On Monday night David Ngog boiled up a quick penalty for Liverpool by the scandalous but — let’s face it — widely practised expedient of leaping like a doomed horse over the outstretched leg of Lee Carsley, of Birmingham City. And how great for viewers that ESPN was the broadcaster on the ground when this huge story broke.

It’s the habit of ESPN to wheel a large plasma television into the post-match interview room so managers and players can be shown critical moments from the appropriate angle, at the appropriate speed, and then carp or bluster accordingly.

Out the window, then, goes “I’m afraid I didn’t see the incident” as a plausible excuse for not commenting and through the door comes “you’re seeing it now, my friend, in HD”. Plenty of people are resistant to the use of video technology in the post-match context, claiming that it breaks up the natural flow of the interview. But if the upshot is an increase in accuracy regarding the big decisions (plus, with any luck, a whole festival of squirming), then all reason is surely screaming out for it.

So, on Monday night, in trooped Carsley and Alex McLeish, the Birmingham manager, both of whom duly shook their heads at ESPN’s television in scalded amazement and wondered how Ngog would be able to face his children again.

All hugely entertaining, although, at home, we were rather biding our time. Obviously, the person one wanted to see bear 42-inch witness to this act of pilfering, and then attempt to explain it away, was Ngog. Which, admittedly, was always unlikely. (Players aren’t required to speak to the cameras after games.) In his absence, though, Rafael Benítez was clearly going to be an entertaining substitute.

Yet when the Liverpool manager reported for scrutiny, lo and behold the television had been tidied away into a cupboard. “I haven’t seen the incident again,” said Benítez, who was then left free to jabber on about how it possibly wasn’t a penalty, but Liverpool had been on the wrong end of a couple of dodgy calls in recent games and, in any case, blah blah, deserved a point, blah blah, number of chances created, blah.

So why no slow-mo for Benítez? But such, alas, is the soft centre of football broadcasting, even on ESPN, where inquisition can go so far but must stop at the point where it could possibly be seen to be making anybody uncomfortable.

Incidentally, while we’re on the subject of post-match interviews, Sir Alex Ferguson is still refusing to grant the BBC an audience, in accordance with a longstanding grievance. (Something about the licence fee, was it? To be honest, it’s so long ago nobody really remembers the details any more.) Presumably, though, the television money that Manchester United happily bank at the start of every season is to some extent predicated on the co-operation of key personnel with broadcasting’s reasonable demands for access. And no disrespect to Mike Phelan, but it’s not quite the same when he does it. In which case, shouldn’t United be expected to pay some money back for Ferguson’s non-appearances? A few hundred quid, at the very least. We only ask.

Another series of I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! looms – and again, it seems, no Graham Poll. Every year we wonder whether the Celebrity selectors will see fit to give the retired referee from Tring the nod he so clearly deserves. Or, if not him, then Jeff Winter. And every year we are disappointed. Those two must wonder what they have to do to get noticed.

Instead, false rumours focused on Colin Hendry, the former Blackburn Rovers and Scotland centre back. According to one report, TV chiefs saw him as “the big strapping guy who’ll do anything, eat anything, build anything – a real Braveheart character.” Fair enough, although we don’t recall Braveheart doing much in the way of televised grub-eating. It’s a whole different skill-set.

Meanwhile, gossip insisted that Vinnie Jones would be the second member of the Wimbledon “Crazy Gang” to be called up, after John Fashanu in series one. What a source of pride that statistic would have been to Dave Bassett, who little knew the full extent of the light entertainment empire he was building, back in those Plough Lane days. But again, not true.

Jones, like Hendry, would have had durability on his side. Would that the same could be said for Jimmy White, the snooker player, who, in the event, was the only sportsman chosen to don the coveted sleeping bag. We all know what White brings to the table: a cue. It’s hard to see how the setting (outdoors) or the surface (uneven, rocky) would favour him. But the programme has surprised us before. Why, only last year . .

Nope, it’s gone. I can’t remember anything surprising about last year’s show at all. In fact, I can’t really remember last year’s show, full stop. Another argument for video replays.