Because of having to play that one the youth reserves go out of the Birmingham Senior Cup to Burton Albion, with Kourtney Hause playing. Yes, I thought he’d left years ago as well.

Then the big lads nip down to Brighton for the evening, and what a productive evening it turned out to be. We made a couple of changes and got off to a decent start with Jacob Ramsey brought down in the area but not enough for a penalty according to the league, who were surprisingly quick to respond.

Goalless at the break so it was soon time to make a few changes, but before then there was a goal following a Brighton corner. Fifteen seconds after it was taken the ball was in the back of the net, Morgan Rogers playing out a ball for Marcus Rashford to run onto. It’s getting better all the time.

If that wasn’t good enough Rogers got the ball out wide and as Ollie Watkins fell over, either by accident or design, the ball fell nicely to substitute Marco Asensio. Two-nil, and we were looking more than impressive. That might have been the signal for the team to fall apart but no, this time we kept up the pace and in stoppage time Donyell Malen got a third. Another win and a bit more movement up the table.

Last year’s accounts are published. Turnover £275.7 million, a loss of £85.4 million. Gulp. If Doug was still alive the shock wooud kill him.

We’ve got the Saturday semi-final at Wembley, kicking off at 5.15. The ticket prices and the order of buying them haven’t been announced yet but they won’t be popular.

Then it’s on to the arrival of Nottingham Forest, the season’s surprise and the sort of niggly, horrible team we always struggle against. It seemed that Unai was doing his best to continue the tradition with eight changes but to no avail as we started like a rocket. Youri Tielemans laid off the perfect ball to Morgan Rogers, then a couple of minutes later Ian Maatsen made space and his pass was finished off by Donyell Malen.

Two up after fifteen minutes and a decent addition to our goal difference was looking likely until Forest started getting into the game, aided by a ref who generously let them use their own rules. They scored, we looked in trouble and the rest of the match could have been problematic.

So Unai made another few substitutions, but although Forest had a lot of possession and hit the bar, the best chances as the game wore on were ours. Three more points against a team above us and we’re hitting form at exactly the right time.