It was back to business as usual for Jamie Carragher on Sunday after a bizarre interlude at the weekend in which he found himself threatened with legal action by the owner of Aston Villa.

Carragher had made the surely reasonable point on his podcast that there is a law of the jungle in football and that bigger clubs can lure players or managers away from smaller ones, whether the less wealthy outfit likes it or not. Next week on The Overlap: water is wet, Pope Catholic, Keane still angry.

Carragher had described this realpolitik (specifically about whether Manchester United could lure away Villa manager Unai Emery) as “a chain”, meaning a pecking order. However, the powers-that-be at Villa Park saw it not just as one football opinion among thousands; they saw it as a matter of honour, and they took up the cudgels accordingly. A social media post signed by Nassef Sawiris, chairman of Aston Villa, vowed action against Carragher “for his unacceptable insults about the club and its fans. Aston Villa will not allow anyone to stop our ascension in English and European football.” Crikey. Sounds like they have “ascended” up their own fundament.

Whether or not Aston Villa do make good on their legal challenge remains to be seen. Carragher apologised on Saturday night via social media, in any event. Given the sheer volume of football opinion being generated 24-7 by Jamie and his peers at the top table of football opinion-having, it could usher in an era of boomtime for the legal profession if this gets anywhere near a court. It seems amazing that anyone would be so ready and willing to take offence, but there you have it. Even Doug Ellis never did this.

If Carragher was cowed by the prospect of having to put up his civil lawsuit dukes against a bloke whose fortune is estimated at £6.4bn, he did not show it for the Liverpool vs Arsenal game. With Dave Jones back in the hosting chair and Ian Wright and Daniel Sturridge for company, it was a solid Super Sunday. I feel these bigger 4.30pm games work better without the 2pm starter, the pundits stay fresher. The breakout star was Sturridge’s oversized fleece jackety thing, which looked very much like it cost as much as a mid-range family saloon, but Carragher was also on good form.

He was excellent at half-time on the penalty Liverpool ought to have had when Jurrien Timber grabbed Alexander Isak right in front of goal. Sturridge and Gary Neville felt that Isak could have secured the decision with a theatrical flop, but Jamie strongly believed that the decision should have been made without the need for am dram.

“One of the best goalscorers in the league is pulled back seven yards out and it stops him heading the ball. Why does he need to make a meal of it? VAR do your job,” said Carragher.

And he was even better at full-time about the sly behaviour of Alexis Mac Allister in trying to get an opponent sent off.

“We have to be calling people out and saying this is embarrassing,” he said of the incident where the Liverpool midfielder had tried to make out that he had been hurt by a ‘headbutt’ from Noni Madueke. “I can’t stand it. People have to call your own people (i.e. players from your own team) out for it.”

Both decent football talking points, as was his insight about the repercussions of the team selection on a player who was once pivotal to Liverpool as Andoni Iraola preferred teenager Trey Nyoni to Ryan Gravenberch. “It’s not that he can’t come back but Iraola is saying he has more trust in a 19-year-old, whose career is only going one way. I think it will be a mighty blow to Gravenberch,” said Carragher.

But none of them any more or less controversial than the “chain” thing about Villa. It will be interesting, and maybe even a little alarming, to see if a powerful football club owner could actually try to shut down a pundit via legal action for opinions that are surely no more than just everyday chit-chat. You could say it is a badge of honour in some ways for Carragher. But it cannot be good news for the football content generation factory if the product is suddenly getting this level of regulatory scrutiny.