Roman Abramovich will see you in the boardroom now Mr Villas-Boas . . .

I don't know if you bother with Twitter, let alone tune in to the bite-sized mental eruptions of Baron Amstrad but if you do, then you'll know his football punditry: a swirling broth of non-sequitur, abrupt scoreline updates and the sort of banter with Piers Morgan that makes you wish China would take over the world and shut the internet down, already.

Last night Sugar was, like the rest of us, tuned in to Chelsea's pell-mell 3-1 defeat away against Napoli in the Champions League. He, like us, saw one of the least guarded European ties in recent memory, in which defending on both sides was, as the folks in the Wild West used to say, more
full-a holes than a sieve.

After 45 minutes, with Chelsea trailing, Sugar correctly surmised that they were potentially knee-deep in warm pucky.

"Chelsea throwing it away at Napoli, half time they are 2-1 down, looks like it old be 4-1 which could mean. Chelsea and Arsenal out of CL," (sic) he wrote; what the man lacks in command of written English, you'll agree he makes up for in sporting prescience.

A few minutes later, the brains that earned Sugar appointment to the upper house of the British legislature groaned into action. "Good news is that if no British team in CL then it does not take viewers away from The Apprentice Wed nights. Selfish but honest," he wrote.

Scarily, he's right. After last night, the likelihood of Andre Villas-Boas's side maintaining British involvement in the Champions League quarter-finals is slim and reliant on them winning 2-0 or better at Stamford Bridge on March 14.

If David Luiz is within a three-mile radius of the pitch that night, then they can kiss goodbye to the 'nil' part of that equation. And if Chelsea fail to progress then there will be two very logical, not entirely pleasant consequences.

First, as Sugar points out - and assuming Arsenal don't beat AC Milan 5-0 at the Emirates - every Premier League team will be out of top European competition by mid-March.

That means that, while viewers from Italy, Spain, Germany and France enjoy their spring midweek evenings in front of the footer, us poor benighted Brits (who only care for football, naturally, when we have a patriotic interest in it - none of that foreign muck, thanks!) will be staring in depression at BBC1, where 16 self-selecting novelty twonks are shouted at in Lord Sugar's glassy den for failing to sell enough biscuits.

Second, it's highly probable that some time between March and May, Villas-Boas will be subjected to his own version of The Apprentice's endgame: a scenario in which Roman Abramovich plays Sugar (incredulous disappointment, finger-pointing, taxi) and the hapless, squatting Portuguese plays the fifth contestant to fail the Stamford Bridge Champions League Challenge. Andre, you're fired! Poor Villas-Boas. Apprentice viewers may be starting to recognise him as the Stuart Baggs of the piece.

A young man with supreme self-belief arrived with a breezy, if alarmingly grandiose, assuredness of his ability. Under pressure, he has crumbled, until in the space of about half a season, he is transformed from upbeat maverick into the burbling dork, blamed by everyone on his team for their collective failings: first ridiculed, now despised, and surely before long, booted out with a look of ripe indignation plastered across his woebegone face.

"I have the full confidence of the owner," said Villas-Baggs after the game last night.

Yes, that's the sort of thing they always say, Andre, before they're cut to bits by some devastatingly witty put-down from Lord Sugar. Weirdly, he never comes up with any of these on Twitter. Must all be down to the magic of television.