Talking of Manchester, we nipped up there to play the annoyingly back in form City. Ollie Watkins was dropped, Tyrone Mings not even on the bench but man for man we seemed as good as them and that was proved when Marcus Rashford hit the post in the first thirty seconds. And that was as good as it got. Our bounce of the ball went one way while theirs, in the form of a deflection that took out our defence and fell perfectly for one of their attackers, went another.

Still, we carried on attacking and when Jacob Ramsey was fouled in the box up stepped Rashford to enjoy himself with a penalty. It was looking good from then on, and we had a couple more chances but then with fifteen minutes to go a couple of not exactly inspiring substitutions took the initiative away and we found ourselves seeming to be content with a point. This is the Villa. You know what happens when we do that.

There’s going to be some redevelopment that will add another eight thousand-odd to Villa Park’s capacity. That’s a lot of prawn sandwiches but fear not; the North Stand will remain. It’s been there so long now that if it was demolished the rest of the ground, and much of Aston, would go with it. We’ll have to sort out the transport but that won’t be a problem.

Unlike it would appear, a few miles away, when the definitely going to happen San Giro now seems dependent on a few hundred million quid off the council, or the government, or possibly from the Bordesley Money Trees. If there’s one thing bred into their string of owners even deeper that being bigger than da Villa, it’s the belief that somewhere out there is a limitless pool of money they’re entitled to.

The big day dawns, and as it wears on the line-up reveals a notable lack of Marcus Rashford. Injured, because this is the Villa. Not that he would have made much difference because we managed to save the worst performance of the Emery era for the biggest stage. We started off by having a lot of the ball and doing nothing much with it. Possession is fine when there’s an end product but we weren’t quick enough to stretch Crystal Palace on the wings, and not incisive enough to trouble them through the middle.

A mistake in defence and we were a goal down. Another one and they had a penalty which was missed and should have inspired us. Instead we carried on in the same uninspired way, conceded a second and then a third in stoppage time,when everyone was past caring. Leaving Wembley there seemed no anger, no real disappointment. It might be because we really have sold out to the day-trippers or perhaps because of the sheer mundanity of what had just happened. Four league games to rescue the season Unai – sort it out.