Fresh from the Bridge having witnessed the defeat, columnist Giles Smith is quick to compare, contrast and prioritise.

Let's look on the positive side. This was disappointing, sure enough. But it wasn't a Champions League exit to rank with the gob-smacking, soul-crushing, sleep-haunting calamities that the competition normally arranges for us around this time of the year. It didn't even come close. Nowhere near it.

For starters, their winning goal in the second leg actually went over the line and into the goal. There can be no doubt about that. It really did. It hit the net and everything. Not like 2005, then, against Liverpool.

For another thing, the tie (and, along with it, a place in the final) wasn't going our way until the last moments, enabling one of their players to pick up our only stray clearance of the night, move infield and then crack in a match-clinching away goal, causing lasting psychological damage to everyone that was in the ground. (Barcelona, 2009.)

Also, the game didn't go to penalties, obliging our captain to step through the teeming rain and muff his kick for destiny, creating a moment which some of us (including the writer of this column), nearly two years later, still haven't looked at again on the recording because they simply aren't in any shape yet to revisit it (Moscow, 2008).

Nor did last night's match contain four clear-as-daylight claims for penalties (Barcelona 2009 again), requiring Michael Ballack to go up in the referee's face like one of those inflatable footballer figures that they blow up in front of the crowd at finals. In fact, let the record show that the two legs combined only yielded one outrageous penalty denial (Salomon Kalou in the San Siro) - a startlingly low count, in the circumstances and given the history.

Nor will the tie leave us with the irritating legacy of having gone out to what historians agree is the worst side ever to win the Champions League (Liverpool 2005 again). On the contrary, should Inter go on to take the tournament, I don't suppose many of us would have a major problem with that - especially if they manage to take down Manchester United on the way through.

OK, they waste time a lot and they're ultra-defensive and they fall over too easily and feign life-threatening injuries in order to disrupt play. But that doesn't mean they're an altogether bad side and, indeed, they can even be quite attractive to watch from time to time. Or impressive to watch, anyway.

So, in summary, what are we actually looking at here? A mostly straight-forward, relatively uncontroversial defeat to a side that was genuinely better than us over the two legs. If Inter and the officials had wanted to get to us in a big way, they would have had to try an awful lot harder than that. We've seen too much. Our skin has necessarily grown too thick. It's going to take something really special to upset us, Champions League-wise, these days.

One other bright point: when it comes to Europe, Didier Drogba seems to like to mark the end of one campaign by getting himself banned for the start of the next. And this he duly managed last night, without too much effort. So you can't say the night didn't go according to plan, at least in one respect.

The big plus is that we now get to concentrate on the league - which would just be a moth-eaten old cliché if it wasn't so clearly the case that the league could do with some concentrating on at the moment. Indeed, had we been able to concentrate on it a little harder than we have over the last couple of months, we would probably have it sewn up by now.

What with the hype and fanfare that surrounds the Champions League, it can be all too easy, from time to time, to forget the true priorities of the sensible and informed follower - namely, the Premier League title first, and then second (and considerably less importantly) the European Cup. Which, of course, we would love to see our team win one day. But even now, if that day should happen to lie some three or four consecutive Premier League titles hence, then none of us would really be a position to complain about it.