With Arsenal busted and the title race all but run perhaps all we have left is when Gary meets Carlos

Carlos Tevez: Would he be your idea of a romantic lead? Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images

And like that, pfff! It was over. Even a week ago, it looked like we might have a last day of the season to look forward to. A couple of results go the wrong way and now Chelsea get to saunter home and collect both domestic trophies. And some continental types will pick up the Champions League. My money's on Inter, by the way. They will, I believe the term is, "do a job" on Barça. And I'd be delighted to be wrong about that.

Most years the league peters out before the last round of matches. Only once since the turn of the century (2007-08) did we get a final day where it was still all to play for. I'm not sure why it feels like such an anti-climax at the moment. I suppose I just got caught up in all the hype, dammit. It also seems a pity to have played so much football in order to confirm what we already knew at the start of the season; which is, that United and Liverpool were badly weakened by transfers, Arsenal are still too young and slight, and Chelsea have the most settled, experienced squad.

The Manchester United "collapse" as it were, is particularly indicative of how tight the margins are for the top clubs. Wayne Rooney missed two games and 180 minutes of football later United have dropped from first to a four-point gap. I've got in trouble before in these pages for arguing out that United weren't the team they once were, particularly since they then went and hammered Arsenal 3-1 at the Emirates. It's difficult to get away from the fact, though, that they sold two players who had scored 100 goals for them in the past two seasons. It's just striking that it finally caught up with them in such a concentrated burst.

With all of the major business pretty much done and dusted all we have ahead of us is the sight of John Terry, vindicated, as he raises silverware above his head in triumph, like a boot stamping on the face of man for all time. I'm not sure why I regard John Terry as an Orwellian nightmare; maybe I'm just already dreading all the interviews about what an incredible "journey" he's been on this year.

Still, at least we get to enjoy the exciting race for fourth place. And to stave off the ennui, a thrilling series of grudge matches to finish off the year, most of them involving Manchester City. Emmanuel Adebayor's return to the Emirates is another day's work. First up is today's Manchester derby, which has been bubbling through three previous meetings, all the way back to when "that" poster was put up during the summer.

It was quite a funny poster really. I was never sure quite why Sir Alex Ferguson got so livid about it; ranting about "a small club with a small mentality". He doesn't own the town. And United have had enough parades through the city in their time. Let them have their poster.

Gary Neville and Carlos Tevez are under police orders, however, not to be "provocative" at today's match. I know that "provocative" means any action designed to get a reaction; I've just always found it difficult to distance it from it's sexual meaning. I've certainly always felt that even a glimpse of stocking from Neville could raise temperatures uncontrollably in the Eastlands. Combine this with the allegations of boot-licking Tevez made against him during the year, and the sexual frisson becomes almost unbearable.

I know that for many of you, the idea of Gary Neville and Carlos Tevez as sexual beings may be slightly repellent. Their behaviour around this match has been pure romcom though, albeit not "Harry met Sally" comedy classic romcom, more Gerard Butler/Jennifer Aniston "please God let there be any other film on" romcom.

And now the police have stepped in, essentially to hose the two boys down and restore some sanity. After all, they confiscated darts and golf balls from United supporters before the last Eastlands match, during which Patrice Evra was struck by a missile, in this case a cigarette lighter.

Everything thrown on to a pitch gets called a "missile" no matter how poor a replacement for Trident it would make. God be with the days when you could throw a pig's head at Luís Figo while he took a corner. Although that was in Barcelona, home of surrealism.

Anyway, less of the throwing, boys. Why not just wave some boots at Neville? He's supposed to have a thing for them, isn't he?