IT isn't something I thought I would experience this season, but last weekend I have to admit I felt a twinge of sympathy towards Chelsea fans. Not a great deal you understand, but enough to temper any schadenfreude I might have felt about events at Stamford Bridge.

Imagine it. You've just lost the services of the most successful manager in your club's history, a man who has won you back-to-back league titles and claimed six domestic trophies, and yet you're absolutely powerless to do anything about it.

Not only that, you dare not even raise a grumble in case the man wielding the real power at Stamford Bridge decides to throw his toys out of the pram and take his billions of roubles elsewhere.

So instead of the full-scale protests that might have been expected had as popular a figure as Jose Mourinho been forced out of any other club in the country, Chelsea supporters contented themselves with a brief sing-along outside the Bridge and a couple of banners at Old Trafford.

Hardly the siege of the Baseball Ground that accompanied Brian Clough's resignation from Derby or the formation of a new club following the Glazer family's takeover at Manchester United was it?

But such is football in the Premier League. Chelsea fans are wise enough to know that, without Mourinho, their club is likely to slip from being a title contender to a Champions League also-ran. Without Roman Abramovich, on the other hand, they might not have a club at all.

If you're going to play with fire, you're at risk of getting burned, and the trade-off for welcoming Abramovich's investment is that you don't have an avenue for complaint if he decides to do something you don't agree with.

For all that supporters regularly argue for a greater say in the running of their football club, what the majority actually want is for an oil-rich oligarch to arrive on their doorstep and bankroll a signing spree beyond their wildest comprehension.

Once that happens, though, there is no going back. Various commentators have criticised Abramovich this week for crossing the line that traditionally separates boardroom from dug-out, but when it comes to someone as powerful as the Chelsea owner, that line simply does not exist.

If Abramovich wants to pick the side, he will do so, and 40,000 dissenting voices from the stands will be insufficient to persuade him to do otherwise.

Indeed, given the relish with which he is reported to have tutored Michael Essien in the wake of last week's Champions League draw with Rosenborg, Chelsea fans should perhaps be thankful he hasn't picked himself at centre-forward. If Avram Grant continues to pick Andriy Shevchenko up front for the rest of the season, it might yet happen.

At least Chelsea supporters can console themselves with the knowledge that they are almost certain to qualify for next season's Champions League.

This was meant to be the season when the established order was challenged but, one month in, and it already looks like being a case of more of the same.

Nowhere was that better illustrated than at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night as an Arsenal reserve team beat, and eventually outplayed, a full-strength Newcastle United side.

Sam Allardyce can rightly claim that Arsenal's youngsters are really seasoned campaigners having reached the Carling Cup final last season. But the fact remains that a Newcastle side that is currently fifth in the Premier League was beaten by a group of players that will be nowhere to be seen when the big games roll around.

Most worryingly of all, while the vast majority of those players cannot get into the Arsenal first team, they would walk into any other side outside of the top four. Little wonder that people are starting to seriously worry about the future of English football.

Thousands of runners will set off on the road to South Shields when they line up at Newcastle's central motorway on Sunday but, for one woman, the Great North Run marks the start of the road to Beijing.

Paula Radcliffe's first competitive outing in 21 months sees the return of one of the few British athletes capable of claiming a gold medal at next year's Games.

This year's World Championships proved that the cupboard is not exactly bare, but British athletics can ill afford to lose arguably the one athlete who remains head and shoulders above her rivals.

The Beijing Olympics assumed increased importance as soon as London won the right to stage the 2012 Games and, for Radcliffe too, next year's competition looks like being a seminal event.

Her failure to last the distance in Athens has haunted her for more than three years and, despite the recent birth of her daughter, the lack of an Olympic medal represents a void in her life she would dearly love to fill.

England take on Tonga in their final World Cup group game tomorrow night in Nantes, the home of Jules Verne.

Verne wrote "Around the World in 80 days". Slip up tomorrow, and England will be "Out of the Worlds in 80 minutes".