Manager: Sir Alex Ferguson v Avram Grant

Fergie is the Queen Mum of football. Exuding the warmth of a Taggart corpse, he banishes anybody who questions his omnipotence, especially if it involves Juan Sebastián Verón, Eric Djemba-Djemba and the sartorial grace of a skip. Inspiring adulation and sycophancy in equal measure, he is the master of mind games, which is a euphemism for slagging off your opponents and saying the ref’s bent.

Grant could win the European Cup, league title and Eurovision Song Contest and nobody would like him. You need a cashmere coat and a Yorkshire terrier to be popular down in Chelsea.

Winner: José Mourinho (draw)

Celebrity fan: Geoffrey Boycott v Raquel Welch

In the good old days, David Webb opened an off-the-peg wig emporium in the East End next door to a fish-and-chip shop. This was Chelsea, an eclectic assortment of mavericks and hallucinogenic businessmen. The late Peter Osgood, who would use his biography to point out that Ian Storey-Moore was the only other player with three “o”s in his surname, had to deal with Raquel Welch tottering down the touchline shouting “Yoo-hoo, Ossie.” For all their fame, United’s most noted fan is a dour Yorkshireman who once played alongside Billy Bremner for Leeds juniors. And that bloke from Cold Feet.

Winner: Raquel Welch (Chelsea)

Music: Joy Division v Brian Jones

Manchester has long been a bastion of music, from monotone Morrissey sticking a bunch of flowers down his baggies to Ian Brown’s simian antics with The Stone Roses. Most revered of all are Joy Division, a morose group from Salford whose singer had a voice that was not so much honey-kissed as gang-banged by a crate of Marmite. They inspired three films and endless books, one of which is subtitled An Ideal For Living, a bit out of kilter with said singer hanging himself. The Kings Road was once the epitome of the Swinging Sixties, with half the Rolling Stones in residence. Sadly, Mark Knopfler and Duran Duran’s keyboard player then moved in.

Winner: Joy Division (Manchester)

Drama: Cristiano Ronaldo v Didier Drogba

Rafael Benítez recently inspired a miasma of condemnation for having the temerity to suggest Drogba goes to ground a tad easily for someone with legs. He might have been more controversial had he suggested grass is generally green or football often a game of two halves. The merest nudge and Drogba will indeed go all WMD on Rio Ferdinand while waving a copy of Dostoyevsky’s Crime & Punishment at the lino. For all his brilliance, Ronaldo will roll his eyeballs like Marty Feldman if defenders enter his exclusion zone. Certainly, a better thesp than Russell Osman in Escape To Victory.

Winner: José Mourinho: drama queen (draw)

Big Cheese: Malcolm Glazer v Roman Abramovich

Glazer is the American hobbit whose supersize bank account has helped United to win the pennant race by drafting in offensive linesmen such as Carlos Tévez. Whether victory in the Euro play-offs will encourage the franchise’s fans to build a statue is a moot point. Strangely, no Chelsea fans deemed the arrival of a billionaire benefactor to be worthy of forming another club and playing against pub sides down Dog Dirt Alley. Abramovich’s biggest sin to date has been to force Andriy Shevchenko, a club-footed former European player of the year, on to the squad.

Winner: Roman Abramovich (Chelsea)

WAGS: Coleen McLoughlin v Cherly Cole

It is wrong to tar all WAGs with the same Harvey Nicks hairbrush because some are not blonde. Cole is at present estranged from Chelsea’s irritating left back and was pictured on the front page of Sunday’s News of the World being heartbroken at 3am with some American (not Glazer). Said consoler touched Cole’s heartstrings, according to the NOTW, with a quote from the Bible. “Then her hairdresser came over,” he said. McLoughlin was proposed to on the forecourt of a BP garage, bagging a £46,000 ring as well as a Ginster’s sausage roll and pack of Marlboro Lights. Having appeared in Hollyoaks, McLoughlin is a professional WAG.

Winner: Coleen McLoughlin (Manchester)

Import: Eric Cantona v Gianfranco Zola

It is often forgotten, especially by Mancunian revisionists, but United were rubbish before Cantona pitched up. From 1967, they went a quarter of a century without winning the league title. Then Cantona arrived from Leeds United for a mere £1 million, turned his collar up and made the club brilliant, while underlining every French cliché and taking a radical approach to stewarding down at Selhurst Park. Zola was brilliant, smiley and short, but never claimed that the team’s mission was to interpret The Magic Flute of a Saturday.

Winner: Eric Cantona (Manchester)

Trivia: Bee Gees v Fulham Broadway

It is a little known fact that the Bee Gees actually grew up in Manchester. Chelsea, meanwhile, is not in Chelsea.

Winner: Fulham (Chelsea)

Verdict: Manchester United 3 Chelsea 3