By Tim Stannard

1) Barcelona calls foul over Navas red card let-off

The toddlers are back in action in La Liga with the crayon-carrying media of both Real Madrid and Barcelona in a full-on battle over who the referees like more.

The answer not surprisingly depends on which side of the Clasico sauce bottle you like to tap. A petition inspired no doubt by Real Madrid and PSG fans is gathering pace to have last week’s Champions League clash between Barcelona and PSG replayed due to “controversial” refereeing. The latest tally has 200,000 signatures.

Meanwhile, the Barcelona press are up in arms over the failure to send off Keylor Navas in Real Madrid’s win over Betis on Sunday. Mundo Deportivo have trotted out a long, long list of pro-Madrid refereeing decisions over the season to offer the narrative that the Powers that Be are trying to hand Real Madrid the league title, the same Powers that Be that Madrid fans will claim have been favoring Barcelona for the last ten years.

Join in the bickering fun on the XTRA at 7PM ET / 4PM PT which looks back at another fiery weekend in La Liga and also sees who won the battle between Team Messi and Team Ronaldo.

2) Mourinho returns to Stamford Bridge without poaching power

It worked for Spain and Barcelona for a decent period of time, so it might just do the job for Manchester United – playing without strikers. But rather than it being a tactical choice from the likes of Vicente Del Bosque, Manchester United are going into Monday’s FA Cup quarterfinal without a proper forward due to either suspension (looking at you here King Zlatan) and injury doubts over Wayne Rooney, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford.

Not that the latter is a guarantee for goals anyways, said Jose Mourinho, who expected his 19-year-old to struggle after a breakthrough first season. "The second season is the difficult one, it's the pressure, it's the people that know him, it's the expectation,” admitted the Special One on a striker with just seven goals in all competitions this year.

There will be extra niggle in this game which sees Mourinho going back to Stamford Bridge to face the club which sacked him last year after the Portuguese provoker suggested last month that Chelsea were a counter-attacking team. “Not only here, but I never, ever, ever train for the counter-attack,” was the strong response from Antonio Conte before Monday’s game.

Tune into the XTRA from 7PM ET / 4PM PT for highlights of this clash and don’t forget that La Liga wraps up with a gritty northern battle between Osasuna and Eibar whilst highflying Lazio takes on Torino in Serie A. Action gets going on CONNECT at 3:45PM ET / 12:45PM PT.

3) Championship speeds up sack race with Wigan hitting panic button

The Championship has gone into panic mode all of a sudden – to be fair, that’s pretty much the default situation anyway - with the threat of either not making play-offs or being jettisoned into the league below as a very real possibility in mid-March.

Norwich and Derby County fired their coaches over the past few days and Wigan Athletic have done the same. The Northern outfit are second-from-bottom of the table in England’s second-tier, four points from safety, and have booted out Warren Joyce after just four months in charge and nine games to go. The poor fella didn’t even have time to have his new parking spot painted having won just six games from 24 fixtures.

4) Slowcoach Rossi fears for Moto GP season start

Valentino Rossi is not a happy man. Just a week and a half until the start of the Moto GP season and the Italian says that he is struggling with the new Yamaha 2017 bike. That would be just fine if it were not the fact that new teammate and superbly-named, Maverick Vinales, were not crushing it as youngsters say. “Unfortunately, I didn't have the same feeling and the same speed,” complained the seven-time Moto GP champion.

The new season gets underway exclusively on beIN SPORTS with round one from Qatar on the weekend of March 25th and 26th.

5) Mon dieu! Superpowers of French rugby to merge

Imagine if Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid decided to merge to save costs. Or the two Manchester clubs. Or even Arsenal and Tottenham. To be fair, the last two merged together would still finish fourth. But that’s what has happened in French rugby with the two Parisian super-clubs, Racing 92 and Stade Francais Paris announcing that they were to join forces from next season with the aim of “pooling resources to better cope with the challenges of performance and education.” The two clubs have 20 ‘Top 14‘ championship wins between them including a 2016 triumph for Racing 92.

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The life philosophy of Sports Burst is that if you are not upsetting someone, then you are not trying hard enough. SB is a daily trawl and troll through the morning's sports news to bring you fact-nuggets to make you both smile and swear. Hopefully at the same time.