Sir Alex. Two Monkeys. A Gatling Gun.

I’m linking straight to the Sun on this one, because there’s no point in pretending that a paper with a foreign correspondent could approach it with the right degree of smack. (Lousy Scotsman, always worrying how the Ukrainian intelligentsia will react.) Alex Ferguson has struck back at Ramón Calderón once again…even though it wasn’t his turn. Speaking at a time and place curiously unspecified by the British media, the no-nonsense Scot made it known that he doesn’t care “two monkeys” about his relationship with Real Madrid, and, in classic, no-nonsense fashion, grimly announced that he’d have “enough ammunition” to deal with any future attempts to lure Ronaldo to Franco’s spiritual resting-place.

Presumably displaying his biceps one after the other to the awed members of the press while saying “thunder…lightning” (just like my seventh-grade math teacher, who hunted deer with bows), Sir Alex went on to promise a further escalation of hostilities in the event that the mere memory of Lord Howard of Effingham does not suffice to keep the crafty Spaniard on his own side of Dover.

“I’m only using one gun at the moment,” he snarled, “but I’ll get the Gatling gun out in January!”

Oh, it’s on. I am praying to the gods of the Champions League knockout draw to let this matchup happen.