Football Extra: When Scottish football stole the show

I will admit it up front; I had a choice of games at the weekend. Go to Celtic Park in Glasgow for the final crunch game in the Scottish Premiership – or head down south for Man City and Chelsea, one of my former clubs, in Wembley's FA Cup final.

This should have been a dilemma, but in truth it wasn't, the Scottish football season has been so sensational that I couldn't miss this final act.

The atmosphere and the tension didn't disappoint and after eight months on top of the league, Hearts finally succumbed in the 87th minute of the final game. You cannot write about the game without mentioning the utter heartbreak of their fans.

Celtic supporters celebrated exuberantly – a minority overexuberantly, causing embarrassing scenes for the country as they invaded the pitch and intimidated Hearts players.

It doesn't and shouldn't take anything away from what has been one of the finest competitions I have ever witnessed, and on this day, one of the most intense atmospheres.

I rushed out afterwards to watch and comment on the FA Cup final from a Glasgow studio for BBC Radio 5 Live. Ten minutes after parking myself in front of the wide screen, I knew I had made the right decision.

The FA Cup final seemed strangely subdued, partly I suspect because of the manic mayhem I had just witnessed. It didn't even come close the excitement of Glasgow and that is a sad indictment of waning importance of one of the world's great competitions.

Fortunately, Antoine Semenyo's winner was brilliant enough to grace any cup final and almost saved the day.

Watching West Ham lose at Newcastle was an exquisite kind of suffering. They had worked so hard to give themselves a chance but all you had to do was look at Nuno Espirito Santo's face to know, even he feels that the game is up. Spurs still have to garner two more points from two matches to be sure but it seems they will be safe.

Did Nuno get it wrong by going for a back five, only to change it when they lost two goals in 18 minutes? Maybe so, but had they been open and attack-minded and lost goals he would have been considered naïve.

The real hope is that he can keep his job, keep the bulk of the squad together and keep the trust of the board to bring them back up again if they go down.

It is an uncommon situation, but I think he has done a fine job, even if they do get relegated.

Xabi Alonso is the new Chelsea manager and the great BlueCo experiment, if not dropped, has been tweaked yet again.

I wish Alonso luck and more importantly a decent level of control and definitely some reasonable time to sort out a club struggling to find an identity.

Chelsea have had more managers than the UK has had prime ministers over the past four years by a margin of 6-4 – though it could be 6-5 soon.

It should be a very interesting summer, doubtless many players will come and go but when push comes to shove, will it be the same again?

If Alonso tries to suggest that real football folk know what they are doing to the suits upstairs, his jacket could be on a shaky peg just like all those before him, however capable he is.

Another notable difference between United and Liverpool is the different reaction to world-class players leaving this season.

Timing is everything in these situations, so as Casemiro walked off at Old Trafford for the last time in the 81st minute, there was a warm glow, many a poignant tribute and a heartfelt hug with the manager. It seemed right, but it could have been very different had he left during one of his quieter spells at the club.

Mo Salah is another truly world class player but it might feel slightly different when he makes his final bow at Anfield against Brentford next week. The simmering bad feeling between him and Arne Slot became brutally clear in a very unsubtle social media post from the Egyptian. It was a very lightly veiled dig at Jurgen Klopp's successor and possibly even some of the new players who have come in this season.

Mo will be rightly saluted by the Kop and many a tear will be shed for the departing legend but alongside the sweet memories, somewhere in there is a little bitterness too.

He may just be reflecting the feelings of the fans, but in the dressing room, privately some unnecessary betrayal will be felt, even while genuinely applauding his greatness.

Had Mo left at the end of last season it might just have been better for all concerned.

I cannot ignore the decision not to penalise Bryan Mbeumo for handball in the lead up to Manchester United's second goal yesterday. If you bend the meaning, the spirit and the wording of the rules, there is a world where you can suggest that goal should have stood, though I am not sure I even know what colour the sky is in that world.

Certain officials suggest that this was a correct reading of the rules, but that outlook is to completely fly in the face in common sense and of the considerations of anyone who has ever played the game to any level at all. That is stupid rules overcoming and intelligence.

VAR knew there was a problem morally but the referee after studying the footage still came to the most obtuse decision based on bad laws when a subjective reading was possible and was the totally correct way to go.

The VAR did his best, the technology was perfect but you can do very little about human error on that scale.

This is my full column from this week's BBC Football Extra newsletter. If you're outside the UK and would like to receive editions straight to your inbox, head this way to subscribe.