So, the usual checklist: tickets, money, passport, tranquilisers…

Remember again that in the Nou Camp there were tens of thousands more Spanish fans than English and it counted for little in the end…

I can remember being reduced to foolish tears by the singing of 'Abide With Me' on that sopping wet afternoon in 1994…

The joy is there, the team spirit is evident but the desire that sometimes fades with age has not diminished in this group…

They don't tend to have time to give out an award for Song of the Season at the annual Player of the Year dinner…

Any other week in history I would have started by waxing lyrically about the 6-1 thrashing of QPR…

That's not fatalism talking. That's experience. That's what this competition has done to us down the years...

Think of the quality forwards and midfielders who have been battering at the door, this is another incredible thought for Di Matteo to consider this week…

We would have to build an Ark out of advertising hoardings and I'd have tipped him to pull it off…

Before the weekend there may have been one plan, after Wembley the confidence may be there to be more aggressively positive…

Off to Wembley on Sunday, which is never exactly a chore, but it still feels all wrong to me…

Players at the professional level rarely ever play at 100% fitness, as the season progresses there are niggling injuries that just do not get the time to clear up…

I was trying to think of the last time I had seen someone limping so badly. I reckoned it was in a school production of 'Oh What A Lovely War'…

Will the intensity needed to see off Benfica be present again on Wednesday night?