Premier League Diary: Sky start making regions fight one another for glory

Say what you like about Sky Sports – within the bounds of libel laws and common decency, obviously, you filthy-mouthed animal – but they know how football works. They know where the buttons are; they know what makes the ordinary fan tick. To any other television company, this weekend’s Premier League scheduling might have been a curiosity, something to mention in passing. But Sky, bouncing from the success of Red Monday a few months ago, saw their chance to create a whole new institution from whole cloth: