You’ll be travelling to the most Godforsaken place on earth, where you put the destination into your satnav and it says “Don’t bother”. It has to be difficult to get there by road and impossible to get back by train. There won’t be any point staying over because there’s nothing to stay over for. The weather will be bitterly cold, with a good chance of getting soaked as well. The ground will have all the welcoming aura and architectural merit of a Stalinist Moscow apartment block. During a power cut.

Kick-off will be 7.30, so you’ve got more chance of missing it. It’ll be on TV, so your journey will seem even more pointless. The opposition will be just about the only bogey team you’ve got left, who not long ago gave you the biggest disappointment of the past decade. And their supporters include the most annoying collection of flag-waving, flare-letting-off little drummer boys ever gathered together in one English football ground. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Crystal Palace.

There isn’t much that can be said about them that hasn’t been said before. Every cliche of mundanity, every synonym of averageness, every meme of mediocrity. They all apply to Crystal Palace. In their entire history they’ve only got one thing of note that makes them stand out – they always bastard well beat us. And they always do it in the most embarrassing fashion. Not for them the last-minute goalmouth scramble or the deflection against the rub of play. They beat us because whenever we play them they turn into Brazil ’70 and we’re Aston Villa ’16.