fuzzy-headed organisation. And let’s not be fooled by attempts to garland the players with altruistic laurels because they clubbed together to keep some of the people who do chores for them in a job for a few weeks. When considering a Premier League club burdened with unimaginable debt, it is important to remember at all times that up to 90% of this has been given to the players, converted directly into a bathtub carved out of a five-tonne block of limestone, 25 identical unworn pairs of earwig-skin pointy brown leather bloke shoes, and enough combined vast yawning flat-screen mega-pixel TV expanse to fill the red spot on Jupiter. This is what has happened here: compulsive excess. They didn’t ask for it, we hear. But they certainly took it.

Perhaps the only really lovable thing about Portsmouth is Avram Grant, often criticised at Chelsea for his glum, sardonic, mooching demeanour, even at times when his glum, sardonic, mooching demeanour was by far the best thing about Chelsea. In adversity he has developed a lovely, shrugging excitability, a conviction that something or other means something and that’s the real, you know, point here.

Plus, of course, Portsmouth’s supporters have remained steadfast and unbowed, even the ones who have to stand near that man and his annoying bell. But I wonder if even Portsmouth fans can really love this nonexistent screen-grab of a team. This is the seductive quality of a Portsmouth victory: it would surely be one of the most meaningless triumphs in any cup competition. This is a team of the here and now and nothing else, one that’s falling apart before our eyes. Look, there go its legs racing in on goal but not stopping, carrying on over the hoardings and off down Wembley Way.

In a way you can admire the furiously literal-minded shamelessness of Portsmouth, their utter immersion in the crackhead-scale appetites of the Premier League. While also feeling a bit sorry for the FA Cup, with its foot-bath-level reservoir of dwindling magic, still standing by trying to look dignified and vital while an imported drama of opposites takes place on its lawn.

PortsmouthChelseaFA CupBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk